Are Any of These New Fall Network TV Shows Worth Watching?

Why Prodigal Son, Emergence, Sunnyside, Mixed-ish, and Perfect Harmony look like keepers on a better than expected fall slate

WE WATCHED IT SO YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO. It’s a simple concept I use when I write about NBA and NFL games, but the way we watch television now, it felt like it fit here too. Who has time to watch new TV shows anymore? We’d typically rather wait until all the episodes are out, make sure everyone else thinks it’s good, then binge the whole thing in one weekend.

But someone has to be the “everyone else” to get things started, and I am that someone. I spent last week watching all the new fall network TV shows, 12 in all, and took notes along the way. Some were bad, most of them just fine, and a few actually quite interesting.

Here’s what I thought about all 12 new fall network TV shows, in order from worst to best. Don’t forget to read my Fall TV Preview if you need a little background. Then find a few that look interesting and jump on in!

COULDN’T DELETE THEM FAST ENOUGH

Some shows just aren’t redeemable. Even for network TV, these pilots were too disappointing to give a second look.

12. Bluff City Law

There are two new Monday night law procedurals, and I rated Bluff City Law above All Rise entering the night. I was wrong.

Bluff City is terrible. It’s so vanilla and forgettable. I want to like Caitlin McGee but she’s boring and uninteresting as the lead, and Jimmy Smits is a caricature as her father. They’re the elite father-daughter combo the show is built around, and it just doesn’t work.

Everything on Bluff City is forced and over the top, complete with overly dramatic music and forced emotion. The only interesting character is the city of Memphis, and they didn’t use it much in the pilot. I struggled to make it through one episode and won’t be back for a second.

11. Carol’s Second Act

I cringed from the opening moments of Carol’s Second Act. Our eponymous heroine is played by Patricia Heaton, the wife from late-90s hit Everybody Loves Raymond, and it feels like this show was made then too. There’s an obnoxious laugh track along with perpetual studio applause, including a loud ovation when Heaton first hits the stage, reminiscent of Kramer on the old Seinfeld days.

The premise of Carol’s Second Act is simple: Carol is an older woman who retired to go back to med school and get a second chance as a medical intern. Got it? Good, cuz they hammer you with that premise with 4,000 old-people jokes in the pilot. Can you believe how dumb millennials are? Isn’t it crazy how handy Carol’s life experience is?! Every character around Carol is a caricature, save Ito Aghayere as Dr. Maya Jacobs, the somewhat interesting chief resident. She wasn’t enough to save my interest.

FINE, THANKS FOR ASKING

Not every show is memorable, but just because they’re not great doesn’t mean they’re bad. These shows are fine, and if it sounds like something you might like, well then, you probably will.

9. Bob ❤ Abishola

Bob ❤ Abishola is fine. It follows The Neighborhood, a show I watched all last season but quit about seven minutes into Season 2. This feels about the same, and the duo pair as CBS’s twin shows trying to address race in 2019 in an antiquated and mostly unfunny way.

Bob and Abishola are kind and charistmatic as the leads, with decent enough chemistry. I want Folake Olowofoyeku to have a shot as a lead, and it’s CBS so this show will likely be around awhile. But like The Neighborhood, the entire premise of this show is the race card — black and white together, can you believe it?! — and there are already cringey racial jokes and references.

B❤A is fine. You won’t be mad you watch it and won’t miss it if you don’t.

8. all rise.

I rated All Rise as one of the least interesting fall offerings, but it was better than expected. Simone Missick is interesting as the newly appointed and highly ethical judge, and it’s always refreshing to have a black, female lead on network TV. The other characters are fine, if a bit forgettable.

All Rise reminded me of Shonda Rhimes’s now-cancelled show For the People. Every case is a little self-important, every character decision a commentary on morality. But that’s kind of how law procedurals go on TV, and the formula works. If you like the formula, you’ll like All Rise.

7. The Unicorn

The Unicorn is cute and fun and very sitcommy. Walton Goggins is fine as the lead, a presumed “unicorn” as a good-looking, employed, recently-widowed family man — though as my friend Josh pointed out, the “good-looking” part might be more of an aspiration.

