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New TV shows for the fall season Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes offers a quick take on the shows revealed this week at the network upfronts.
THE MINDY PROJECT
Fox’s new Tuesday 9:30 p.m. comedy stars “The Office” writer/star Mindy Kaling, and was developed at NBC for NBC (NBC passed on it, although it will produce the series). Kaling plays a skilled (thank goodness or it would not be a comedy) OB/GYN pursuing her dream of becoming the perfect woman, finding the perfect man and getting her perfect romantic comedy ending.
Beth Dubber
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Fox
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BEN AND KATE
Fox’s new Tuesday 8:30 p.m. comedy “Ben and Kate” stars Nat Faxon, of “Bad Teacher” fame, who recently won an Oscar as co-screenwriter of George Clooney flick “The Descendants.” He plays a goofy guy who becomes the manny for his uptight single-mom sister’s kid. Playing Kate: Dakota Johnson – daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Celebrity-daughter nepotism casting alert!
Beth Dubber
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Fox
THE MOB DOCTOR
Jordana Spiro stars as the doctor with a big fat debt to the Chicago mob in Fox’s “House” replacement, Mondays at 9.
Nathaniel Bell
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Fox
REVOLUTION
JJ Abrams apocalyptic drama about a world in which there is no power and nobody cuts back Kudzu won the lottery for the post-“The-Voice”-but-in-the-teeth-of-Monday-football time slot.
NBC
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BOB MAHONEY/NBC
GUYS WITH KIDS
NBC will try again to launch a comedy block on Wednesdays with two new sitcoms, including “Guys With Kids,” about 30-something dads trying to hold on to their youth, exec produced by NBC late-night star Jimmy Fallon.
NBC
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VIVIAN ZINK/NBC
CHICAGO FIRE
Wednesdays in the fall, NBC has scheduled Dick Wolf Theatre from 9-11 p.m. Wednesdays. “Law & Order: SVU” is followed by new “Chicago Fire” about fires, in Chicago, and the brave men and women who put them out.
NBC
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SANDRO/NBC
ANIMAL PRACTICE
On Wednesdays at 8, where NBC had tepid results with two new comedies in 2011, the network will try again with two more new comedies in the fall. A capuchin monkey named Crystal stars as Dr. Zaius in one, called “Animal Practice.” He was the biggest hit with advertisers during Broadcast TV Upfront Week. Co-starring with Crystal is Justin Kirk, playing a hotshot NYC veterinarian who can’t stand humans.
NBC
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CHRIS HASTON /NBC
THE NEW NORMAL
Ryan Murphy’s new comedy about a gay couple having a child via surrogate is one of two lucky new comedies that will follow “The Voice” on NBC’s Tuesday lineup.
NBC
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TRAE PATTON/NBC
GO ON
Following “The Voice” on Tuesdays, NBC has scheduled two comedies, starting with “Go On” in which “Friends” alum Matthew Perry plays a grieving widower sportscaster in therapy. Yes, it’s a comedy.
NBC
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JORDIN ALTHAUS/NBC
ELEMENTARY
The latest iteration of the Sherlock Holmes story is CBS’s gutsiest move for fall, not because it’s replacing “The Mentalist” on Thursday night, but because it begs the very large question: with American viewers accept a show that stars (Jonny Lee Miller) a character who speaks with a British accent, even if they’re playing Sherlock Holmes – in New York? And, will they accept Watson, if played by Lucy Liu?
Craig Blankenhorn
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CBS
VEGAS
CBS’s new Tuesday drama, the 60’s-set “Vegas,” stars Dennis Quaid as the World War II veteran, rancher/mayor of Las Vegas who tangles with ruthless Chicago mobster Michael Chiklis for control of Sin City. “Vegas” will get the guy audience, while NBC’s “Parenthood” and ABC’s “Private Practice” squabble over the chicks in the 10 p.m. hour. Dennis Quaid has a smile that makes Simon Baker’s look like the minor leagues, but Quaid scowled, sneered, and grimaced his way through the trailer shown to advertisers in New York during Broadcast TV Upfront Week, to the disappointment of female execs.
Lorey Sebastian
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CBS
PARTNERS
The new CBS comedy, driving “Two and a Half Men” out of Monday night, is basesd on the lives of comedy team David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, who created “Will & Grace,” only this time they’re a straight architect, played by David Krumholtz (“Numbers”), and his gay co-worker, played by “Ugly Betty’s” Michael Urie. “Men,” like the hoary old lion who’s lost a step or two on the savanna, will go lick its wounded ego on Thursday nights, in company with the show it helped turn into a hit back in the day, “Big Bang Theory.”
