It's that time of year again!
Actually, it's well past this time of year.
Continuing the tradition started by Doctor Hmmm? back in 2010, and followed inconsistently since (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), here's a catchall thread about any and all shows debuting or returning this fall, with an emphasis on the shows that don't generate their own threads.
I am remiss in not starting this thread at the beginning of the season, but it was a bad year, notwithstanding a writers' strike and an actors' strike in Hollywood that meant most shows couldn't produce a full complement of shows, doing about 10-13 episodes instead of a more typical 22-26. We also had this website's changeover to the just-about-inferior-in-every-way Ning 3.0, which, among its faults, makes it difficult if not impossible to search for older threads, which I used to do all the time on Ning. 2.0. (Regrettably, I cannot find the links to 2020, 2021 and 2022). UPDATE: I indulged my inner MacGyver and figured out a back-door way to the links to 2020, 2021 and 2022.)
Anyhoo, as tonight the season and series finales of at least two shows I watch regulary aired (Grey's Anatomy and Station 19), I just made it under the wire. If anyone cares to weigh in, feel free!
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As mentioned above, I am a regular viewer of Grey's Anatomy and its spinoff, Station 19. I know I've complained in the past that Station 19 takes reality and grinds it into sawdust on a regular basis (and if this was Ning 2.0, I'd link to where I said it). But since the two shows share cast members and frequently cross over with each other, I found myself drawn in despite myself.
Unfortunately, the bean counters decided to give Station 19 the axe (no firehouse pun intended). People want to think ratings are the be-all-and-end-all of why shows get canceled, but they are just one factor of many, and in many cases aren't the most imporant factor. Sure, if a show is a runaway hit, it will stay, and may get renewed for more than one season. And if it stinks up the joint, it will get the boot, fast (no firehouse pun intended). As most shows fall in the vast middle, other considerations are whether it is produced by some arm of the network or comes from an independent producer, how long it's been on the air -- that is, is it on a growth trajectory or is at least holding its own -- and probably biggest of all, the cost of production and the licensing fee the network is willing to pay to keep it on.
I could go on, but suffice to say that several shows that are meeting their end this year -- including Blue Bloods, Station 19. Young Sheldon, Bob Hearts Abishola, Magnum P.I., CSI Vegas -- had ratings that would have justified keeping them on the air. But those other considerations meant they're ending.
One odd case was S.W.A.T., which was canceled last year at the end of its sixth season. But star Shemar Moore put CBS on blast, with an Instagram post that complained that not only were its numbers good, it was disrespectful to its fans that it wouldn't be allowed to draft a satisfying final season.
Surprise, surprise: Two days later, CBS UNcanceled S.W.A.T., allowing for a 13-episode final season (and adding Moore as an executive producer).
Surprise, surprise, surprise: At the end of that bonus Season 7, CBS granted a Season 8!
A popular favorite in my household, Abbott Elementary, is renewed for a Season 4. Season 3 was truncated, which star and producer Quinta Brunson found a little frustrating as last season has 23 episodes to work with, so they kind of had to rush through the plot points. It was good, but last year was admittedly funnier. But the final scene of the season finale put to bed the will-they-or-won't-they of the romance between Janine and Gregory, and to good effect. We'll see where they take if next season.
The only One Chicago show I watch is the granddaddy, Chicago Fire. I'm still on my moratorium on cop shows (except for Barney Miller: I can always drop what I'm doing and watch Barney Miller). But I can see that it went through some visible budget-cutting. Right at the start of the season, Alberto Rosende was cut (his character Gallo joined his long-lost family in Detroit. Then they wrote out Kara Kilmer not quite halfway in; her character Sylvie Brett adopted a kid and married Matt Casey and joined him in Oregon.
Then at the end of the season, Eamonn Walker, the gravelly voiced Deputy District Chief Boden, chose to leave. They wrote him out by having Boden get promoted to Deputy Commissioner, so he might turn up in the future.
