Search for New Shows 2016 Edition

For TV fans the best time of year is almost here, the Broadcast Network Upfront. The week of May 16th; ABC, CBS, CW, FOX and NBC will present their schedules for Fall 2016 and we find out what new pilots were picked up.

Now as of late I’ve tried not to get into too many shows but a lot of the ones I currently watch probably have 1 or 2 seasons left at most. So I’m preparing to find replacements when the day comes that those shows end.

ABC

Currently ABC is the network I watch the most shows on; Fresh Off the Boat, The Goldbergs, Last Man Standing, The Middle, Modern Family, Once Upon a Time and Shark Tank. While Fresh Off the Boat and The Goldbergs are on Seasons 2 and 3 respectively the other shows are aging and won’t be around too much longer in my opinion anyways.

So the new Pilots from ABC that I like are two dramas; Designated Survivor and Time After Time. I have enough ABC sitcoms to watch already and won’t be bothering with those.

Designated Survivor has already been picked up so now I just have to wait and see when it will be scheduled. As for Time After Time I’m not sure if we’ll see it at all but it is from Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson’s Creek, The Vampire Diaries) so it might get picked up. We’ll find out for sure May 17th.

CBS

As for CBS I watch; The Amazing Race, The Big Bang Theory, Supergirl and Survivor. Currently Season 1 of Supergirl ended and I’m waiting to see if it gets renewed on May 18th. The other 3 shows I have no idea how long they’ll go on for but I’ll continue to watch until they do end. I’m not fond of the crime dramas that CBS over-saturates their network with but I do like the idea of some of their sitcom pilots.

The sitcom Pilots from CBS that I like are; The Great Indoors, I’m Not Your Friend and The Kicker. All 3 shows star actors I know from other shows I used to watch. The Great Indoors has Joel McHale (Community, The Soup), I’m Not Your Friend has Matt LeBlanc (Friends) and The Kicker has Joanna Garcia-Swisher (Reba), David Spade (8 Simple Rules, Rules of Engagement) and Geoff Stults (7th Heaven). I just hope CBS picks up at least 1 but I’m not going to get my hopes up.

The CW

As for The CW I watch; The Flash, The 100, The Originals and The Vampire Diaries. All my shows have been renewed but The 100 and TVD most likely only have 1 season left each. The Originals probably has maybe 2 left in it. That leaves only The Flash in a few years. I will definitely be looking for more CW shows this year.

The drama Pilots from CW that I like are; Untitled Kevin Williamson Project, Untitled Mars Project, Riverdale and Translyvania. I honestly have no idea which one will get picked up but hopefully Riverdale is one. May 19th we’ll know for sure though.

The biggest reason I want to see Riverdale is that it could give us a spinoff about witches since Sabrina was a character in Archie Comics originally. Eventually TVD and The Originals will be gone and what would make a great dark supernatural drama; Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. I know it was a sitcom on ABC 20 years ago but I think Greg Berlanti could do something awesome with it. Of course I could just be a fan of The Secret Circle who still hasn’t forgotten an amazing witch drama and doesn’t understand why The CW didn’t give it a chance. Even if no Sabrina spin-off is created put the character on Riverdale and I’ll be happy.

FOX

As for FOX I watch; Family Guy and The Simpsons. I’m not always the biggest fan of FOX shows but I found a sitcom and drama Pilot I like.

The drama pilot from FOX I like is Pitch and the sitcom pilot I like is Making History. They are both about two interesting ideas. Pitch is about the first female pitcher in the MLB and Making History is about time travel. On May 16th we’ll find out their fates.

NBC

On NBC all I watch is SuperStore. The two drama Pilots I hope to see are Midnight, Texas and Time.

Midnight, Texas is a supernatural drama and Time is about people fighting criminals across time. Please NBC pickup Time. I want to see that so bad. We’ll find out on May 16th.

The Vampire Diaries Season 7 thoughts

Now I originally only started watching TVD 6 years ago because of Nina Dobrev. I had watched her on Degrassi and decided to give a show starring her a shot. Sure she was okay at best at acting but her beauty more than made up for it. I didn’t think much of the show after the first episode but as it went on I was drawn in by all the suspense and mystery and it felt like each episode topped the last one in quality. By the end of Season 3 I didn’t feel it was as great as it used to be but I still tuned in for Season 4 for the Mikaelsons. Seasons 5 and 6 I watched purely because I like the characters but the plot was much to be desired. Back when Nina Dobrev announced in April that she was leaving after the end of the season I didn’t think I would watch anymore since I felt that the show should end if one of the main characters quit and that it probably wouldn’t be as good with someone missing.

Then when I actually watched the last episode of Season 6 I realized the show might actually work without Elena and still has potential if written well. The thing that instantly changed my mind was learning that Season 7 will return to basics and be similar in style to Season 1 with suspense, mystery, horror, romance and secrets. Now I’m definitely going to check it out this fall.

Before I delve further into my thoughts on the new season here’s how Season 6 ended.

Kai casts a spell linking Elena and Bonnie’s lives, rendering Elena unconscious while Bonnie is alive and tries to force Damon to choose Bonnie or Elena. Damon chooses to rip off Kai’s head, leaving Elena unconscious for the duration of Bonnie’s life. In a series of visions or dreams, Elena and her friends and family said goodbye. Liv, dying, urges Tyler to end her life and turn back into a werewolf so that he might live. Stefan pledges to Caroline that he will wait for her. Enzo and Lily discover that Kai had indeed brought Lily’s “family” of vampire witches out of the 1903 prison world and to modern-day Mystic Falls. At the end of the episode, time flashes an unknown amount forward, and Matt, a police officer, is seen cruising through a destroyed Mystic Falls while a Dark Damon stands on the clock tower, watching the town.