Matt Kennedy
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CBS
MADE IN JERSEY
At 9 p.m. Fridays, CBS’s new “Made in Jersey” stars Janet Montgomery as a young working class chick from Jersey who lands a job as a prestigious New York law firm with the help of a sassy secretary, a sexy older sister and a big Italian family. No cliche left behind on this one!
David Lee
THE NEIGHBORS
A new comedy about aliens who’ve snapped up all the real estate in a gated New Jersey community won the lottery for the coveted post-“Modern Family” time period Wednesday. “The Neighbors” is the creation of Dan Fogelman, of “Crazy Stupid Love” fame, ABC president Paul Lee pointed out, by way of noting how many film creative types he’d snagged for ABC’s lineup next season.
Karen Neal
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ABC
LAST RESORT
ABC’s new Thursday 8 p.m. drama “Last Resort,” from Shawn Ryan (“The Shield”), is about a U.S. ballistic missile submarine that receives orders, over a radio channel intended to be used only if the country has been wiped out, to fire nuclear weapons at Pakistan. When the captain demands confirmation, he’s sacked; when his replacement demands confirmation the sub is fired upon and winds up crippled on the ocean floor. Naturally, the two sacked sub leaders decide their best bet is to take the sub and its crew to an exotic island where they will find refuge, romance and a chance at a new life.
Mario Perez
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ABC
MALIBU COUNTRY
In November, “Malibu Country” joins ABC’s Friday lineup at 8:30 p.m., starring Reba McEntire as a country music singer who dumps her cheating country-star hubby and moves her kids and mother (Lily Tomlin) to the house she got in the split – their vacation place in Malibu, where she has to work hard to protect the kiddies from Hollywood corruption.
Nicole Wilder
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ABC
NASHVILLE
ABC’s new Wednesday 10 p.m. drama hails from Callie Khouri, who wrote “Thelma and Louise,” and is directed by “documentarian RJ Cutler.” It stars Connie Britton as a country-singing legend whose popularity is waning, and whose record label wants to send her on tour with a disrespectful, untalented little vixen who is considered the future of country music and who is played by Hayden Panettiere.
Katherine Bomboy-Thornton
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ABC
666 PARK AVENUE
ABC’s new Sunday at 10 p.m. player, based on the book series by Gabriella Pierce, is about an idealistic young couple (that’s Hollywood code for “from the Midwest”) who do not realize they are making a Faustian contract when they get hired to become the managers of a Park Avenue residential building with a “mysterious owner” (that’s code for “from the cast of ‘Lost,” like, say, Terry O’Quinn) who is married to a woman prone to “machinations” (that’s code for “vixen from some previous ABC soap, like ‘Ugly Betty’ or ‘Desperate Housewives,’ aka Vanessa Williams) – and nasty mysterious things start to happen.
Patrick Harbron
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ABC
ARROW
“Arrow” kicks off CW’s new Superhero Wednesday in the fall. Usually it’s not a great idea to ask a new show to lead off a night. But “Arrow” is based on characters appearing in the already well-known and popular comic books and graphic novels published by DC Comics —which, not coincidentally, is owned by Warner Bros, which is partnered in CW with CBS Corp. Plus, when CW showed advertisers a trailer in which star Stephen Amell is seen chinning his way up, ever higher into the air, chicks in the audience began woo-hooing. According to a network insider, the reaction was the same during their in-house screenings.
Jack Rowand
EMILY OWENS, M.D.
Part of CW’s Doctor Tuesdays in the fall. Think Ally McBeal, if she was a doctor — very cute, utterly self absorbed. It stars Mamie Gummer, who is Meryl Streep’s daughter – yes, more celebrity-daughter nepotism in Hollywood casting! “Emily Owens, M.D.” is a first year intern at Denver Memorial Hospital and can, CW says, finally put her days as the high school geeky girl behind her – except she discovers her high school nemesis, the gorgeous and popular Cassandra Kopelson, is also just starting out at Denver Memorial, and is also a surgical intern, and they both have the hots for Emily’s med-school crush Will Rider. On top of that, the jocks have all become orthopedic surgeons, the mean girls are in plastic surgery, the rebels are in the ER, and the stoners have all gone in for anesthesiology. Note to everyone: under no circumstances ever seek treatment at Denver Memorial.
Michael Courtney
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CW
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