Today, The TV Column looks at Fox and its plans for the fall.
Blessed with the success of Gotham, The Last Man on Earth and Empire from this past season, Fox had fewer slots to fill and only ordered five new fall shows. But first, last season's dearly departed.
Cancellations: Backstrom, Gracepoint, Mulaney, The Following, Red Band Society, Utopia, Weird Loners and The Mindy Project (which is moving to Hulu). In addition, Glee ended its six-season run.
NEW FALL SHOWS
• Minority Report: Set in Washington, the drama is based on the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie with Tom Cruise. The futuristic procedural follows "the unlikely partnership between precognitive Dash (Stark Sands, Inside Llewyn Davis) haunted by the future and cop Lara Vega (Meagan Good, Californication) haunted by her past, as they race to stop the worst crimes of the year 2065 before they happen."
• Grandfathered: The comedy stars John Stamos (Full House) as successful restaurateur and suave ladies' man Jimmy Martino who suddenly discovers he's not only a father, but a grandfather.
Josh Peck (Drake & Josh) plays Jimmy's son, Gerald, and Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) portrays Sara, Gerald's mom and Jimmy's former girlfriend.
Fox is billing the series as "an unconventional, sophisticated comedy about coming of age -- at any age."
• The Grinder: This promising comedy presents Rob Lowe as Dean Sanderson, who spent eight seasons playing a famous TV lawyer on The Grinder.
When his series ends, Dean decides to move back home to Boise, Idaho, and join his family's real law firm despite having no law degree, no bar certification and no experience in an actual courtroom.
Fred Savage (The Wonder Years) plays Stewart, Dean's lawyer brother, who suffers Dean's injecting his TV drama into every aspect of Stewart's life.
Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) plays Stewart's wife, and William Devane (Knot's Landing) plays Dean's and Stewart's father, the head of the law firm.
• Scream Queens: This is the highly anticipated comedy-horror anthology from Glee and American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy.
In the series -- part black comedy, part slasher flick -- the girls of Kappa House at Wallace University "are dying for new pledges."
The sorority is ruled with an iron fist by Queen B (and I don't mean bee) Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts).
When the anti-Kappa Dean Munsch(Jamie Lee Curtis) decrees that pledging must be open to all students, and not just the school's elite, a devil-masked killer runs amok and begins claiming a victim one episode at a time.
The series also stars Glee's Lea Michele, Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Nasim Pedrad (Saturday Night Live) and Oliver Hudson (Nashville).
• Rosewood: Morris Chestnut (Nurse Jackie) plays Miami super pathologist Dr. Beaumont Rosewood Jr.
Using his highly sophisticated autopsy lab, the perpetually upbeat Rosewood performs for-hire autopsies to uncover clues that the Miami Police Department can't see.
His new police partner is Detective Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz, The After), who has "attitude and demons to spare." Somehow, this unlikely duo will solve many crimes together.
Note: New Girl will return at midseason, which will also bring the happy reunion of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in a new six-episode X-Files series.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 05/21/2015