This week and next will find a few early birds flying in ahead of the official fall TV season Sept. 21.
Most of them will be Fox shows, although NBC's The Biggest Loser arrives on Wednesday, and ABC's Dancing With the Stars debuts Sept. 14.
I'll be reminding you of the shows as they get here and, since I've already seen previews of the freshman hopefuls, I'll have a "best bets" fall roundup on the Sunday Style section front Sept. 21.
Stay on your toes. It'll get hectic out there and I don't want you to be overwhelmed.
The fall TV roll-out continues until Oct. 30 with the arrival of four CBS shows on that Friday night. And Katherine Heigl's new NBC drama, State of Affairs, is holding off until Nov. 17. Maybe it's trying to avoid the stampede.
Meanwhile, NBC's Sunday Night Football kicks off with the pregame, Football Night in America, from 6 to 7:20 p.m. today, followed immediately by the Denver Broncos hosting the Indianapolis Colts.
That brings us to Utopia, Fox's bold new attempt to breathe fresh air into the reality format.
• Utopia. The ambitious unscripted series will be on three times this week. It launches at 7 p.m. today (or soon after Fox's second afternoon football game) with a two-hour premiere. The show continues at its regular time at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and there will be six special broadcasts at 7 p.m. Fridays beginning this week.
Fox, basing its social experiment/reality series on "a hit Dutch program," has cast 15 contestants "of varying backgrounds and temperaments." The series comes from the creator of Big Brother, so we know they were not cast because they are sweet and lovable and work well with others.
The group is then "thrown into the wilderness to spend an entire year building their own society with their own rules." The Utopia cameras will be rolling 24/7. Fox says, "The pioneers quickly learn three basic principles -- No leaders. No rules. No plumbing."
Wilderness? The set is a "secluded" five-acre site in Santa Clarita, Calif. I once visited Santa Clarita for a tour of the Deadwood set. The nearby canyons might be secluded, but "Deadwood" (Melody Ranch) was surrounded by suburbia. I'm assuming Utopia won't have views of patios and balconies on the surrounding hillsides.
Fox tells us the Utopians will make every decision about how they live and work. Will the 15 folks cooperate to create a democracy, or will a single leader rise to power? Will they practice a certain religion, or will atheism rule? Fidelity or free love?
The pioneers may have limited supplies, but there will be no slackers. Fox warns "any colonist who proves to be dispensable will risk banishment and can be replaced by a newcomer vying to join."
Each of the seven women and eight men brings a unique skill set to the table. A lawyer, preacher, contractor, vegan chef, homeless former drug-dealing ex-con and a pregnant single private chef are among those on board.
Also on hand are a naked yoga survivalist prepper, a holistic doctor/tantric sex enthusiast, veterinary technician, glassblower, a handyman, a polyamorous model ("I'm not a sex addict."), and an unemployed woman who can hunt and fish.
I can see a Utopian function for each of those except the solitary lawyer. Now if there were two lawyers, Utopia would be all set.
• Boardwalk Empire. The fifth and final season of the HBO drama begins at 8 p.m. today. There will only be eight episodes before things wrap up.
The series stars Steve Buscemi and is set in Atlantic City, N.J. during Prohibition. Season 5 will take place seven years after Season 4. It's 1931 and the Great Depression has hit.
• The Bachelor. Chris Soules, the Iowa farmer who came in third last season on The Bachelorette, will be the bachelor looking for love (or what passes for love on this reality show) when the series returns in January.
• Tony lived. In case you missed the quote, The Sopranos creator David Chase finally revealed in an interview that Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) did not die when the screen famously cut to black in the show's final episode in 2007.
The usual suspects howled and joined the pro and con debate.
The next day, Chase responded to the fuss through his publicist: "To simply quote David as saying,'Tony Soprano is not dead,' is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true.
"As David Chase has said numerous times on the record, 'Whether Tony Soprano is alive or dead is not the point.' To continue to search for this answer is fruitless. The final scene of The Sopranos raises a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer."
I think Tony went out in a hail of bullets. Discuss among yourselves.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 09/07/2014