What’s New on ABC in January 2020

The alphabet network (ABC) really seemed to clean house with several of their shows calling it quits.


Whether they decided to call it quits before getting cancelled is really just a matter of opinion.


Modern Family, How to Get Away with Murder and Fresh Off the Boat will take their final bow at the end of 2020, if not before.

Their only new show, Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time, in January will make their debut on January 7, 2020. 

Let’s be honest here, it’s not really a new show. Just an extension of an old one.


The show will feature all three of its biggest winners of all time: Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Jamez Holzhauer. 

Jamez Holzhauer, in 2019, won $2,712,216, Ken Jennings, in 2004, won $3,370,700, and Brad Rutter, in 2000, won $4,688,436.


The trio will compete in a series of matches until someone wins $1,000,000 and will be crowned the Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time winner.


Since all three of them have already won way more than a measly $1,000,000, the real prize is probably the claim to be the best; to win bragging rights.


It should be noted that Rutter has never been defeated by either a human or computer so many fans feel that the odds of him winning are in his favor, but it’s most likely anyone’s game.

While most networks found themselves having to cancel new shows, ABC hit gold with shows like mixed-ish, Stumptown and Kids Say the Darndest Things.  


Although the ratings for mixed-ish have slipped somewhat, there has been no talk of a cancellation.

The fourth new show, Emergence, has been the focus of rumors about the possibility of a cancellation and ABC has been mum about this. They currently have the show as TBD (to be determined) among the shows getting renewed.

So instead of having a couple of new shows coming on, they’re bringing back a couple of staples for their winter season premieres as well as those who took a Fall break:


January 4:

                        America’s Funniest Home Videos

January 6:

                        The Bachelor (2 hour season premiere)

                        mixed-ish

                        black-ish

January 8:

                        Modern Family

                        Single Parents

                        Stumptown

January 13

                        The Good Doctor

January 15:

                        The Goldbergs

                        Schooled

January 17:

                        American Housewife

                        Fresh Off the Boat

January 21:

                        The Conners

                        Bless This Mess

January 23:

                        Station 19

                        Grey’s Anatomy



You’re going to wait until February for American Idol (February 16), The Rookie (February 23), and April 2 for How to Get Away with Murder.

On February 11, 2020, ABC will wheel out the much anticipated show, For Life.

Fast facts:


Genre: Crime/Thriller


Created by: Hank Steinberg (61*, RFK, Without a Trace, The Last Ship)

Cast: Nicholas Pinnock as Aaron (Captain America: The First Avenger, Fortitude, Marcella, Barbarians Rising); Indira Varma as Kate (Attachments, Arena, Rome, Game of Thrones); Dorian Missick as Jamal (The Manchurian Candidate, Deliver Us from Evil, Law & Order, Southland, Animal Kingdom); Mary Stuart Masterson as Anya (The Stepford Wives, Some Kind of Wonderful, Fried Green Tomatoes, Benny & Joon, Law & Order: SVU, Blindspot); Felonious Munk as Hassan Nawaz (stand-up comedian)


Premise:

An inmate, while serving a life sentence, becomes a lawyer and fights to overturn his sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

Special note: Rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) is one of the producers. The production company involved, G-Unit Film & Television, is Jackson’s company.

The Boob Toober review:


Doing a weekly series about prison and prison life (regardless of the storyline) is a touchy subject. Doing a weekly serious about prison and prison life on network television is difficult. Doing a weekly series about prison and prison life on a network that is known for its family-oriented reputation as well as watering-down anything that might offend their conservative viewership is like doing a high-wire act.


There are a lot of stories to be told about prison life that can either be horrifying or uplifting, but the biggest obstacle here will be the show’s ability to tell a story that is believable. 


It also remains to be seen whether the showrunners can find an audience on ABC because if they try to appease the conservative viewers, they could risk losing both their urban viewers and those viewers who are either in prison or have family members that are/were in prison.


