ABC doubles down on laughs
Network’s fall schedule will have 10 comedies
ABC is adding three new dramas and two comedies to its fall lineup and creating a second two-hour comedy block on Tuesdays, where
The Middle will relocate to lead off the night. Scandal won’t return until midseason thanks to star Kerry Washington’s maternity leave, breaking up producer Shonda Rhimes’ lock on Thursdays. And Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. will shift later on Tuesdays.
Those are the highlights of the network’s fall schedule, which will include 10 comedies. New fall dramas will star Kiefer Sutherland ( 24), Hayley Atwell (canceled Marvel’s Agent Carter) and Piper Perabo ( Covert Affairs), while the pair of new comedies star Katy Mixon ( Mike and Molly) and Minnie Driver ( About a Boy).
Sutherland stars as a low-level Cabinet officer who becomes an unlikely president after a terrorist attack in Designated Survivor, which will replace Nashville on Wednesday nights.
Conviction, starring Atwell as a former first daughter turned crime-solver, will take the canceled Castle’s slot on Mondays,
following Dancing With the Stars.
Notorious looks at the “unique, sexy and dangerous interplay of criminal law and the media” and will be sandwiched between Rhimes’ Grey’s Anatomy and How
to Get Away With Murder. It stars Perabo and Daniel Sunjata ( Res
cue Me, Graceland), and it counts defense attorney Mark Geragos and former Larry King producer Wendy Walker among its producing team. ( Scandal and The Catch will return there in midseason).
And in a significant comedy shuffle, The Goldbergs will replace
The Middle as Wednesday’s lead- off, to be followed by Speechless, a family comedy starring Driver as a mom parenting a special-needs child, and the returning Modern
Family and Black-ish. And on Tuesdays, returning comedies
Fresh Off the Boat and The Real O’Neals will shift to later time periods as The Middle is followed by American
Housewife, starring Mixon as a mom to a “flawed family” amid the “perfection” of tony Westport, Conn. The comedy-heavy lineup (contrasting with NBC’s two) “really was a question of doubling down on what’s working,” says ABC Entertainment chief Channing Dungey. “We’re extremely proud of ... Wednesday night, and we said, ‘Let’s lean into stuff our audiences are responding to.’ ”
For midseason, look for a remake of Time After Time on Sundays; a Rhimes-produced Romeo-and-Juliet-themed period drama; and a third season of anthology series American Crime. The network, also known for soapy, female-skewing dramas, has struggled this season, leading it to replace its top programmer: Ratings fell 15%, to a third-place 6.8 million viewers, and ABC ranked fourth among young adults, down 16%. Alone among the four major networks, it has no NFL games to boost its averages.