Also, throughout the year, there were several episodes with some cast members just not around. And even Chief Boden's sendoff was basically a group hug in the firehouse, not a going-away party at the firefighter's pub Molly's.
How will they match the gravitas Walker brought to the role? They had Boden have a discussion with Lieutenant Hermann about taking the captain's exam and then getting promoted to chief to be the new chief. That makes sense to me as a viewer, but I can't believe in anything resembling the real world that somebody would get both of those promotions (let alone to deputy district chief, the chief of chiefs) and get his favored assignment to a specific firehouse in just a few months. But we shall see. I'm in for the long haul, no matter what.
Budget-cutting also hit Bob Hearts Abishola. At the end of last season, they announced only leads Billy Gardell and Folake Olowofoyeku would be counted as regulars and ALL of the other actors would be counted as recurring. They were guaranteed no more than five episodes during the season and were set free to find other jobs.
In a way, it made each individual episode stronger. Usually in a sitcom, there's an A plot and a B plot (and sometimes a C plot). But since they didn't have to have everyone in every episode, they could just ditch the B and C plots and use who they needed for the A plot which would fill the entire episode. Sometimes it was odd in that someone who should have been part of the proceedings wasn't there, but most of the time it worked.
Now, the previous season ended on a cliffhanger, with Bob having launched a sock factory in the U.S. in Detroit and Abishola being accepted to Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore (only the best for her). This final season didn't seem to speak to that at all, until the finale. Along the way MaxDot gets a takeover offer, but the would-be buyers were almost gleeful in declaring they intended to fire everyone, which Bob couldn't stomach. Then longtime plant manager turned company president Goodwin presents a proposal to buy it himself, in installments, over seven years. That deal Bob gratefully accepted.
Son Dele went against Abishola's wishes to go to Harvard (he didn't even apply) and instead applied to Julliard ... and didn't make the cut, which was heartbreaking. Best friend Keme planned a gaudy wedding in Las Vegas, groom Chukwuemeka's overbearing mother (every character on this show has an overbearing mother) not only disapproves of Keme (which we've seen over the years) but expects to live with them. When Chukwuemeka grew a spine and told her off, she promptly did the Fred Sanford bit and claimed to have a heart attack -- except she did have one. Through this crisis, putative mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have a rapproachment; mom let up on the nasty remarks and Keme allowed her in the couple's home. So they had the wedding at the chapel in the hospital where Keme, Abishola and their other friend Gloria work.
The series finale jumped ahead seven years. Bob's sister Christina has the baby she was planning through in vitro with the overbearing assistance of her mother, Dottie ... and Abishola is her pediatrician! Dele's in New York, dancing in Broadway and off-Broadway shows. Keme and Chukwuemeka have launched a food truck, Gloria has retired.
And Goodwin makes the final payment on MaxDot, leaving Bob free to retire. Of course, he doesn't know what to do with himself, but as he and Abishola are lounging on their favorite park bench, he gets inspiration -- he'll write a book on finding your bench. There were flashbacks to the first season when Bob and Abishola first met -- when he had a heart attack and was brought to the hospital -- and it was startling how big Billy Gardell used to be five years ago. (He was even bigger when he was on Mike and Molly).
It was a sweet close to the series.
Tracy and I are both disappointed that CSI Vegas will not be renewed for a fourth season.
Young Sheldon went out with a big bang (pun intended) but we are both looking forward to next season's spin-off, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage.
I was not a viewer of Young Sheldon. Sheldon Cooper's trajectory on The Big Bang Theory from socially inept nerd to sanctimonious bully soured me on the character. But I understand from the coverage about Young Sheldon that it took a somewhat different path in covering the events of Sheldon's boyhood, particularly in how it presented Sheldon's dad. The stories we heard about him on The Big Bang Theory made him out to be a knuckle-dragging brute, but on Young Sheldon he came off as a nice guy and a good father.
