Day: September 5, 2023

Best-bets for Sept. 7: Football starts, “Runway” ends

1) Pro football season-opener, 8:15 p.m. ET, NBC. With most scripted shows sidelined by the strikes, NFL games should soar. The season starts now, with a preview at 7 p.m. and then the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs (shown here) hosting the Detroit Lions, who had a 9-8 record last year. The rest of the teams start Sunday afternoon (CBS and Fox), Sunday night (NBC) and Monday (ABC and ESPN). Read more…

Season preview: comedies survive, via cartoons and Canada

(This has been updated.)
Long before the strikes began, situation comedies were already wobbling.
Ratings were down; networks were doubtful. At times, NBC – former home of all those “must-see” sitcoms – had zero comedies in prime time.
Still, there will be some laughs this fall, for two reasons: Animated shows (including Fox’s new “Krapopolis,” shown here) are written and voiced far in advance; also, other countries – Canada and England, mostly – had shows available.
Here’s a round-up of sitcoms this fall on the broadcast networks and on some basic-cable channels. It’s chronological and “new” means new to most U.S. viewers: Read more…

Season preview: relentless reality

(This has been updated.)
Ready or not, TV viewers are entering an autumn of relentless reality.
In past seasons, the big broadcast networks tossed in occasional reality shows. They were big ones – “The Voice,” “The Bachelor,” “Survivor” – adding variety to a sea of dramas and comedies.
But this season, amid the writers’ and actors’ strikes, it’s almost non-stop reality,
CBS is launching three new games (including “Buddy Games,” shown here) and giving two classics (“Survivor” and “The Amazing Race”) an extra half-hour apiece …. Fox will be non-stop reality, from Mondays through Thursdays .… ABC has retrieved “Dancing With the Stars” from Disney+ and will even have generations of romance – an hour of a 71-year-old “Golden Bachelor,” followed by two hours of frisky folks in bikinis and such. Read more…