This is my third entry on the 2010 Upfronts. You can find my comments on NBC and Fox as well.
ABC has spent most of this season locked in a battle for second place with CBS. While CBS often won in terms of total number of viewers, ABC often came out on top in the more valuable 18-49 demographic. In recent years, ABC has become known as one of the most aggressive schedulers, often moving series’ from established time-slots to find the perfect program pairings. This year, however, they’ve left all of their returning shows in their current timeslots, merely filling in the gaps left by cancelled series’ with new shows. Which shows were cancelled? Pretty much exactly what we already knew: Eastwick, Better Off Ted, The Deep End, FlashForward, Hank, Happy Town, Lost, Romantically Challenged, Scrubs, and Ugly Betty. The only we weren’t sure about (until last week) was FlashForward. It was widely believed that either V or FlashForward would return, to try to fill the Lost sci-fi void, but not both. Personally, I think they made the wrong choice here. Both series got poor ratings, but while V wasted an entire season doing absolutely nothing, FlashForward tried to do big, different things. It almost always failed to pull them off, but at least it tried. Also, on the extremely thin chance either of these series would make it out of their sophomore season, FlashForward has a richer concept which would allow the show to carry on over the long haul. V seems to have already exhausted its writers’ imaginations.
On the new program front, ABC has ordered nine new series. Again, most of them look like pretty standard fare – a couple cop shows, a couple Friends clones, a Shonda Rhimes doctor show, a lawyer show. Similar to what Fox did yesterday, ABC has only provided brief descriptions and a single clip from each show, making it difficult to really evaluate their potential. The word is that ABC is disappointed in its offerings, and from what they’ve shown, it’s not difficult to imagine why. No Ordinary Family sounds like it could have potential, basically a live action version of The Incredibles, but no footage has been released and this type of show is very easy to get wrong (see the last three seasons of Heroes).
Edit: A trailer for No Ordinary Family has now made it's way online. It looks decent but, unfortunately, it also looks like it will be treading dangerously close to many of the things that made the last three seasons of Heroes fail.
(The trailer can only be viewed from within the U.S. Unless you have some sort of I.P. sheild...)
My Generation sounded promising from its description, about a group of high school students from Austin who reunite ten years after graduation, but the footage released is pretty uninspiring.
The only other show that seems to be worth commenting on at this point is Mr. Sunshine. It’s description sounds pretty bland – Matthew Perry stars as a San Diego sports arena manager going through a mid-life crisis. The preview clip for this one, however, sold me on at least checking it out when it makes it to air at mid-season.
And that’s about it for ABC this year. They should do fairly well next year, since they have a solid stable of returning shows, and most of those that won’t be returning will be absent because they had abysmal ratings anyway. There’s nothing on this new schedule, however, that looks like it will be even remotely capable of filling the giant crater that will be left by Lost.
I’ll be back again tomorrow with a look at the new schedule for CBS.
You can find clips for all of ABC’s new shows here.
Sleep well,
DTE
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