Autumn 2011 TV Season: 6 New Shows We Really Want To See!

With the 2011 US Autumn TV schedule about to kick into high gear, there’s a whole host of new shows coming out in Sept/Oct to watch out for. Some already have UK air dates, some we’re still waiting on, but here’s a list of 6 new shows we really think you should be keeping an eye on!

Person of Interest

Person of Interest is a show that’s a little bit scifi, a little bit crime drama and, like writer Jonathan Nolan earlier work (Memento, The Prestige, and of course The Dark Knight), it has a grounding in reality. Lost’s Michael Emerson plays Mr. Finch, a reclusive billionaire computer genius who has developed a program that can predict violent crimes. Think ‘Minority Report’ without the inconvenience of having to have 3 drugged up people lounging around in a bathtub all day. The drawback of Finch’s system is it can only predict the people involved, not their involvement, or exactly when or where the crime will take place. Not being massively ‘hands on’ when it comes to the slapping people around needed to prevent the crimes, Finch hires down-and-out ex-CIA man John Reese (Jim Caviezel) to help stop the crimes.

Why are we excited:
Just look at the pedigree… It’s a screenplay by J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan. It’s produced by J.J.’s Bad Robot. It’s lead actors are Lost’s Michael Emerson and Jesus (aka Jim Caviezel). If this show doesn’t blow the roof off, there’s something very very wrong with the world…

UK air date:
Unknown, although I can’t believe it’s stay that way for long.

The Secret Circle

So we’ve got a few vampire shows, and some werewolf shows, and now the witches make their return to the spotlight. The Secret Circle centres around Cassie Blake (Britt Robertson – Life Unexpected) who, after her mother is killed, moves to the fictional town of Chance Harbor where her mother grew up. After a number of strange occurrences, it’s revealed to her that her new school chums are part of a circle of witches. What’s more, she is also descended from a line of witches, and she completes their coven.

Why are we excited:
The Secret Circle is based on the books of L. J. Smith, and if you know that name, it’s probably because she was also the writer of the increasingly popular Vampire Diaries series. The show also has some pedigree with its stars, as Thomas Dekker (John Connor of the Terminator TV show) is one of the male leads, and Species Natasha Henstridge is principal of the coven’s high school.

Current UK status:
Air on Sky Living – 28th September at 9pm.

Grimm

You know all those fairy tales you were read as a child? What if they weren’t stories, but warnings… Grimm stars Dave Giuntoli as homicide detective Nick Burkhardt, who discovers he’s the last in the line of ‘Grimms’ – hunters who protect the world from the supernatural creatures.

Why are we excited:
Firstly, it’s created by Angel co-creator David Greenwalt and Angel writer Jim Kouf. Secondly, the idea that the Grimm brothers weren’t story tellers, but sort of supernatural FBI profilers is a nice twist to dovetail the show in with Burkhardt detective background. From the trailer, Grimm also seems to have a very similar tone to Greenwalt & Kouf’s earlier work on Buffy/Angel, which to me is a wonderful thing.

Current UK status:
Airing on Watch in 2012

Once Upon a Time

It’s just typical isn’t it… You wait for ages for a tv drama about fairy tales, and then 2 show up together! Once Upon a Time is a rather more fantastical affair than Grimm, and takes place in the town of Storybrooke, Maine. The story follows bail bonds collector Emma Swan (House’s Jennifer Morrison) as she arrives in Storybrooke, and if you’ve ever read Stephen King, you know there’s some very weird crap that goes on in Maine… It seems the town is actually inhabited by fairytale characters who have been trapped in the ‘real world’ by The Evil Queen (24′s Lana Parrilla). The only snag is none of the residents remember anything about their fairytale lives or identities.

Why are we excited:
Once Upon a Time is created by Lost writers Adam Horowitz & Edward Kitsis, and they say there are similarities in the style of the storytelling. The idea of not treating the audience like idiots and “presented viewer with the puzzle pieces of these people’s lives, and empowered them as an audience to put them all together.” The show also plays much more with the traditional fairytale setting than Grimm, so although they may have similar subject matter, they’re approaching it from very different angles.

Current UK status:
Airs in the US in Oct, and UK status is currently unknown.

