BEST OF 2019- PART 2: TOP 15 ANTICIPATED NEW SHOWS OF THE FORTHCOMING 2019/20 TV SEASON

If you have been an avid viewer of this site since the inception way back in 2014 just over 5 years ago, then you could say with confidence that apart from listening to music, and this recently comprises of both Christian and mainstream music (and sometimes religiously following an artist’s career); watching TV shows are one of my greatest hobbies/pasttimes- and for better or worse, I’d say you’re probably right. Not that I have a lot of time to check out TV shows (old and new)…but anyway, that’s beyond the point.

You see- a TV show can teach us vital and paramount lessons, relevant to today’s society, and invoke in us emotions that we could never have dreamed possible, as we sympathise and relate to the main character and possibly other supporting characters, and try to understand their plight and journey. Whether a TV show is a comedy or a drama, short lived and only 1 season like Go On or Trophy Wife, or a long-standing veteran of 20 seasons like NCIS or Greys Anatomy; each show I reckon has their place, and each show is probably needed, speaking to a different part of society about something important to them. So what is it this coming TV season (2019/2020 broadcast season starting in September 2018) that makes the upcoming batch of new shows worth watching? What it is about this year that makes me actively want to check out most new shows this upcoming season (and not just fallback on the Arrowverse)?

I mean last week we witnessed the cancellations and endings of many well-loved shows (such as one season shows like Whiskey Cavalier, The Passage, The Fix, The Kids Are Alright, Fam, Rel, The Cool Kids, Proven Innocent and I Feel Bad, and long-standing ‘veterans’ like The Big Bang Theory, Lethal Weapon, Star, Gotham, iZombie, Jane The Virgin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Elementary and Speechless); while this season will see many more shows disappear from our screens as well (Arrow, Supernatural, Modern Family, Empire, Blindspot, Criminal Minds and Madam Secretary). So obviously these new batch of shows are guaranteed to last a long time, right? On this Top Ten’s blog (doubling up as a Best of 2019 blog as well!), below I have listed ten shows that I am anticipating for this new season (fall shows), as well as 5 midseason shows, complete with trailers (wherever possible) and official synopses.

Now you guys can make your informed decisions as to what to watch (or avoid watching!). while I won’t voice my opinions on my hopes for each of the 15 shows (I’ll leave that analysis for TVLine to do for season of the 5 networks here, here, here, here and here!), the fact that these 15 shows are in my list isn’t proof that these 15 shows will be good. So you shouldn’t take our word as gospel though, as you may like different TV show genres to me. And though on last year’s blog of a similar nature, we never saw a single one of those 10 shows (only a few episodes each of Manifest, God Friended Me and A Million Little Things), due to circumstances beyond our control- and the year before we didn’t see any show of the 15 that we included in our list; it is still our intention to follow through on the assertion that we’re making of watching a number of new shows week to week… And while Jon will unpack more about our overall TV watching habits of late, in a special blog post next week sometime; until then, let us see these 15 trailers and read about these upcoming shows and hopefully we can find plenty of future classics here! Even if for some reason we fall behind and don’t watch any shows, there’s no reason why you can’t keep up!

Fall:

Not Just Me (FOX)- Wednesdays 9/8c

Executive producer Jason Katims and writer Annie Weisman bring you the story of an unusual family formed through extreme odds. Exploring such hot-button issues as identity, human connection and what it truly means to be a family, this unconventional dramedy taps directly into the zeitgeist, harnessing the emotional complications that new generations of IVF-bred children all face. Only child Julia Bechley (Brittany Snow) finds her life turned upside down when her father, Leon Bechley (Timothy Hutton), reveals that, over the course of his prize-winning career as a pioneering fertility doctor, he used his own sperm to conceive upwards of a hundred children.

Reeling from this explosive revelation, Julia discovers two new sisters – her former best friend, Edie Palmer (Megalyn Echikunwoke), and an ex-Olympic athlete, Roxy Doyle (Emily Osment). As these three young women begin to embrace their new reality, Julia must figure out what life is like without Leon by her side; Edie comes to grips with her burgeoning sexuality, as her marriage falters; and Roxy faces adulthood out of the spotlight.

Nancy Drew (CW)- Wednesdays 9/8c

Nancy Drew (Kennedy McMann) is a brilliant teenaged detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine – until her mother’s untimely death derails Nancy’s college plans. Devastated by her mother’s passing, Nancy swears off crime-solving while crossing off the days until she can re-apply to college. But when a socialite is murdered, Nancy finds herself a prime suspect in the crime, along with a group of other teens present at the scene: Nancy’s nemesis from high school, George Fan (Leah Lewis); a rich girl with a mysterious past, Bess Marvin (Maddison Jaizani); Nancy’s secret boyfriend, Ned “Nick” Nickerson (Tunji Kasim), and amiable burnout Ace (Alex Saxon). The five of them must team up to clear their own names – encountering emotional entanglements and even more mysteries along the way. Nancy’s reawakening brings her into conflict with her widowed father, Carson Drew (Scott Wolf), who is dating Detective Karen Hart (Alvina August). And, when a supernatural presence begins to haunt Nancy’s investigation, she discovers that the current crime has an astonishing connection to the unsolved murder of a local girl. Whether the ghost is here to help, or hinder Nancy remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Nancy’s going to have to unravel the clues from both the living and the dead to solve the crimes.

