By Billy Whyte
It’s always exciting when Fall rolls around the calendar each year; the weather gets cooler, Alabama starts its annual domination at football, and a new batch of exciting, mostly terrible, television shows come on air.
For all the time spent watching wonderful breakout shows such as last year’s “Homeland” or “New Girl”, most of our time is spent watching one year duds such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “I Hate My Teenage Daughter,” or “Are You There, Chelsea?” And really, this isn’t that surprising considering an overall drop of quality programming of late has led to a bunch of confounding renewals ranging from the boring “Touch” to the downright atrocious “Whitney.”
And that’s why I’m here, to go dumpster diving through a sea of mediocre television shows and find a few hidden gems worth watching this fall so you won’t be wasting your time watching the horrible ones. After conducting research and watching multiple pilots, here are my picks for the new shows worth watching this fall.
“Last Resort” (Premieres Sept. 27 on ABC)
The show is about a renegade crew of a missile submarine that defies order to launch nuclear missiles at Pakistan and then is attacked by their own government without warning, leaving the crew for dead on an island. Knowing that they are enemies of their own country, they make camp and declare themselves their own sovereign nation with nuclear capability until they are able to prove their innocence and get back the US. And if that isn’t cool enough, the show stars movie star Scott Speedman (the vampire/werewolf from the Underworld movie series) and Emmy winner Andre Braugher. An awesome premise combined with great actors means it should definitely be an exciting show worth watching.
“Arrow” (Premieres Oct. 10 on The CW)
What are the two most popular individual super hero movie franchises right now? The Batman and Iron Man series. What do they have in common? Some billionaire becomes a complete badass after experiencing a life-altering event and decides to fight crime and injustice. So if we love Batman and Iron Man, in theory we should love “Arrow,” a show about an arrogant billionaire playboy coming home after being presumed dead and becomes a vigilante that devotes his time to fighting crime and righting the wrongs of his family; all so he can make amends for his past actions. Plus, Stephen Amell looks perfectly cast for the role, and the show is based on the thrilling and underrated DC comic book “Green Arrow,” which means, if the quality of the comic book’s plot is any indication, the TV show should be great.
“The New Normal” (Premieres Sept. 11 on NBC)
The premise is a gay couple (“The Hangover” star Justin Bartha and Tony Award winning “The Book of Mormon” star Andrew Rannells) find a single mother to be a surrogate to help them start a family, much to the annoyance of her mother. First, I would like to say it’s hard for me to endorse any Ryan Murphy show, especially considering the recent disastrous third season of “Glee.” But, like “Glee” and “American Horror Story,” the pilot was a lot more original and captivating than most new shows coming out, and was funny and original enough to at least be given a shot this fall.
“Revolution” (Premieres Sept. 17 on NBC)
The show is about a post-apocalyptic future where all technology had been permanently disabled, forcing people to adapt to a world without technology and a collapsing society. The focus of the show is on the Matheson family, who possess an item that can not only tell them what caused the technology crash, but maybe even a possible way to reverse it. The premise sounds intriguing enough and the show’s budget guarantees some cool visuals at least. But really the main reason to watch it is because it’s produced by J.J. Abrams (creator of “Lost”) and stars “Breaking Bad” villain Giancarlo Esposito as the show’s bad guy. Those two men alone guarantee the show will at least be worth watching.