American Horror Story

American Horror Story stars Dylan McDermott (Dark Blue, The Grid) and Connie Britton (Spin City, Friday Night Lights) as Ben & Vivien Harmon, a couple who move with their daughter from Boston to an old mansion in LA. Unfortunately, what they weren’t told was the mansion is haunted…

Why are we excited:
Unlike a lot of the other shows on the list American Horror Story’s trailers give very little away. However, it’s got us rather intrigued. It’s created by Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk, the men behind Nip/Tuck & Glee, and for those of you that have seen the former, you know the guys can go to some pretty dark places. Murphy describes the show as a ‘psychosexual thriller’, which takes inspiration from those classic 70′s horror flicks, such as The Shining and Don’t Look Now. American Horror Story has some great buzz about it too. In fact, at the official screening of the 90 min pilot in the US, there were reports that some of the hardened journos and critics had to be escorted to their cars because it had freaked them out so much!.. This is definitely going to be one to watch out for!

Current UK status:
Airs Oct in the US. UK status unknown, although FXUK is probably the most likely place for it.

Terra Nova

It’s 2149, and we’ve screwed up the planet. The scientist’s solution? Send people back in time to the Cretaceous-period, and try again from scratch. The show focuses on the Shannon family – parent’s Jim (Jason O’Mara – Life on Mars US) & Elisabeth (Shelley Conn – Mersey Beat, Dead Set), and their children Josh (Landon Liboiron – Degrassi:TNG), Maddy (Naomi Scott – Life Bites), and Zoe (Alana Mansour). With the present dying, the Shannon’s set off on the one way trip to join ‘Terra Nova’, the first human colony millions of years in the past. A colony not only having to deal with the local dinosaurs, but also the ‘Sixers’, a group of rouge residents.

Why are we excited:
It’s produced by Steven Spielberg with Star Trek veteran Brannon Braga as showrunner, which is a pretty decent starting point. Jason O’Mara is a likeable leading man, and you throw in Avatar’s Stephen Lang as the slightly dubous commander of Terra Nova, along with a budget of $4 million an episode, you should at the very least, have a decent stab at an epic tv show!

Current UK status:
Airs on Sky1 – 3rd October at 8pm

Ringer

Bridget (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a troubled ex-stripper who has a problem. She witnessed a mob murder, and now the mob is trying to kill her. Deciding to flee, she seeks out her estranged (and wealthy) twin sister Siobhan for help. Whilst they rebuild their relationship, the pair take a boat trip, where Siobhan mysteriously disappears. On returning to Siobhan’s home, and still needing a place to hide, Bridget assumes Siobhan’s identity, only for Bridget to find out her sister’s life is far from the seemingly perfect existence it appeared to be…

Why are we excited:
This is SMG’s first major post-Buffy small screen role, and we get her playing not one, but two leading roles. The Fantastic Four’s Ioan Gruffudd plays Siobhan’s husband, and FBI agent Victor Machado is played by Lost and The Dark Knight’s Nestor Carbonell. The show is created by Eric C. Charmelo and Nicole Snyder, both writers on the brilliant Supernatural. It may not strictly be a ‘genre show’, but it’s got enough fantasy/scifi talent behind it to make worth watching out for.

Current UK status:
Airs on Sky Living – 29th September at 8pm.

US TV Shows Looking For a UK Home!

Are you a UK TV Channel? Can you afford to adopt one of these US TV shows to bring to the love and attention of the UK TV watching public?

Here at GeekTown’s ‘TV Show Pound’, we’d like to introduce you some of the neglected and overlooked US tv shows that could do with good UK homes. Some are just new young pups, eager to please. Others are older, but well-trained. They’ve just been badly mistreated by their previous owners.

Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation is a show that was originally conceived as a spin-off from The (American) Office, and does share some of its humor and documentary style. The show focuses around Leslie Knope (Saturday Night Live star Amy Poehler), as a mid-level bureaucrat working in the parks dept of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. Despite being on its 4th season, and a swath of Emmy nominations, there’s never been a whiff of a UK broadcaster picking it up. I’ve no idea why. Maybe they don’t think it’ll play well to a UK audience. Maybe they don’t think a comedy set in the Parks and Recreation Dept of a town in Indiana will sell over here. I mean, it’d be as random as setting a comedy in a paper company in Slough… I mean, who’d watch that?..

