Fox takes action, scrambles fall schedule
Fox is going the sci-fi/genre route this fall with the network’s first Marvel series and
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s long-planned homage to Star Trek.
Marvel’s The Gifted stars Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Amy Acker (Person of Interest) as a couple on the run after discovering their kids possess mutant powers, while The Orville stars producer MacFarlane as the captain of an exploratory spaceship 400 years in the future and Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights) as his ex-wife and first officer.
Joining other guy-friendly action series including Lethal Weapon and DC’s Gotham and Lucifer, those are two of just three new series planned for fall, along with Sunday comedy
Ghosted, starring Craig Robinson and Adam Scott in a comedic version of The X-Files as a pair of supernatural sleuths, one a skeptic and the other a true believer.
Midseason shows include The
Resident, a medical drama starring Matt Czuchry (The Good
Wife, Gilmore Girls); 9-1-1, an ER drama starring Angela Bassett; a final season of New Girl; the return of X-Files; and LA to Vegas, about the passengers and crew on a weekend gambling shuttle flight. And Fox will mount two live musicals, A Christmas Story and Rent.
Fox will finish this season in last place among the major networks, averaging 6 million viewers, but ranks second among young adults, thanks partly to this year’s Super Bowl.
Despite solid newcomers including The Mick and Lethal Weapon, reboots 24: Legacy and
Prison Break proved critical disappointments (though neither has been canceled yet). Empire lost its perch as the top-rated young-adult draw, but remains a big (if sharply declining) draw. A major shakeup in the network’s fall schedule will see Gotham and
Weapon switch nights and several
other shows move to new time periods.
Axed were Rosewood, Scream Queens, Sleepy Hollow and longrunning Bones, along with firstyear shows APB, Son of Zorn, Making History and Pitch.