NBC Picks Up Chuck and Life for the Full Season

Writers strike, shmiters strike! According to good ol' Michael Ausiello over at TVGuide.com, NBC has picked up freshman series Chuck and Life for the full season.

I watched both of these pilots, and was underwhelmed by both, but I've subsequently heard good things about both shows, so if this strike goes on (and on...and on...), and I start getting desperate for new shows to watch, I may actually revisit these two series.

Now back to praying the strike ends soon...

Fall TV Preview: Mondays at 8PM

Is there a more exciting time than the beginning of the fall TV season? To get ready for the return of favorite series, and the debut of new ones, I will be taking a look over the next couple of weeks at each hour of programming. I'll be giving my thoughts on the many pilots that I've seen, and identifying which shows I will be watching and recording. Fall TV, here we come!

Mondays at 8PM

ABC
Dancing with the Stars (premieres September 24)
Idol Thoughts readers know I love this show -- click here for a full list of postings on Dancing, including the list of this year's participants.

CBS
8:00 How I Met Your Mother (premieres September 24)
I'm not a big sitcom person, and I don't watch this show every week, but when I do happen to catch it, I generally find myself pretty amused. How could I not, with top-shelf talent like Allison Hannigan, Jason Segal and they hysterical Neil Patrick Harris on board? Mandy Moore joins the cast for a few episodes this fall.

8:30 Big Bang Theory (premieres September 24) NEW SERIES
CBS Says: Leonard and Sheldon are brilliant physicists, the kind of "beautiful minds" that understand how the universe works. But none of that genius helps them interact with people, especially women. All this begins to change when a free-spirited beauty named Penny moves in next door. Sheldon, Leonard's roommate, is quite content spending his nights playing Klingon Boggle with their socially dysfunctional friends, fellow CalTech scientists Wolowitz and Koothrappali. However, Leonard sees in Penny a whole new universe of possibilities... including love.

This is one of the fall's stronger sitcom entries, with Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons make an amusingly dorky pair, and 8 Simple Rules' Kaley Cuoco well cast as their much hipper foil. It was announced this week that Galecki's former Roseanne costar Sara Gilbert would be joining the cast for an unspecified number of episodes, which only gives the show more cachet.

Fox
Prison Break
I just received the pre-screener of the third season's first two episodes, so look for a review soon. Until then, know that I love Wentworth Miller, and that alone is enough to help me overlook some of the more implausible plot turns this show tends to take. Since 24 doesn't return until mid-season, Prison Break is sure to be my edge-of-my-seat fix for the fall.

NBC
Chuck (premieres September 24) NEW SERIES
NBC Says: From executive producer, Josh Schwartz ("The O.C.") and executive producer-director McG ("Charlie's Angels," "We Are Marshall") comes a one-hour, comedic spy thriller about Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi, "Less Than Perfect") - a computer geek who is catapulted into a new career as the government's most vital secret agent. When Chuck opens an e-mail subliminally encoded with government secrets, he unwittingly downloads an entire server of sensitive data into his brain. Now, the fate of the world lies in the unlikely hands of a guy who works at Buy More.

This pilot shows some promise, and Levi is an endearingly dorky lead (not to mention a dead ringer for Adam Brody's Seth Cohen character on The OC), but at the end of the 44 minutes I couldn't quite determine if this series was an action show, a comedy, or a relationship drama. If they can smooth out some of the tonal inconsistencies, it may wind up being a charming underdog for the fall season.

The CW
8:00 Everybody Hates Chris
I watched a few episodes of this series back in Season 1, but to be honest, I haven't made much of an effort to tune back in since.