The two hardest things Young Sheldon had to reconcille with the parent series were Sheldon's belief that he caught Dad cheating on Mom -- the source of Sheldon's nervous habit of knocking on a door three times and saying the name of the person he's intending to see three times -- and the fact that Dad died just before Sheldon went to college. I understand they found a clever way around the first issue. Sheldon didn't catch Dad cheating on Mom, he only thought so. What he actually saw was Mom and Dad doing some role-playing and he didn't recognize her in costume.
As for the second issue, the producers decided not to put the death in the series finale but in the lead-up to it, which I might think was a good call if I had actually watched it. Did you think so?
And I'm happy that there is a second spinoff, George & Mandy's First Marriage, if only because it keeps alive the Chuck Lorre Factory's streak of having a show on the air, which was at risk with the end of both Bob Hearts Abishola and Young Sheldon.
I agree with you that the adult Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory became less and less charming as the series wore on, but I found his behavior more toleravble as "young" Sheldon, because he didn't know any better. I agree so much that the penultimate episode was powerful, but I don't want to say anthing that would spoil it. I found it to be very realistic. The last episode was pretty good, too. Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik reprised their roles as the adult Sheldon and Amy on screen, and their scene helped smooth over some of the discrepancies between what we learned about Sheldon's family on The Big Bang Theory and what we saw on Young Sheldon. For example, Sheldon admits that, as a coping mechanism, he thought of his father in the worst terms "for years" after his death. Even if you didn't watch the show, I would recommend the last two episodes to anyone who is at all interested in the characters.
This past week I've been watching the final season of Young Sheldon, which I hadn't watched at all up until now. As usual, the writing and the acting were great. The last one I've watched so far is episode 12. The last scene when George Sr's coworkers announce that he had a fatal heart attack was very well done. The reaction of Raegan Revord (Missy) was so authentic. I'm going to watch the last two episodes today (on Paramount+).
Ghosts was charming through the season. Owing to the writers' strike and the actors' strike and the need for programming, CBS aired the run of the original British version -- billed as Ghosts U.K. -- until the strikes were resolved and production could begin for new U.S. episodes. So we could see the similarities and the differences.
Main differences: The military man is a British Army officer from World War II in the original vs. a Revolutionary War general in the remake (and the second one is more flamboyantly gay); the Viking in the American version was a caveman in the original; the first version makes far more use of the headless ghost where the American show seemed to conclude (wisely, I think) that he's a one-joke character and it got old fast.
British TV production being what it is, the American version made more episodes during its first season than Ghosts U.K. made during its entire run. So it did more to open up its world, gradually revealing how several (but not all) of the ghosts died, playing with the rules of how the ghosts exist, and contriving excuses for still-living relatives of the more-recent ghosts to visit the property since one of the rules is that the ghosts can't leave (Or can they? More later.).
The previous season ended on a cliffhanger with one of the ghosts getting "sucked off" -- that is, called to heaven or whatever the next positive realm of existence was for them. We look around and no one can locate Flower, the hippie-dippie flower child, so we are led to believe it's her ...
... but later in the season, we learn Flower is trapped at the bottom of a well. The rules of being a ghost mean one can stand on a floor but one's hands go through walls. Another rule is that a ghost can touch those things on their person or on the person of another ghosts. This knowledge allows the group to rescue Flower from a fate worse than death, as she was moments away from really getting trapped in the well because it was to be filled with concrete.
So if Flower didn't get sucked off, who did? Ralph, one of the basement ghosts, who was up in the attic with Stephanie, the prom queen. They were about to experience a moment of bliss -- after all, they are the only two who were teenagers when they died -- and it happened.
Oh, and Pete's estranged wife came by ... and died ... which caused several problems. Pete himself learned that his ghost power was freedom to leave the grounds of Woodstone!
There's more, but I'm looking forward to next season!
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