All four of the major networks have checked in and announced their fall line-ups.
CBS today announced their fall line-up, marking the last of the networks to do so. They don’t offer much, however, as the only genre show they even have planned for the fall is the J.J. Abrams’ Person of Interest, in which a wealthy man discovers a way to detect crime before it happens.
The only other show they will have which comes close is Unforgettable, another detective series, this one about a detective who remembers every detail of her life. Not fantasy, but close – there are real people with this “condition,” but the show will likely not depict the condition accurately.
Fox will be doubling that challenge by giving us two new programs. One new show is Terra Nova, a dinosaur adventure seemingly developed for a family audience. Think Swiss Family Robinson meets The Flintstones; It’s nothing like that, but it will likely appeal to a younger audience.
Joining Terra Nova on the Pilot’s table is Alcatraz, a 4400-esque show about mysteriously appearing people who also happen to be dangerous criminals.
Fox also has a pseudo-fantasy detective show, like CBS. The Finder is about a man who has a supernatural ability to locate lost things. Also, geeks everywhere were very excited to hear, a month or so ago, that Fringe is returning for a new season.
We already knew that NBC is dropping The Event for next season, which we’re just hoping will wrap up well at this point. It’s being replaced by Grimm, in which a detective who can see monsters has to hide the fact that he can see monsters for, likely, no sensical reason.
NBC is also getting, you guessed it, a pseudo-fantasy detective story. In Awake, a detective is trying to figure out which of two completely different post-coma worlds is the real one, and which is the dream. Expect not to discover the truth in the first episode.
ABC has dropped No Ordinary Family – which is fine: It wasn’t very good – and V – which is disappointing to many, but not unexpected. In their place they’ve picked up Once Upon a Time, for a net change of -1 genre series.
They do however also have the new Charlie’s Angels series, which may become a geek favorite and Pan Am, which looks like a feminine version of Mad Men, and has Christina Ricci in her first big, non-genre role, which is too bad. I’d rather she made it into a show I was actually going to watch.
Unless you count Charlie’s Angels, ABC really didn’t jump on the pseudo-fantasy detective show bandwagon.
