Which of These New Fall TV Shows Will Fail First?
We're going to go out on a limb and predict that not every new television series this season will be a success. While recent years have brought new ratings hits in the form of This Is Us, The Good Doctor, and Young Sheldon, there have also been plenty of failures. At some point in the coming months, one show will be the first to go.
Which newcomer will be the first cancellation victim of the 2018-19 season? In the gallery above, we discuss the outlook for each of the 18 first-year shows headed to the five broadcast networks this fall. Note that this year (unlike in past years) we don't have quotes from critics' first impressions of the new fall pilots, since several networks have issued new guidelines to reviewers prohibiting such early reviews over the summer. (But over the past week several reviewers have started posting their evaluations of all the new fall shows, so we have summarized those where applicable.)
Debuts October 10 on The CW.
The Cast: Daniel Ezra, Taye Diggs, Samantha Logan, Karimah Westbrook, Bre-Z
The Premise: Based on the true life story of NFL linebacker Spencer Paysinger, the football-themed drama centers on an academically and athletically talented high school star from L.A.'s Crenshaw neighborhood who is recruited to play for the somewhat ritzier Beverly Hills High.
The Outlook: It only meets two of the four requirements for a CW show (high school students, producer Greg Berlanti, vampires, and DC Comics superheroes—we'll let you guess which two it doesn't have), but that could be enough, especially with another high school drama (Riverdale) as its lead-in. That said, it might have been a better fit for a network that actually airs football. But, like Friday Night Lights before it, the series will focus much of its time off the playing field, with producers actually citing The O.C. as an influence (given its similar story of a teen moving from a poor neighborhood to a wealthy one). If it really can combine the best of those two shows—and build on the promise of the pilot, which has good early buzz—The CW could have a winner.