Goggins’s friends are fun, and you’ll recognize them from every other sitcom. His daughters are charming and well acted, especially Ruby Jay as the older sister. What we have here is a story about a single dad finding his way in this crazy world. It’s fine, though somewhat ironically named, since you’ve already seen The Unicorn about 75 other times on TV.

6. Stumptown

I quite enjoyed Stumptown. Cobie Smulders is fun as a private investigator Marine veteran with PTSD, and she has immediate chemistry with all the other key cast members. Jake Johnson is back as another bartender, and Michael Ealy works as Smulders’s police contact and love interest. I also really like Cole Sibus as Smulders’s brother with Down syndrome, though I worry how that will be used as a plot device.

Stumptown is exactly what you think it is. It’s like a fun, popcorn summer movie. The action is fun. The soundtrack is fun. The cinematography and cutaways are fun. It’s a fun action show that will run one season just like the exact same fun action shows that have been on network TV every other year for a decade. I enjoyed the pilot a lot, but I also know I’ll grow increasingly less interested as the season goes on and they start recycling the same three storylines, and that I probably won’t miss it when it gets canceled in May.

DELIGHTFUL NEW SITCOMS

Sitcoms are just about the only thing network TV still does well. If you still enjoy a good weekly 22-minute romp, these are the three new sitcoms for you this fall.

4. Mixed-ish

Mixed-ish is a spin-off in the Black-ish and Grown-ish universe. It’s a prequel about Rainbow Johnson, the Black-ish mom, played by the wonderful Tracee Ellis Ross. Ross is the adult narrator in Mixed-ish as 12-year-old Bow, who grew up among hippies in an 80s commune before moving abruptly to the suburbs. The show is about her family’s transition to a world where race exists and what it’s like to grow up with a white dad and black mom in that world.

In traditional Kenya Barris fashion, Mixed-ish makes us think right away. There are immediate lessons from both characters and monologues, though as Kristal Brent Zook and others have written, those lessons are perhaps a bit more complex than how the show presents them. As a privileged white male, I learn a lot from shows like this — but it’s important to learn the right things.

Mixed-ish comes complete with plenty of 80s music. Bow is winsome, though I don’t buy Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the dad, and the grandpa and little sister are a bit much. All told, I liked this pilot least of the three in the Black-ish universe, but I like that universe, so I’m willing to let it grow — and teach.

3. Sunnyside

Kal Penn plus Michael Schur means I was in on this show before I watched. Now that I have, I’m even more excited. Penn plays a washout politician, a role he probably doesn’t need much help acting out. He moves in with his sister and starts selling himself out at $50/hour to basically spend time with a viral failed city councilman.

That’s when a group of misfit New York City immigrants hires him and asks him to help them become American citizens. The usual hijincks ensue, but things turn serious when one of the friends is taken by ICE, and that’s when Penn starts taking his mentoring role seriously, too.

Outside of Penn, this is a mostly unknown cast, and it’s a diverse one since they’re all playing immigrants. The pilot is light and funny while also carrying a serious and meaningful tone at times. These feel like voices we need to hear in 2019. There’s a woman with a million jobs, siblings with an endless flow of cash, and other goofy but relatable characters, much like any Schur show.

I was always going to give Sunnyside a lot of latitude, and Schur develops his TV characters well. These particular characters feel fresh and new — so let’s see where they take us.

2. Perfect Harmony

Perfect Harmony is billed as a musical comedy, but it’s much more Pitch Perfect than Glee, and that’s a good thing. This isn’t a musical. There are a few songs, but they’re part of the story more than the story itself. Perfect Harmony features Bradley Whitford as a Kentucky houseboat Brockmire, a failed music professor ready to give up on life when he stumbles upon a mismatched church choir.

Anna Camp is the head of the choir, and just like in Pitch Perfect, she’s perky and genial. The rest of the cast is interesting, too. It’s an awfully diverse cast for backwoods Kentucky, but we’ll forgive them. The church choir gang are believable as friends and instantly show chemistry. When Whitford is moved by them, it’s easy to understand, because you are too, as the viewer. I even got tears in my eyes at the inevitable Hallelujah Chorus / Eye of the Tiger mash-up that changes Whitford’s mind and gets him on board.

