U.S. Fall Season

TV Drama looks at some of the key trends that emerged from last week’s U.S. broadcast network upfront announcements.

Vertical integration is stronger than ever, and despite the era of peak TV, the number of pilot orders by the U.S. networks was considerably smaller than usual. Those were among the major themes of last week’s upfront announcements, as the U.S. networks unveiled their grids for the fall.

Some of last year’s major trends—super producers and reboots—were still evident this year, the former perhaps more dominant than the latter. Greg Berlanti appears to be everywhere. Housed at Warner Bros., the prolific producer has new offerings Deception on ABC and Black Lightning on The CW, in addition to his portfolio of returning dramas. Shondaland’s three flagships are back on Thursday nights on ABC—Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal (for its final season) and How to Get Away with Murder—with the legal drama For the People set for midseason alongside a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off focusing on firefighters. (The Catch, however, was canned after two seasons.) Ryan Murphy is back on broadcast TV with a midseason procedural for FOX about first responders called 9-1-1. At NBC, Dick Wolf lost one Chicago-branded show (Justice) but still has three on the grid, plus a new Law & Order extension, a limited series focused on the infamous Menendez murder case. In other franchise extension news, The Blacklist: Redemption didn’t make the cut on NBC, while CBS opted for Young Sheldon, centering on a young Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. Also dropped from the schedule was CBS’s Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.

In terms of reboots, there are two classic sitcoms making a comeback: Will & Grace on NBC and Roseanne on ABC. The CW, meanwhile, has rebooted the campy ’80s prime-time soap Dynasty for its young adult audience. There’s also a second limited season for The X-Files on FOX and, on CBS, S.W.A.T., inspired by the TV series and feature film of the same name. Shemar Moore, of Criminal Minds fame, leads S.W.A.T. and is one of many familiar TV faces fronting new shows this fall. David Boreanaz, known for his long stints on Bones, Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, toplines CBS’s military drama SEAL Team. Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) fronts ABC’s Ten Days in the Valley. Mark Feuerstein (Royal Pains) headlines a new CBS comedy called 9JKL. Jeremy Piven (Entourage) leads the cast of CBS’s Wisdom of the Crowd. Seth MacFarlane stars in FOX’s space dramedy The Orville. Two The Good Wife alums have new shows: Matt Czuchry in FOX’s The Resident and Alan Cumming in CBS’s Instinct.

In an age of Trump, leaks and political intrigue, themes of surveillance, instability and military might can be seen through the grids, from the aforementioned Wisdom of the Crowd and SEAL Team to The CW’s Valor and NBC’s The Brave (co-produced with Keshet Studios). And on the heels of the success of This Is Us, some of the networks have peppered the schedule with feel-good dramas, among them The Gospel of Kevin on ABC, Rise on NBC and By the Book on CBS. In terms of fantasy and superheroes, meanwhile, in addition to The CW’s new Black Lightning, ABC has Marvel’s Inhumans and FOX has The Gifted.

The fall grid also has a few scripted formats in the mix, among them ABC’s The Good Doctor and Splitting Up Together. The latter is among several shows on ABC that don’t hail from corporate sibling ABC Studios. At the rest of the networks, however, it is clear that, as CBS chief Leslie Moonves declared at his upfront last week, “The back end is now worth more than the front end.” For the studios mining their wares on the global market this week at the L.A. Screenings, the increase in procedurals on the network lineups is undoubtedly good news, given that European broadcasters, in particular, have been bemoaning the abundance of serialized fare over closed-ended episodic storytelling for several years now.

World Screen’s contributing editor, Elizabeth Guider, is on site in L.A. this week delivering recaps of the studio presentations. Read her kickoff piece here and her sum-up of Disney’s slate here. More to follow throughout the week.

For everything you need to know about the 2017-18 season, visit World Screen’s fall season grid, with schedules by network, pop-up descriptions and trailers, and full listings by studio.