After The TV Bloodbath, Part 2 – CBS MacGyver’s up some new shows!
Whilst CBS wasn’t the same level of bloodbath of ABC this year (Quentin Tarantino would struggle to match the massacre at ABC this year…), they did drop a number of shows leaving some space on the network for new talent to step in.
First of 2 new comedies is The Great Indoors. The show stars Community’s Joel McHale as an adventure reporter who has to deal with becoming the boss of a group of millennials when he ends up managing the digital department of the magazine where he works. Also in the cast are fluffy British institution Stephen Fry, and KickAss’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
Matt LeBlanc
The 2nd comedy is Man With A Plan (previously know as I’m Not Your Friend), which is going to keep new Top Gear presenter Matt LeBlanc busy when he’s not tearing around in sports cars. LeBlanc plays a contractor who ends up spending more time with his kids when his wife (Jenna Fischer in the pilot, but has been recast for the series) goes back to work. It’s only then that the truth every parent eventually discovers is revealed… His little angels are complete maniacs.
First of the dramas, as you might have guessed from the title of this story, is a reworking of the 80’s show MacGyver. Starring Lucas Till (Havok in the X-Men movies) as the title character, and CSI’s George Eads, it follows a twenty-something MacGyver who creates a clandestine organisation to prevent disasters using his knack of unconventional problem solving… And probably some elastic, paper clips, and duct tape…
Next we have Training Day, based on the 2001 Denzel Washington/Ethan Hawke movie. Set 15 years after the events of the film, it stars relative newcomer Justin Cornwell as the idealistic young cop who joins an LAPD elite squad. Bill Paxton (Agents of SHIELD, Aliens) stars as the seasoned, rather more morally ambiguous, veteran police officer who is assigned to be his partner.
Michael Weatherly
The 3rd new drama is Bull starring Michael Weatherly (NCIS), as the brash, but charming Dr. Bull. He is the ‘puppet master’ of a trial consulting firm, who uses psychology, human intuition and high tech data to work out what makes jurors, attorneys, witnesses and the accused tick. The show is based on the early career of Dr. Phil McGraw, who founded the trial consulting firm Courtroom Sciences Inc. before becoming a US tv household name with his show ‘Dr. Phil’.
And the last show on the list is currently called Pure Genius (although that may change. Was also known as Bunker Hill). Stars Augustus Prew (The Borgias, Kick-Ass 2) as a young Silicon Valley tech genius who hires Walter Wallace (Dermot Mulroney – Shameless US, New Girl) a surgeon with a controversial past to help start a hospital with a cutting-edge, ‘new school’ approach to medicine.
There maybe some more to come, but that’s the new show line up from CBS so far!