Alphas

Alphas started airing in the US back in July. It’s the youngest show on the list, but like the other poor programmes here, currently doesn’t have a UK channel to call home. The premise is part Heroes, part X-Men. It follow a team of 5 people with extraordinary abilities, who work for the government to track down other ‘Alphas’ who have decided to take a rather more criminal route with their powers. Although the show is relatively new, I’m still rather surprised we haven’t had an announcement of a UK channel snapping it up. Alphas is a SyFy Original branded production, and in a recent episode Warehouse 13′s Dr. Calder popped up, establishing the show as being part of the Warehouse 13/Eureka universe. Bizarrely though, it appears that SyFy US doesn’t like to share it’s toys with its UK sibling, and forces it to bid on shows like everyone else.

Chuck

First Chuck has a nice home on VirginOne. Then the people at Sky bought all the Virgin channels, and closed most of them down. Not to worry though, the spread (some) of the programmes around the rest of their network, and Chuck popped up on SkyLiving. Not only that, we were treated to Season 4 airing within weeks of the US air date… That was until they decided to leave an agonising wait of almost 4 months before bringing it back from its mid-season break… Now, according to Sky, they haven’t even bought the 5th and final season of the show, leaving us all wondering what poor Chuck did to upset its new owners. If you’d like to air your feelings on this matter to SkyLiving, here’s a link to their Twitter and Facebook pages…

Breaking Bad

16 Emmy nominations, 6 Emmys won, and a load of other awards and nominations from too many places to mention, I just find it amazing ‘Breaking Bad’ no longer has a home in the UK! Breaking Bad is a show about a high school chemistry teacher who discovers he has cancer. Whilst on a ride-a-long with his DEA brother-in-law, he spots a former student of his fleeing the scene of a raid on a meth lab. He then hits on an idea on how he can pay for his cancer treatment and leave a nice little nest egg for his wife and disabled son when he’s gone. After all… Cooking meth is only chemistry right?..

The first season aired on FXUK, and seemed to do okay for them. They then lost (or gave away) the rights to Five, who decided it should be buried late on FIVEUSA, and run over the course of a week, over Christmas… That was back in 09. Then… nothing. The show is about to embark on its 5th and final season in the US, and there’s still not a hint of anyone in the UK coming to pick it up.

Keep up with the latest developments in UK TV here.

Friends Comes To an end… What now E4?

Some may call it the Friends of an era… Some may pelt me with tomatoes for that awful pun. Either way, for those of you that didn’t know, E4 have decided it’s time to pull down the major tent pole of their comedy schedules. Yes… Friends on E4 has finally come to an end. So what now? Well, E4 say they have made the decision to make way for more comedy, which in my book, can only be a good thing. This includes a mix of new homegrown original comedy programming, and a number of new US imports. Here’s what they’re spending their new-found budget on (and given the amount of show’s they’ve bought, it does beg the questions ‘How much money where they spending on Friends?!’.

New Homegrown Original Comedy on E4

Noel Fielding

Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy

This is a new character based sketch show from Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding. It’s part filmed and part animated, featuring the stunning work of animator/director Nigel Coan, with music from Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzorno. It’s designed to be a joyful manic mix of Noel’s humor and Coan’s animation in the slightly surreal style of Spike Milligan and Kenny Everitt. Noel himself of course has the far more interesting description of the show being “like Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger recreating The Jungle Book using toast.” Either way of you’re a fan of the Boosh, it’ll be one to watch out for.

‘Show & Tell‘ with Chris Addison

Chris Addison

‘Show & Tell’ is a stand up/game show with a twist. Each week Chris is joined by 3 new up and coming stand ups, who bring along an item to ‘Show & Tell’ with, just as you may have done at school. For their 1st round, guests are free to bring along pretty much any item that takes their fancy, which is then the basis of their stand up routine with some interjection from the other comics. The 2nd item takes the form of a ‘homework’ item set by Chris prior to the show, and the 3rd round items are those bought along by the audience.

I’m a big fan of Chris Addison, and this sounds like it could be an entertaining premise for a comedy show. Plus I’m always happy with any show that brings more stand up to UK TV.

The Midnight Beast

The Midnight Beast are Stefan Abingdon, Dru Wakely and Ashley Horne, and are true internet sensations thanks in no small part to their brilliant parady of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok. Their new E4 show takes the form of a sitcom, with the guys playing the parts of struggling musicians ‘stapling their songs and stupid real-life experiences together’. My guess would be if your fans of ‘Flight of Concords’, ‘The Lonely Island’ or ‘Axis of Awesome’, this is going to be right up your street.

