FOX for 2005-2006

This is going to be very brief, as I've got to get a lot done before I leave the place to guest bloggers while I'm in Cape May, New Jersey next week (speaking of which, if anyone has any suggestions on things to do in Cape May, let me know--we really haven't planned this vacation well at all).

For the Star Wars dorks among us, the FOX upfront opened with a spoof of the first movie, with FOX executives in Tie Fighters (is that right?) going up against walking robot things with Desperate Housewives and The Apprentice on them, finally squaring off against Darth Moonves and his Death Star (a big CBS logo was superimposed on the space station).

Aside from that little bit (and the one focusing on the advice received by the new FOX president, and a few jokes about how long he'll be in the position), the rest of the upfront was very dry, and not really worth going into--great for advertisers, but boring to talk about.

There's no good way to link to the show info (I don't understand this Javascript stuff), so here's a link to the Fall Schedule. The best part about the schedule is the move away from unscripted series for the fall and spring--FOX is saving it's "reality" shows to fill slots vacated by shows that underperform (Trading Spouses, Nanny 911 and The Simple Life may find their way back to the schedule).

The Comedies

Kitchen Confidential (based on Anthony Bourdain’s autobiography) looks fairly standard. Having recently watched Spanglish, I thought the lead seemed familiar in that he's a chef under pressure. Overall, I felt a little blah about it, but it does have Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum Nicholas Brendan (Xander), which means my wife will probably want to give it the once over.

Head Cases is probably more "dramedy" than comedy, but I think it's leaning towards the comedic, so I'm mentioning it here. It seems like FOX is trying to return to Ally McBeal territory with this quirky lawyer show, but with an Odd Couple vibe. I don't care for Chris O'Donnell much, and Adam Goldberg seems to be playing his character a little too over the top. It's another show I'll wait until I see the pilot to judge, but I'm not optimistic (probably somewhat due to the fact that I still miss Ally McBeal entirely too much).

I really want to like The War At Home. It has comics geek Michael Rappaport playing (as the FOX executives described it) "Archie Bunker"-esque patriarch of a dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, it came across as very one-note, even for a sitcom.

I didn't like the clips of midseason replacement The Loop at all. Even Phillip Baker Hall phones in his performance as the grumpy boss. The show really looks like a half-hour long adaptation of that annoying cell phone commercial where the young executive has to balance his moron friends with his new job.

The Dramas

These have me a little more optimistic.

FOX seems determined to make Dominic Purcell (John Doe) a television star. As much as I liked John Doe, it was a formulaic (if sometimes clever) show. In his new show Prison Break, Purcell might get his shot. He plays a killer on death row whose brother commits a crime to get into the same prison to break Purcell out. Overall, the show looked slick and polished.

I had my "I liked Bones better when it was CSI" comment ready from when I first read the press release, but having seen the clips, I don't think thats an entirely fair dismissal. The show does have some of the CSI feel, but appears to play up action and romance as well. David Boreanaz co-starring role pretty much guarantees this will hit my TiVo, as my wife adores him. Still, for as much as the show appears to diverge from CSI, it still comes across as a bit of a knock off.

Also fairly derivative is Reunion, which seems like 24 stretched out and placed in a different setting. Each episode of the series focuses on one year in the characters' lives, building towards solving the mystery of who murdered one of six high school friends around the time of their 20th high school reunion. As it follows The O.C., the cast is unsurprisingly cute, but Six Feet Under's Mathew St. Patrick as the detective seems like an interesting character.

The Gate is a police procedural focusing on heinous crimes in San Francisco. The clips felt very by-the-numbers.