Which of These New Fall TV Shows Will Fail First?
If there is anything we can guarantee about the fall TV season, it's that at least one of the highly promoted network newcomers will fail to catch on with audiences and meet a premature end. Heck, it happens every year.
But which freshman series will be this year's This Is Us, and which will be its Conviction? Below, we have picked out some of the pros and cons facing each of the new broadcast series debuting between September and November
Pros: Critics like star Jason Ritter, and his Kevin is certainly not the first TV character to have regular conversations with a spiritual entity. (In fact, Ritter co-starred on just such a show before: Joan of Arcadia.) Creators Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters have had some past critical success in the lighthearted drama genre (Agent Carter, Reaper), and this show's irreverence and hopeful nature could be a welcome antidote to the darker dramas so prevalent elsewhere.
Cons: The network has had a hard time settling on a title (it was The Gospel of Kevin until recently) as well as an actor to play Kevin's celestial friend (Cristela Alonzo had the role in the pilot, but now it belongs to Kimberly Hebert Gregory); both suggest that ABC isn't quite sure what kind of show it has on its hands. Even more than that, it suggests the network fears that viewers will (wrongly) avoid the show because of its perceived religious nature. Because of the recasting, there's no word yet on whether the pilot is any good.