New US Comedy Imports on E4

New Girl

New Girl stars Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’s (and sister to Bones’s Emily) Zooey Deschanel as Jess Day a quirky (hey, it is Zooey!), loveable woman whose life takes an unexpected turn after an unexpected and rather bad breakup with her model boyfriend. This event leads to Jess moving in with 3 single guys. Nick (Jake Johnson – No Strings Attached) who’s the most grounded of the 3, but has slightly given up on the big dreams he’s had in life, and settled as a bartender. Schmit (Max Greenfield – Ugly Betty) is a bit of a player, or at least thinks he is… His heart is usually in the right place, but he’s somewhat immature and always looking for ways to climb the social ladder. The 3rd guy – for the first episode – is Coach (Damon Wayans Jr), former athlete and professional trainer… Coach, however is replaced by a new character Winston (Lamorne Morris) in the 2nd episode. This is due to Damon Wayans Jr other show getting renewed, which brings us to…

New Girl will air in November 2011 on E4

Happy Endings

‘Happy Endings‘ stars 24′s Elisha Cuthbert and Zachary Knighton (Flash Forward) as Alex and Dave. A happy couple living is Chicago, and spending their evenings hanging out with their friends and preparing for their forthcoming nuptuals. Their group consists of Jane (Eliza Coupe) who is Alex’s control freak sister, and her long-suffering husband Brad (Damon Wayans Jr… again). Dave’s best friend Max (Adam Pally), and Penny (Casey Wilson), the groups (slightly desperate) single friend.

All is fine and rosy… until, on their wedding day, Alex and Dave split up, forcing the group to pick sides…

Happy Endings airs September 8th 2011 at 9.30pm on E4

2 Broke Girls

2 Broke Girls stars Kat Dennings (Thor, ER) as Max, a brash working class waitress at a Brooklyn diner whose nose is put slightly out of joint when the boss decides to hire an additional waitress. This isn’t helped by the fact the new girl Caroline (Beth Behrs) is a rich girl down on her luck, after her father basically ripped off the city.

Keep up with all the latest UK premiere dates here.

Twitter Fans Name Sci-Fi’s Sexiest Stars

Anna Silk in Lost Girl

In a survey commissioned by TV channel Syfy to celebrate the launch of fantasy series Lost Girl which launches on Thursday 1st September at 10pm, they asked fans on Twitter to vote to determine Sci-Fi’s favourite stars. The new series boasts it’s very own feisty temptress, Bo (Anna Silk) – soon to be a sure favourite herself – as a Succubus who drains humans of their sexual energy through kissing before leaving them for dead. However Bo doesn’t want to be evil, and is struggling to learn to handle her power when she finds other members of her obscure race which could be the key to her living a normal life. With spirited sidekick Kenzie by her side, they struggle to live in what has suddenly become a dangerous world – the biggest danger being from Bo’s own kind.

So, who won? Well looking at the lists, it’s fair to say that, whatever you think of Joss Whedon, he’s got an eye for the ladies… and a few of the men… 

Firefly, Dollhouse and Terminator:SCC star Summer Glau trounced the competition in the girls list. Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, came in 3rd, the lovely Jewel Staite 4th, with Dollhouse and Buffy/Angel star Eliza Dushku coming 5th. It doesn’t stop there though. The 6th (Gina Torres), 8th (Morena Baccarin), and 9th (Felicia Day) places where all taken up by Whedon alumni!

Joss does less well in the guys list, with the highest place going to Firefly‘s (and every other Sci-fi show under the sun!) Mark Sheppard coming in 4th, and Captain Tightpant’s – aka Nathan Fillion, coming in 5th. The top of the guys list is of course dominated by the Supernatural trio – Jenson Ackles coming 1st, Jared Padalecki 2nd, and Mischa Collins 3rd. Mark Sheppard was in Supernatural too… That guy gets everywhere!

The full galleries of the top ten Babes and Hunks appear below!

Sci-Fi Babes

Sci-Fi Hunks

Lost Girl premieres on Thursday 1^st September at 10pm, only on Syfy.

Keep up with all the latest UK premiere dates over on our UK Air Dates page!