By VERONICA GRAY
Warning: The following article contains TV spoilers. Read at your own risk.
While the weather may not feel like it, the fall season has officially begun. Last week ABC, NBC, CBS and more premiered their fall shows, including some of those that left viewers on the edge of their seats last season and some hyped up series premieres.
ABC had a sprinkling of premieres between two weeks. The 23rd season of Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) started on Sept. 12, a week before they premiered most of their other fall shows. The show has already made headlines, with protesters rushing the stage after Ryan Lochte’s first dance. The show also kicked off by kicking out Wizard’s of Waverly Place and The Fosters actor, Jake T. Austin and partner Jenna Johnson as their first elimination last week.
Also on ABC’s premiere list last week were returning shows Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Once Upon a Time, and the longest running Thank God It’s Thursday (TGIT) show, Grey’s Anatomy. Grey’s Anatomy’s 13th season picked up right where we left off in the spring finale and quickly unraveled into a nightmare for Dr. Alex Karev and Dr. Meredith Grey as Chief Bailey looks into who assaulted Dr. DeLuca. Meanwhile, as a break in the anxiety, we get to see Dr. Avery and Dr. Kepner interact with their new baby. This season promises to be just as emotionally draining and rewarding as the past 12 have been.
ABC also has new shows up their sleeves with Designated Survivor (released Sept. 21), Speechless (released Sept. 21), Notorious (released Sept. 22) and coming in October, Conviction. Fans of Hayley Atwell will be excited to know the network has not tossed the actress aside, even though Agent Carter was cancelled after last season. Conviction stars Atwell as an attorney leading a team to investigate cases of those who might have been wrongly convicted of a crime, according to IMDB.
CBS has kicked off their fall season with premiers of their own tried and true shows like NCIS and The Big Bang Theory. Alongside those, the reality game show Survivor started last week with a surprising opener. The season is focused on pitting generation against generation. More specifically, Gen X (born between 1960s and the early 1980s) and Millennials (born from the later 1980s to 2000). We’ve already had a couple of firsts for Survivor. For the first time in 33 seasons, Survivor has a contestant of 18 years-old and still in high school and had their first evacuation due to a cyclone that hit the island where the castaways would be living for the next 39 days. Even if this show is just another guilty pleasure, the season is already gearing up for a fight between the two tribes.
As for new shows, CBS has added one with a familiar lead actor and another reboot to their Friday night lineup. Premiering just before Hawaii Five-O, a reboot on its 7th season, is MacGyver. The show has already set itself up to be an interesting try, and the pilot episode lived up to expectations of the show’s predecessor. Not only do viewers get to see Mac (Lucas Till) pull off insane stunts with nothing but duct tape and aluminum foil, the show has a surprise twist within the first half of the episode. The second newest show is Bull. Starring former NCIS actor, Michael Weatherly, the show follows Dr. Jason Bull, a jury consultant who has perfected the art of reading people on a jury. The first episode doesn’t leave off with much of a cliffhanger, but Bull’s commanding, flirtatious and sarcastic personality hides a backstory that viewers can look forward to as the season goes on.
NBC has a smaller lineup of premieres, excluding NFL football programing, and stays true to what works. They have released new seasons of familiar shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU), Chicago PD, and Chicago Med. They have also start up new seasons of newer favorites like Blacklist and Blindspot, both of which left us with more questions than answers the last time we saw them. NBC also premiered their newest The Voice season with two new guest judges, Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys.
Back in May, the trailer for new show This is Us broke the internet with 50 million Facebook views in only 11 days, according to Deadline Hollywood. The plot follows a group of people born on the same day through their daily lives and has received a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes after including a huge twist in its pilot on Sept. 20.
Coming in October is another new show that could freshen up the network. Timeless follows a trio of time travelers as they work to save the future of America by keeping a mysterious criminal from destroying the past. While time travel isn’t something new, it is a change of pace into sci-fi territory. The show has NBC’s The Blacklist producers behind it along with producing and writing credits from Eric Kirpke (Supernatural, Revolution) and Shawn Ryan (The Shield).
Veronica Gray can be reached at veronica.gray@spartans.ut.edu