Risking damaging a working relationship with Curtis Jackson who, with his production company, has created quite an impressive resume as a producer could hurt them down the line as well.


The premise isn’t a new one, but let’s hope the way the story is told and how the characters react to their environment is certainly an original one.

New Shows on NBC Coming in January

For pretty much all of the television networks, January isn’t just the start of the new year. More importantly it’s the time to bring more new shows to the viewers.

Most executives are excited about the new shows, but how they feel and what their mindset is really depends on how well their fall TV season went.


All too often the new shows that looked promising didn’t fair too well and this can make the new shows coming on in January all the more important for the executive’s job security and, more importantly, their network’s ratings.


So what shows on NBC aren’t returning?


A couple of the shows such as Will and Grace and The Good Place are ending on their own. New shows Bluff City Law and Sunnyside have been cancelled.

Blindspot had been cancelled, but the network agreed to a final fifth season with only 13 episodes to basically wrap things up. 

At the end of the fourth season, Jane/Remi/Alice saw the cabin that held her teammates blow up due to a drone strike ordered by their own government and viewers can’t be left hanging not knowing what became of the gang. 


Viewers also need to see the evil Madeline get what she has coming to her.


Maybe Rich Dot Com and Patterson will finally hook up and everyone can stop yelling at their TV’s to ‘Get a room!’

So, with only two of its new shows cancelled, it appears NBC has had a pretty good fall season.

In January of 2020, some of their regular shows will have their season premiere and they are:


January 6, 2020: 

America’s Got Talent: The Champions

                        Manifest

January 7, 2020:

                        Ellen’s Game of Games (2-hour season premiere)

As of this date, NBC only has two shows making their series premieres and both of them are scripted TV shows.


January 7, 2020:

                        Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

Fast facts:


Genre: Musical/Comedy/Drama


Created by: Austin Winsberg


Cast: Jane Levy as Zoey (Shameless, Suburgatory, Twin Peaks, Castle Rock); Skylar Astin as Max (Pitch Perfect 1 & 2, Ground Floor, Graves, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend); Peter Gallagher as Mitch (Sex, Lies & Videotape, The Player, Malice, The O.C., Togetherness, Covert Affairs, Law & Order: SVU, Grace & Frankie, The Gifted); Alex Newell as Mo (The Glee Project, Glee, Empire); Lauren Graham as Joan (The Pacifier, Bad Santa, Because I Said So, Caroline in the City, Gilmore Girls, Parenthood, NewsRadio); Mary Steenburgen as Maggie (Time After Time, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Philadelphia, Nixon, Elf, Four Christmases, Book Club, Back to the Future, Ink, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Justified); John Clarence Stewart as Simon (Luke Cage); Andrew Leeds (Bones, Cristela).

Premise: Zoey develops psychic abilities after an MRI malfunction that enables her to learn the inner thoughts of people through pop songs.


The Boob Toober review: Let’s face it, scripted musical TV shows haven’t exactly done well. 


Anyone remember Cop Rock? 

However, this show looks to be fun and with everything going on in the world, this may be a good way to release the stress; to be able to relax a little and maybe even sing along to the songs. 


It also has a cast with several members having experience in musical theatre like Steenburgen, Gallagher, Stewart and Newell.

January 10, 2020:

Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector 

Fast Facts:


Genre: Crime/Thriller


Created by: Jeffrey Deaver author of The Bone Collector (the first in a 13 book series featuring Lincoln Rhyme)

Cast: Russell Hornsby as Lincoln Rhyme (Get Rich or Die Tryin’, Big Fat Liar, Creed II, Gideon’s Crossing, Lincoln Heights, Grimm); Arielle Kebbel as Amelia (Soul Plane, American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Think Like a Man, Gilmore Girls, 90210, The Vampire Diaries, Ballers, Midnight, Texas); Michael Imperioli as Rick Sellitto (Sopranos, The Watchmen, Good Fellas, Dead Presidents, Law & Order, Detroit 1-8-7, Mad Dogs, Hawaii 5-0, Jungle Fever, Lean on Me); Ramses Jimenez as Eric Ortiz (Fear the Walking Dead, The Dark Night); Brooke Lyons as Kate (2 Broke Girls, The Affair, iZombie, The American Mall); Tate Ellington as Felix (Red, Straight Outta Compton, Quantico, The Brave, Shameless).

