Fall TV: Here comes the new shows, just like the old shows

When it comes to the Rush stuff -- thrillers, fantasy, sf, etc. -- the new TV season (being gradually revealed this week by the various nets) is giving us very little to love, and even less that you could call 'new.'

Lost and latecomer FlashForward disappear, but here comes The Event, a big, vague, multi-thread show about a "regular guy" who discovers a "massive conspiracy that not even the President knows about."  Look for lots of ambiguous pronouncements and significant looks between characters that no one understands.

Heroes finally shuffles off -- Go with god, zombie-show! -- and here comes No Ordinary Family, about a superhero family starring Michael Chiklis of The Shield and The Fantastic Four. Been there, done that, too.

Then there are the spin-offs of Criminal Minds and Law and Order (even though NBC canceled the original Law and Order in the same corporate breath). Not to mention -- please! -- new shows about rogue attorneys fightin' for the people, and rogue doctors fightin' for their patients, and another set of shows from Bruckheimer and Abrams and on and on.

And where do we sign up to be Alex O'Laughlin? The barely recognizable star of Moonlight, the failed vampire cop show, and Three Rivers, the failed ensemble medical show, and The Back-Up Plan, the failed Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy career-revival film, gets another chance, yet again, in the CBS reboot of Hawaii Five-O.  Let's think about that: Doe-eyed, slim little Alex O'Laughlin as granite-jawed, "Book 'em, Dano!" Steve McGarret.

We give it six weeks.

Only two new shows on the horizon offer any glimmer of hope, and mostly because we don't know much about them yet: a reboot of La Femme Nikita, this time called simply Nikita, starring Maggie Q and produced by McQ and the guys from Chuck, and Steven Spielberg's much-mused-about hard-sf mid-seasoner Terra Nova, over on FOX. Not that Steve has had great luck with breaking into TV, but please, God, anything. We're talkin' port in a storm time here.

Let's just cling to the fact that Human Target and Stargate: Universe will both be back and new episodes of Leverage and Burn Notice are just weeks away. It's not so much the long, hot summer that worries us; it's the bleak midwinter. Or even the soggy fall.

 

Fox Gets It Right Twice: Human Target & Lie to Me Renewed

Let's face it: when it comes to smart action/adventure or thrillers on network TV, the pickin's are mighty slim. That's why it's especially good news that FOX has renewed the fledgling butt-kicker Human Target for a second year, and given Tim Roth a third year to be all sarcastic and omniscient on the underrated Lie to Me.

You have to wonder if FOX made the move because they've lost 24, their only reliable action show, and their other series with high cult potential have either been axed already, like Dollhouse, or are lying there twitching like Fringe (a musical episode already? Really?) But whatever the reasoning, welcome back Christopher Chance (now we'll get to see the second half of that cliffhanger!) and House-like Dr. Lightman.