Perfect Harmony is exactly as billed, and in this case, that’s just fine. It hits the spot as the best new sitcom on TV this fall with a likable cast that should be around for awhile.

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

All these rankings are subjective, but these three shows are especially subjective, based on genre preference. Each seems like a well-made representation of the genre, so even though I don’t love a couple of the genres, you might want to check them out if they sound interesting — poor ranking or not.

10. Evil

I rated Evil as one of the five most interesting shows to keep an eye on this fall, but after only one episode, I’m out. Evil was more goofy than creepy. Think X-Files, only turned into a boring law procedural version with lots of dialogue and monsters that are more gross than scary.

I was disappointed from the get-go. The opening 15 minutes of the pilot set the tone as a very CBS procedural with lots of dialogue and not a ton of creep outside of a gurgling noise. When the Monster of the Day finally showed up, I actually laughed at the “scary” demon onscreen because it looked so dumb and unbelievable. Pretty sure that’s not the reaction they were going for.

This is from the makers of The Good Wife, so the dialogue is crisp and interesting enough. Law procedural plus supernatural plus crisp dialogue should keep it on CBS for awhile, but I won’t be back. This genre isn’t for me, and while I’m often bored by a pilot, I rarely straight up dislike it and can’t wait to quit watching. I’d have put this in my “Can’t Delete Fast Enough” tier if I didn’t recognize my inherent bias against it. Maybe you’ll like it better.

5. Prodigal Son

If I were just ranking the 12 new fall network shows on how good a version they are of what they’re trying to be, Prodigal Son would be the runaway number one in a tier of its own. Prodigal Son is a show about a kid who discovered his dad was a serial killer, then grew up to be an investigator who has to reconnect with his imprisoned father to solve a copycat murder.

Think Hannibal or Dexter, but much more the former. Prodigal Son is really well made and super artsy. Michael Sheen is sinister and macabre as the serial killer father, and Tom Payne is perfect as the tortured son who wants to solve crimes but secretly wonders just how much of his dad is in his blood. The show really captures your attention and makes you want to know more. It’s dark and scary, and the musical score adds to the effect.

This is extremely not my genre — I had to quit watching Hannibal even though it was brilliantly made because it just got too dark for me — but even so, I can’t help but come back for more. If there’s any chance you’ll like this one, you should give it a look. Network TV shows never win Emmys anymore, but Prodigal Son is the sort of show that could have a chance if it sticks.

1. Emergence

Remember when Lost was a phenomenon every network tried to replicate with an endless string of mysteriously-named shows with an interesting pilot, some weird unexplainable phenomenon, and an odd plot that doesn’t totally add up and never actually gets explained before the show gets canceled? Emergence feels a bit different. It feels better. Everything feels a little tighter and better written, like they actually have some idea of what they’re doing.

It starts with a terrific cast, led by the always wonderful Allison Tolman and supported by Donald Faison, Clancy Brown, and others, all well cast and fitting their roles well. But most importantly, Alexa Swinton is really interesting as Piper, and it feels like Emergence knows it. They’ve built their entire campaign around #WhoIsPiper, this strange girl unscathed at the scene of a plane crash with odd hints of electrical superpowers.

Piper is cute but creepy, and it’s refreshing that she’s actually just a relatable little girl most of the time. There are no random polar bears or kangaroos. The mystery is small and contained, dropping hints of more, rather than hitting the viewer over the head with oddities. That’s good news in this genre, and there are shades of Stranger Things or Orphan Black here with the interesting characters and intriguing mystery.

I am a sucker for this genre, and I’ve watched far too many of these shows that end with an ellipsis instead of the promised exclamation mark. Emergence feels different, and I just can’t help myself. Let’s hope I’m right. ■

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And thanks as always to my favorite TV readers Jody, Curt, Brianne, Lindsey, josh.mullan, Gutbloom, Allan, Jim, Todd, Matthew, David, Sam, Ianic, Dan, Gwenna, Mike, Eric, Lon, Michael, Ryan, Marissa, Derek, and others!