It's that time of year again!
Actually, it's well past this time of year. It's so far past this time of year, the season is nearly over. I am filled with shame.
Continuing the tradition started by Doctor Hmmm? back in 2010, and followed inconsistently since (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024), 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.
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As ever, I'm sticking with Chicago Fire to the end, as well as Grey's Anatomy. Contiinuing to carry on with Elsbeth, Ghosts, Abbott Elementary and Saturday Night Live.
We're watching Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage and Ghosts.
I'm not watching anywhere near as much as I used to. CBS: The NCISes, NBC: The Law and Orders, but still awaiting word on the next season of Organized Crime. ABC: America's Funniest Home Videos. The CW: Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, which will hopefully be back this fall. Syndicated: Jeopardy! Locally: The news and Red Sox baseballl games. Whenever it returns to cable TV: Doctor Who. My last episode was Jodie Whitaker's finale.
But does anyone know the status of Who's Line Is It Anyway?
Bad news from Deadline: "‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Canceled After 5 Seasons". People reports Mariska Hargitay said she "burst out in tears" over the news.
As for Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Parade reports that Aisha Tyler says "never say never," but the last episode aired in 2024 and they haven't been called back into production to make new ones.
I also fell in love with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, a marvelous (no pun intended) Disney Channel animated series based on the Marvel Comics series, of which I have read only a few issues. Lunella Lafayette is the smartest kid in the world -- I am given to understand that in the comics, she's the smartest person in the world, period, smarter than Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Lex Luthor or MIchael Holt -- and is the self-appointed protector of the Lower East Side of New York.
In its bright, sprightly way, Moon Girl quickly establishes how Devil Dinosaur makes it into our time, how Lunella has a secret lair in an abandoned subway tunnel that she has tricked out with massive computer power (How? She's the smartest kid in the world, that's how!) that doubles as a home for Devil Dinosaur, and how she manages having a secret identity with school and family. (I miss secret identities.) Her confidante is fellow schoolmate and BFF Casey Calderon, a Latina-Jewish kid who aspires to be a publicist to the stars and serves as Moon Girl’s manager.
Another supporting character is The Beyonder! He’s way more hip than the lame guy in the Jheri curl and white disco jumpsuit we got back in the ’80s. (After all, Laurence Fishburne does his voice.) This Beyonder is so hip, he’s hep.
In the comics, Lunella is about 9 years old. On TV, they aged her up a bit, so she’s about 13. That works better for me, somehow – everything on this show is impossible, but it seems just a little more plausible that a tween can build all kinds of gadgetry, fly around the neighborhood, travel to other dimensions, and still keep up with her schoolwork and keep her activities secret from her family.
About that … in Season 1, Lunella struggles with that, and then learns her grandmother was a Moon Girl! That is, she was an actual rocket scientist who worked in a top secret project that went awry, and lost the love of her life. In the middle of Season 2, the whole family learns the secret when one of Moon Girl’s enemies strikes. Her mother does not take it well. Several episodes deal with her mother forbidding Moon Girl activities, out of disappointment and anger for the deception as well as fear for her safety. Eventually, Mom comes to understand that she isn’t protecting Lunella, she’s stifling her, and relents.
Lunella herself struggles when she and the Beyonder are trapped in another dimension that makes his powers go wonky so he can’t return them. They have a bitter estrangement after they return, but it all works out. And at the end of Season 2, Maria Hill (another recurring character, actually voiced by Cobie Smulders) invites Moon Girl to join a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. mission for an extended time. That was meant to be the Season 3 storyline, but we haven’t seen it yet.
This show is great, good fun. Look it up on the Disney Channel.
I don't believe I've tried any new shows this season. I've seen numerous promos for Boston Blue, but they didn't entice me to watch it.
Boston Blue is the spinoff/sequel to Blue Bloods, which I have never watched, even before my (continuing) self-imposed moratorium on cop shows. The copaganda from that one was just too blatant.
CBS pulled the plug on Blue Bloods, not because of low ratings; it actually was a steady, if not spectacular, performer. The issue was costs. I've noted before that any given show can stay on the air indefinitely if the ratings are good (or good enough), the costs can be kept under control, and everybody's willing to keep it going. Blue Bloods had two out of three.
Boston Blue was the consolation prize, a spinoff in which Donnie Wahlberg's character gets detached from the Big Apple to Beantown for a spell. However, to keep costs down, it's made in Toronto. Wahlberg offered to donate his salary to let them actually make the show in his hometown. The response was that they could donate everybody's salary and they still couldn't make filming in Boston work.
On the plus side, Boston Blue has as its co-star Sonequa Martin-Green, whom some might know from The Walking Dead and others might know from Star Trek: Discovery. Not me; I've never watched either of those shows. I know her from Black Love, the wonderful documentary series where couples speak about their marriages. Still, her presence on Boston Blue wasn't enough to get me to tune in.
Speaking of costs, I've noticed on some of the shows I watch that not all of the characters appear in every episode. It's kind of a running gag in my house to watch Ghosts and notice who's not there. It seems Sassapis, Thor and Flower are the ones who are most often absent.
In Chicago Fire, the cost-cutting is so blatant, they've made it part of the storyline. This year, they wrote out Ritter, by having him move to New York after his police officer boyfriend joined the NYPD and got shot, and Carver, who was being positioned as the new heartthrob, left town to get his drinking under control. Often, Sevaride is away on some ATF seminar; Kidd is in Indiana visiting the teenager she and Sevaride tried to foster; Mouch got promoted to lieutenant, but as Station 51 already has two lieutenants, got detached to another house; the ambo team is doing training at the fire academy, etc.
Then there were cuts to the entire CFD mandated by City Hall -- like decommissioning Truck 81(!). And the new chief introduced last year got himself fired. Last week's show was essentially a bottle episode featuring only five of the regular and recurring cast members; the EMTs, Mikami and Novak, got caught in a hostage situation and the hunky new guy, Vasquez, who almost became a cop, sets out to find them. And in this week's episode, Mikami, Novak and Vasquez don't appear because the're helping the police investigation.
I take it that you forgot about Crash? Pretty sure he appears in far less episodes than Sassapis, Thor and Flower.
Crash isn't a regular character on Ghosts. He's one of the occasional recurring characters, like Nancy (one of the basement ghosts), Nigel (the Hessian officer who was Isaac's lover despite the inconvenient fact Isaac accidentally killed him), Patience (the Puritan), and Stephanie (the teenager with a crush on Trevor). There are more, but Ghosts tends to space them out.
Crash hasn't been around much since the Season 1 and Season 2; he is, after all, a one-joke character.
Is Crash the headless guy? He was in the recent "election" episode.
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