Premise: Lincoln Rhyme, an NYPD officer who became a paraplegic after being injured on the job, along with rookie NYPD officer Amelia Sachs works to solve cases.

The Boob Toober review: Yes, another cop/crime television show. Although this one is a little different. 


Think an ultra-modern Ironside with more of a bite; more attitude, but in a good way.

They rebooted Ironside in 2013 and even brought in Blair Underwood to play the role of Ironside, but that didn’t seem to make a difference.

There were a lot of problems with the new version, but replacing an iconic actor Raymond Burr wasn’t a good idea. 


Burr also made it totally believable that he was confined to a wheelchair and Underwood didn’t manage to do that.


Reboots today work for the most part because the studios try to bring back the original characters.


Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector is based on a collection of popular books and there was a movie as well in 1999 which starred Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as Amelia Donaghy.

In both the book collection and the series Amelia’s last name is Sachs. In the movie it was Donaghy. 


Also in the book his caregiver is a man and in the series it’s a woman.


In the book Rhyme is a quadriplegic and in the series he’s a paraplegic.


Although it is unknown whether these changes will have any effect on the series, it may have an effect with the book’s fans.


Viewers also shouldn’t have a problem with someone new playing the lead role as Washington never reprised the character and the movie wasn’t even thought to be Washington’s best work.


As is the case with most TV shows, it’s the characters and their storylines that make the show, but with cop/crime shows it’s also about how riveting the cases are which is what made shows like Law & Order and Criminal Minds so good. 

On shows like Hill Street Blues, Adam-12, and NYPD Blue people were more drawn into the characters because that's how they were written; to be more character-driven than storyline-driven.

It will also be interesting to see how watered-down the cases will be since it is on network television as opposed to the graphic cases that were in the book series.

Review: The Outsider

On January 12, 2020, HBO will premiere a new series titled The Outsider, which is based on the novel by Stephen King of the same name.

The show opens up with the discovery of an 11 year old boy’s lifeless and nude body in the park named Frankie. 

An arrest is made quickly. It’s not some outsider, but one of the town’s most well-liked citizens-Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) who is a little league coach, teacher, father and husband.

Detective Ralph Anderson (Paul Mendelsohn) has everything it needs to convict him, but does he have the right person?

There is also a lot of circumstantial evidence and a video that shows Maitland was somewhere else at the time of his murder.

His wife Holly (Julianne Nicholson) continues to maintain his innocence, but Detective Anderson doesn’t really want to hear it.

True to Stephen King’s style, strange things start to happen like supernatural-ish stuff that’s hard to explain such as dark, hooded figures in bedrooms, mutilated deer and words written in blood  appearing suddenly on the skin. All that is accompanied by blood, fire and the dreaded spiders.

In other words, all things that Detective Anderson can’t explain through evidence.

Stephen King has stated that The Outsider (along with Stand By Me) are his two favorite works and is a little concerned that the showrunners may stray a bit from the book, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Many of his novels that have been adapted for movies such as The Shining, Misery, Needful Things and Cujo did stray a bit.

Most writers tend to have issues when people take a creative licensing hatchet to their work.

However, it doesn’t seem to be the case with HBO.

Also appearing in this show are: Cynthia Erivo, Bill Camp, Mare Winningham, Paddy Considine, Marc Menchaca, Yul Vazquez, Jeremy Bobb, and Hettienne Park.

The show will have 10 episodes and is surely going to keep King’s legion of fans happy as well as garner him some new followers.