The start of every new TV season is like the start of a new season for your favorite sports teams. It all begins with optimism for your new shows, the ratings go up and down and eventually, you end up letting go of a few of them. Some clearly don’t work out right away and others will sit around for a full season before being cancelled in the end.
The 2013-2014 TV season finds the networks once again trying their best to keep viewers, as the cable networks continue to pump out the best shows on TV. Fox already started its season last week with The X Factor, since it has to deal with the MLB playoffs. This week, the network is also premiering its scripted shows and tonight sees the start of Sleepy Hollow. The season really kicks into high gear next week after the Emmys air on CBS Sunday.
So here is a short list of five new shows that audiences should check out.
Sleepy Hollow - Fox, Mondays
Fringe team Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are back with Sleepy Hollow. This series is another supernatural crime procedural, but with a different spin. Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) suddenly wakes up 250 years after the Revolutionary War and he works with a detective (Nicole Beharie) to stop the Headless Horseman. It sounds interesting enough to watch tonight’s pilot and Fox seems to have high hopes for it, but it sounds more like a cult series in the making than a big crowd-pleaser.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Fox, Tuesdays
This is a new comedy with former SNL star Andy Samberg and from the minds of Michael Schur and Dan Goor, co-producers on Parks & Recreation. Considering that Parks & Recreation is easily the funniest show on TV right now, I have high hopes for this one.
Hostages - CBS, Mondays
Mondays will be a very busy night for the DVR. Hostages is the one new show to get excited about on CBS (although, I suppose if you like Robin Williams, you’re excited for The Crazy Ones). It’s a new project from Jerry Bruckheimer Television and stars Dylan McDermott as an FBI agent who takes a co-star Toni Collette’s family hostage. McDermott is set up as a heroic agent who appears to go rogue and it should make for an exciting pilot.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - ABC, Tuesdays
The Marvel universe is finally coming to television this fall with SHIELD. The key for ABC is to see if a show about non-superheros in the Marvel world can still bring in audiences. If the same people who propelled The Avengers to becoming the biggest movie of 2012 watch the show, ABC could have the big hit it really needs now that Dancing with the Stars is one night this season.
The Blacklist - NBC, Mondays
This series won the coveted post-Voice spot that made Revenge a hit last season. Unfortunately, it airs at the same time as Hostages. This looks like a great role for James Spader, who plays a criminal mastermind who suddenly decides to help the FBI get other master criminals who are his enemies. Megan Boone plays an agent who has to handle Spader and puts her own life in danger.
image: ABC