8:30 Aliens in America NEW SERIES
The CW Says: Justin Tolchuck (Dan Byrd, "The Hills Have Eyes") is a sensitive, lanky 16-year old just trying to make it through the social nightmare of high school in Medora, Wisconsin, with the help of his well-meaning mom Franny (Amy Pietz, "Caroline in the City"), aspiring-entrepreneur dad Gary (Scott Patterson, "Gilmore Girls") and his beautiful and popular younger sister Claire (Lindsey Shaw, "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide"). Franny is the kind of take-charge mom who micro-manages her family, and she's come up with a plan to help Justin: she signs up for the school's international exchange student program. Picturing an athletic, brilliant Nordic teen, Franny is sure this new friendship will bestow instant coolness on her outsider son. However, when the Tolchuck's exchange student arrives, he turns out to be Raja Musharaff (Adhir Kalyan, "Fair City"), a 16-year-old Muslim from a small village in Pakistan. Despite the cultural chasm between them, Justin and Raja develop an unlikely bond that just might allow them to navigate the minefield that is contemporary high school.

What could easily be a one-joke stereotype is mined for real laughs and genuine emotion in what I think is the best new sitcom of the year. Although the pilot I saw didn't have Gilmore alum Patterson, I'm already sold on this one.

Next up: Mondays at 9PM

Click for This Fall at Idol Thoughts

NBC Announces Changes to Fall Schedule

The broadcast networks take center stage at the annual TCA Summer Press Tour this week, with NBC being the first at bat, announcing several changes to their previously announced fall schedule.

According to Mediaweek, new drama Chuck, which was originally scheduled for Tuesdays at 9PM, will now lead off Monday nights at 8PM, followed by Heroes and Journeyman. The Biggest Loser, then, will expand to 90-minutes (Tuesday 8-9:30PM), leading into surprise summer hit The Singing Bee at 9:30PM. Deal or No Deal will replace The Singing Bee on Fridays at 8PM, followed by Friday Night Lights and Las Vegas (which are swapping timeslots).
Here are the three rescheduled nights on NBC (with new shows in caps):

Monday
8:00 p.m. CHUCK (new day and time)
9:00 p.m. Heroes
10:00 p.m. JOURNEYMAN

Tuesday
8:00 p.m. The Biggest Loser (90-minutes)
9:30 p.m. THE SINGING BEE (new day and time)
10:00 p.m. Law & Order: SVU

Friday
8:00 p.m. Deal or No Deal (new day)
9:00 p.m. Friday Night Lights (new time)
10:00 p.m. Las Vegas (new time)

Click for more Television News/Commentary

Idol Thoughts on NBC's Schedule

After this week is over, and all of the networks have presented their fall schedules, I will be giving my thoughts on all the new shows announced by the networks. But, for now, here are some initial thoughts on NBC's schedule (which you can view by clicking here):

-Of course, I am thrilled that Friday Night Lights will be returning (it was far and away my favorite new show of the year). Even though Friday has become a little bit of a wasteland for network shows, I actually think it is a wise move for the show to air on the day of the week featured in it's title (NBC's marketing department must be happy!) and it may actually benefit from the low expectations that come from airing on Friday night. I would have preferred the 9PM slot instead of the 10PM slot, but, hey, the show's coming back, so no complaints here.

-How sad is it that from 12 comedy pilots, NBC could only pick up one, and for midseason no less? They certainly weren't lying when they said the sitcom is dying. Having said that, the Earl/30 Rock/Office/Scrubs is a high quality combo -- if only more people would watch!

-I'm glad to see Law and Order back on the schedule (albeit at midseason), and I'm glad Law and Order: CI (my least favorite of the Law and Order family) is the show moved off-network (to USA). Supposedly the cast of the original L&O will be returning, intact.

-I can't say I'm thrilled (on paper, at least) with the new shows NBC will have in the fall. Bionic Woman sounds like the surest thing, and I'm looking forward to Lipstick Jungle (which will premiere midseason), but the supernatural slant in Journeyman and Chuck seems a bit off-putting to me. Haven't the NBC suits noticed that the ratings for Heroes (unquestionably one of this season's few success stories) have severely declined over the course of the season? These kind of shows are inherently designed for a cult audience, and if NBC is trying to put themselves back on the map, I'm not sure either of these programs will help much.

Life, on the other hand, features a strong cast (Chicago Hope's Adam Arkin, Sleeper Cell's Melissa Sagemiller, The L Word's Sarah Shahi) and an interesting spin on police procedurals.

More on these new shows later in the week...

What do you think of NBC's schedule?