Emergence (ABC)- Tuesdays 10/9c

In one of the biggest twists this upfront season, NBC’s genre thriller drama pilot Emergence, starring Allison Tolman, has been picked up — by ABC.

The project, from Kevin (Probably) Saves the World creators/executive producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, director Paul McGuigan and ABC Studios, was a favorite at the Disney-owned studio. It was bought by NBC instead of ABC last fall during the previous regime at the Disney-owned network. I hear the new top ABC executive team loved the pilot and when word came that NBC was not picking it up to series, they swooped in.

Chatter picked up yesterday that an Emergence move to ABC was imminent. Also yesterday, ABC’s romantic drama pilot The Beauty and the Baker emerged as a dark horse strong contender for a series pickup. I hear negotiations with Universal TV, which produces the adaptation of an Israeli format, are still ongoing and the project’s prospects are looking good.

That would be the final new series pickup at ABC this upfront (Drama pilot Triangleis still filming in New Zealand) . Emergence joins already ordered dramas Untitled Cobie Smulders and For Life and comedies mixed-ish and United We Fall. Two buzzy ABC pilots — NYPD Blue and Heart of Life — are out of fall contention for fall as they will be undergoing reworking for midseason consideration (NYPD Blue) and redevelopment (Heart of Life).

Written by Fazekas and Butters, Emergence is a character-driven genre thriller that centers around a police chief, played by Allison Tolman, who takes in a young child that she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the child’s identity is at the center of it all.

In addition to Tolman, the cast includes Alexa Swinton, Owain Yeoman, Ashley Aufderheide, Robert Bailey Jr., Zabryna Guevara co-star along with Donald Faison and Clancy Brown.

Fazekas and Butters executive produce with McGuigan. Robert Atwood, development executive for the Fazekas & Butters production company, is a producer. ABC Studios, where Fazekas and Butters are under an overall deal, is the studio.

Stumptown (ABC)- Wednesdays 10/9c

ABC has handed its first new drama series pickup to one of its buzziest pilots, Untitled Cobie Smulders (fka Stumptown), a graphic novels adaptation headlined by the Avengers co-star. It is ABC’s second series order overall, joining the black-ishspinoff mixed-ish. Both project hails from ABC Studios. Hinting at their high hopes for Stumptown, which had been an internal favorite from the start, ABC Studios just signed a new overall deal with the drama’s creator Jason Richman.

The Cobie Smulders pilot was written by Richman and directed by James Griffiths. Based on the Stumptown graphic novel series, it follows Dex Parios (Smulders) as a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt, and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great P.I., but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police.

This marks How I Met Your Mother alumna Smulders’ returning to network television full-time. (She reprised herAvengers character Maria Hill in a recurring arc on ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Richman executive produces with Ruben Fleischer and David Bernad via The District; Greg Rucka, author of the “Stumptown” graphic novel series; the graphic novels’ illustrators Matthew Southworth and Justin Greenwood.

Here is the full cast: Cobie Smulders as Dex Parios, Tantoo Cardinal as Sue Lynn Blackbird, Cole Sibus as Ansel Parios, Adrian Martinez as Tookie with Camryn Manheim as Lieutenant Cosgrove and Michael Ealy as Det. Miles Hoffman.

Batwoman (CW)- Sundays 8/7c

The Arrowverse officially has a new full-time hero, now that The CW has ordered Batwoman to series.

The Gotham City vigilante, played by Orange Is the New Black‘s Ruby Rose, made her debut in last fall’s multi-part Arrowverse crossover event, which was titled “Elseworlds.”

The series order comes two months after it was announced that Arrow‘s eighth (and truncated) season will be its last. It was one of three series greenlit at The CW late Tuesday, joining Riverdale spinoff Katy Keene and Nancy Drew.

The Batwoman series will follow Kate Kane — the second incarnation of the Batwoman character in DC Comics lore, introduced in 2006 — who is described as “an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter… primed to snuff out the failing city’s criminal resurgence.”

The cast also includes Dougray Scott (Snatch, Hemlock Grove) as Kate Kane’s dad, Jacob Kane, a former military colonel who commands Gotham’s private security firm The Crows and “has made it his mission to protect his city better than the Dark Knight ever could”; Rachel Skarsten (Reign) as Alice, the Joker-esque leader of the Wonderland Gang; Meagan Tandy (Teen Wolf) as military academy graduate Sophie Moore; Camrus Johnson (Marvel’s Luke Cage) as Lucius Fox’s son, Luke; and Nicole Kang (YOU) as Kate’s step-sister, Mary Hamilton.

Caroline Dries (The Vampire Diaries) penned the pilot and will exec-produce with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Geoff Johns, David Nutter and director Marcos Siega.

