Most Anticipated New Show: Marvel’s The Gifted. I’ve wanted an X-Men TV show forever, and now, I finally have one. I expect a Heroes vibe, and by saying that, I mean Heroes when that show was good. I’m really excited for it.
Best Scheduling Move: I’m going to have to go with the pairing of Empire and Star. I didn’t see it coming, but the move should help both series.
Worst Scheduling Move: Thursday still makes me kind of go “huh,” because I don’t think Gotham and The Orville will be compatible at all.
Most Likely New Hit: Marvel’s The Gifted, which will probably tick off the Marvel overlords when and if it outrates The Inhumans.
Likely First Cancellation: I think the first cancellation will, as with others recently, be one that ended its run at 13 episodes and then is conveniently never brought up again. Ghosted or The Exorcist, I’m probably looking at you.
What I’ll Be Watching This Fall: Lucifer, The Gifted, Gotham when I get a chance, and I’ll definitely check out The Orville. And I’ll probably occasionally watch The Simpsons or Family Guy as I am want to do sometimes.
Most Anticipated New Show: The LA to Vegas trailer made me curious about the show. I’m still not 100% on what it looks like on a weekly basis, but it has a unique setting for a broadcast show and Dylan McDermott looks like he’s having quite a lot of fun, which is the type of energy that a comedy like this needs in order to thrive. Plus, it seems pretty on-brand in terms of tone and humor, so with the right scheduling situation, it should be alright.
Best Scheduling Move: Ghosted on Sundays should do well. It feels more on-brand than Son of Zorn was, there’s very little similar competition on cable in the hour, and it should have every opportunity to be sampled thanks to the football boost. I don’t think it’s a guaranteed success, as it’s still possible that the show just doesn’t connect with its audience, but FOX has put it in the best position to succeed and grow their live-action brand, which is fairly weak heading into this season.
Worst Scheduling Move: My biggest worry about FOX is the arrangement of the Monday/Thursday dramas. I think they’re right in splitting up Gotham and Lucifer, and I think debuting The Gifted on Monday and The Orville on Thursday makes sense, but I have to wonder about A) not using The Gifted at 8:00 and B) using the more serious Gotham on Seth MacFarlane space dramedy The Orville instead of the more comedic Lucifer. It’s especially frustrating given that FOX has all the pieces here to make far and away the best broadcast schedule for 2017-18; the arrangement, though, could keep them from getting the most momentum out of said pieces that they could.
Most Likely New Hit: If The Gifted doesn’t find an audience, I’ll be surprised. The only thing it has working against it is a modest lead-in, but between its successful, on-brand trailer, its association with Marvel, its family friendly concept, and its status as one of only two genre shows on Mondays, that should be easily overcame. This is the FOXiest drama FOX picked up this season, so if it doesn’t work with all that’s in its favor, I think the network might want to rebrand Mondays away from genre/action dramas.
Likely First Cancellation: The only new show that I think is vulnerable for the fall is The Orville. Ghosted should be protected through the end of football season and I think The Gifted will at least have big initial sampling, whereas The Orville is a genre that broadcast audiences haven’t embraced in a long time with an okay lead-in on a night with football and genre competition. It’ll probably air out its entire initial order, but I don’t think it’ll be much of a ratings factor pretty early on in the fall.
What I’ll Be Watching This Fall: Bob’s Burgers remains one of my absolute favorite shows on TV and The Last Man on Earth just came off its best season with a pretty great cliffhanger, so I’ll be watching both. I might sample Ghosted, which has a silly, manic energy that I liked, and The Orville, though I’ve never been a space show guy.