Quote taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampire_Diaries_(season_6)

Season 7 information revealed so far includes the return of Season 1 Damon, lots of very unexpected twists and turns for Stefan and Caroline’s relationship, Enzo having to decide whether to side with Lily and the Heretics or with Damon, the season’s Big Bad will be the 6 Heretics who can do magic and are vampires, learning how Mystic Falls became a polluted, run-down mess, the introduction of the show’s first same-sex couple; heretics Nora and Mary-Louise, extremely powerful women and fiercely protective of each other a third heretic named Valerie, who won’t have a peaceful approach to change and a Bonnie and Damon friendship.

With Damon I really hope he will be more like he used to be because I enjoyed how he was in Season 1 and loved all the terrible things he did and said to others. As for Stefan and Caroline I don’t mind the idea of them being together I’m just getting annoyed by how it’s taken so long for them to get together. Hopefully Enzo will be more interesting this season since he hasn’t really done much since the end of Season 5. His whole thing with Sarah was annoying and didn’t lead to much of anything. It will be nice to see more of a Damon and Bonnie friendship. The two things I’m most interested to see is what the new Heretic characters are like and what happened to Mystic Falls in the flash forward.

While I do believe they have enough plot to make a pretty good season what will they do after Season 7. The only thing I’d be interested in seeing is time jumps each season and having the last episode being the return of Elena. Maybe the jump between seasons can be 15 years and by the start of Season 11, 60 years would have gone by. Then at the end of the third-to-last episode of the season Bonnie could die and Elena would return for a 2 hour series finale. So in my scenario the show could go on for 5 more seasons but most likely due to the ratings the show will end after Season 7. All I can ask for at this point though is that the show has a decent ending.

Tune in to the premiere of Season 7 Thursday, October 8th at 8pm.

Family Guy Season 14 info

At Comic Con a trailer for the upcoming 14th Season of Family Guy was released and the plots for several episodes were revealed.

During this season, the guys head to Korea, after Quagmire is found to be a Korean soap-opera star, Chris becomes a registered sex offender, Stewie has a nightmare and sends Brian into his mind to find the root of the problem, Peter and Lois buy a new mattress, Stewie and Brian open an Italian restaurant and are met by Frank Sinatra, Jr., Peter accidentally gets the drinking age raised to 50, and Brian and Stewie get hooked on Aderall.

Quote taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Guy_(season_14)

Airdates for the first 7 episodes were also revealed.

Peternormal Activity 9/27/15
Pilling Them Softly 10/4/15
Papa Has a Rollin’ Son 10/11/15
Guy, Robot 10/18/15
Peter, Chris and Brian 11/8/15
A Shot in the Dark 11/15/15
Candy Quahog Marshmallow! 1/3/16

I’m surprised about the large break between episodes 6 and 7. I was hoping the episodes would air more frequently after how bad Season 13 was. I guess that’s the new way FOX schedules the show.

Here’s the trailer from Comic Con:

Arrow Season 4 thoughts

Season 3 of Arrow ended with Oliver finally killing Ra’s al Ghul, Oliver deciding to stop being a hero and leaving with Felicity knowing that there are other heroes that can take his place, Malcolm becoming the new Ra’s and Ray while testing a way to miniaturize the ATOM suit causes an explosion.

While I didn’t really like how Oliver left with Felicity I’m glad that they revealed at San Diego Comic Con that Oliver will finally become the Green Arrow and his new Superhero costume can be seen in the poster at the top. I figure Season 4 of Arrow should have a new tone and feel to it compared to last season.

As for Ray I’m not worried that the explosion killed him since he will be starring in the upcoming DC show, Legends of Tomorrow, as The ATOM. Also with Sara starring in Legends her revival via the Lazarus Pit should happen sometime in Season 4 before midseason when the new show starts. I can’t wait to see how they go about bringing her back.

Other Season 4 information revealed so far includes the casting of the character Damien Darhk, leader of H.I.V.E., other new characters to come are Anarky, a villain, and Mr. Terrific, will work with Felicity, Diggle will get a costume that involves a helmet and Malcolm will be back in his hood by episode 3 and the first episode of the Season will be entitled, “Green Arrow”.

I’ll have to wait to decide what I think of Anarky and Mr. Terrific joining since I’ve never read the Green Arrow comics so everything I learn about the Arrow-verse comes from this show. I’m glad to hear that Diggle will actually get a costume this season, I wonder if he’ll get a Superhero name. As for Malcolm I figured as much that he wouldn’t be Ra’s for long.

I can’t wait to see the Season Premiere in October and find out what event causes Oliver to return to Starling City. It should be interesting to see how the character of Oliver becomes the Green Arrow. In the end though I just hope the writing for Season 4 is better than that of Season 3. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Credit for the poster goes to the Arrow facebook page.

 

Welcome to That TV Guy

Since there’s already a ton of sites devoted to TV news about every and any show I will only be talking about shows that interest me. Types of shows I plan to focus on include Sci-Fi / Fantasy dramas (like Once Upon a Time, The Vampire Diaries, Under the Dome), Superhero dramas (like Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow), and live-action and animated sitcoms (like The Middle, Modern Family, Family Guy). Hope you guys like my posts.