Perfect Harmony (NBC)- Thursdays 8:30/7:30c

LOGLINE: Bradley Whitford stars in this comedy about finding inspiration in the most unlikely places. When former Princeton music professor Arthur Cochran unexpectedly stumbles into choir practice at a small-town church, he finds a group of singers that are out of tune in more ways than one. Despite the ultimate clash of sensibilities, Arthur and his newfound cohorts may just be the perfect mix of individuals to help each other reinvent and rediscover a little happiness, just when they all need it most.
CAST: Bradley Whitford, Anna Camp, Tymberlee Hill, Rizwan Manji, Will Greenberg, Geno Segers and Spencer Allport.
EP/WRITER: Lesley Wake Webster
EP/DIRECTOR: Jason Winer
EPS: Jason Winer, Bradley Whitford, Adam Anders, Jon Radler
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox Television/Small Dog Picture Company.

All Rise (CBS)- Mondays 9/8c

Legal drama All Rise “follows the dedicated, chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of judges, prosecutors and public defenders as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal system,” according to the official synopsis. The ensemble cast includes Simone Missick (Luke Cage), Wilson Bethel (Hart of Dixie), Jessica Camacho (The Flash) and CSI vet Marg Helgenberger.

The Unicorn (CBS)- Thursdays 8:30/7:30c

Justified and Vice Principals alum Walton Goggins has been set at the lead of The Unicorn, CBS’ half-hour comedy pilot from Fam co-executive producers Bill Martin and Mike Schiff, Kapital Entertainment and CBS TV Studios.

The project, originally developed as a single-camera, was picked up to pilot as a multi-camera. It underwent conversion and tapped veteran multi-camera helmer James Burrows to direct. Now The Unicorn will be reverting to its original single-camera format with a new director. It is the only single-camera comedy pilot at CBS this season; all others are multi-camera/hybrid.

Written by Martin and Schiff and inspired by a true story, The Unicorn centers on a recent widower (Goggins) who is eager to move on from the most difficult year of his life, only to realize he’s utterly unprepared to raise his two daughters on his own and equally unprepared for the dating world — where, to his shock, he’s suddenly a hot commodity.

Goggins’ character, a devoted father to two adolescent girls, is a big-hearted open-book of a guy, but without his wife, he’s finding himself at sea. When his friends persuade him to start dating again, he discovers to his shock that he’s kind of a hot commodity — if only he knew what the heck he was doing.

Martin and Schiff executive produce with Kapital Entertainment’s Aaron Kaplan, Dana Honor and Wendi Trilling — who has a pod deal at Kapital — and Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed. CBS TV Studios is the studio.

Mixed-ish (ABC)- Tuesdays 9/8c

In “mixed-ish,” Rainbow Johnson recounts her experience growing up in a mixed-race family in the ’80s and the constant dilemmas they had to face over whether to assimilate or stay true to themselves. Bow’s parents Paul and Alicia decide to move from a hippie commune to the suburbs to better provide for their family. As her parents struggle with the challenges of their new life, Bow and her siblings navigate a mainstream school in which they’re perceived as neither black nor white. This family’s experiences illuminate the challenges of finding one’s own identity when the rest of the world can’t decide where you belong.

The series stars Arica Himmel as Bow Johnson, Tika Sumpter as Alicia Johnson, Christina Anthony as Denise, Mykal-Michelle Harris as Santamonica Johnson and Ethan Childress as Johan Johnson.

Peter Saji and Kenya Barris are writers and executive producers along with Tracee Ellis Ross, Randall Winston, Artists First (Brian Dobbins), Cinema Gypsy (Laurence Fishburne and Helen Sugland) and Anthony Anderson. This series is produced by ABC Studios.

Prodigal Son (FOX)- Mondays 9/8c

Tom Payne and Michael Sheen in Prodigal Son; Fox

Prodigal Son, an upcoming Fox TV crime-solver, is not only promising a stylish take on the genre, but an intriguing platform for TV refugees. The Walking Dead‘s Tom Payne nabbed the starring role after Iron Fist‘s Finn Jones was first cast and subsequently removed. Payne will be joined by The Orville‘s exiled crew member, Halston Sage, and even former Scandal actress Bellamy Young (Scandal), not to mention small screen standards like Michael Sheen (Good Omens) and Lou Diamond Phillips (Longmire).

The show is being produced by Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. TV. Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver, a duo worked together on ABC’s recent, short-lived crime-solving magician series, Deception, serve as writers and executive producers, joined in the latter capacity by Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter. The pilot will be directed by Lee Toland Krieger, who’s helmed episodes of Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Deadly Class.

In the latest news on Prodigal Son, Fox has officially ordered the project to series. It will now manifest as a weekly one-hour drama.

Midseason:

neXt stars Mad Men vet John Slattery as a tech pioneer who learns that one of his artificial-intelligence creations might lead to global disaster and “teams up with a cybercrime agent to fight a villain unlike anything we’ve ever seen — one whose greatest weapon against us is ourselves,” per the official synopsis. Fernanda Andrade (Sons of Anarchy), Michael Mosley (Ozark) and Eve Harlow (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) co-star. Manny Coto (24, Dexter) is the creator.