HBO has the classic slogan “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO.” FX has “Fearless.” Starz, for its part, has “Taking You Places.” But television as a whole should have an all-encompassing one: “No Days Off.”
Now that TV’s the new everything, there’s never any downtime for television junkies—there’s nothing like how January or August give moviegoers chances to save money and know that whatever’s new in theaters probably isn’t very good. Take this summer, for instance—in addition to returning favorites like Masters of Sex, a slew of strong new shows debuted and kept DVRs full and people’s schedules unmanageable, from HBO’s The Leftovers to FX’s The Strain and Cinemax’s The Knick.
And now that fall is here, it’s only going to get even more crowded. Just like Hollywood studio are busy getting ready to unveil their big-screen awards season hopefuls, TV network executives are scrambling to set up their plethora of new sitcom pilots and prestigious rookie dramas while also saying goodbye to shows like Sons of Anarchy and Boardwalk Empire and looking to reinvent others like Homeland and American Horror Story.
Clear your calendars, folks, because the next few months are about to work your TiVo boxes out. To help you navigate through all the small-screen programming, here are The Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2014.
Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
Sons of Anarchy (FX)
New Girl (Fox)
The Mindy Project (Fox)
Red Band Society (Fox)
Sleepy Hollow (Fox)
Gotham (Fox)
Forever (ABC)
Black-ish (ABC)
Scandal (ABC)
How to Get Away With Murder (ABC)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)
Manhattan Love Story (ABC)
Selfie (ABC)
Stalker (CBS)
A to Z (NBC)
Gracepoint (Fox)
Survivor's Remorse (Starz)
Homeland (Showtime)
Mulaney (Fox)
The Flash (The CW)
American Horror Story: Freak Show (FX)
Arrow (The CW)
Kingdom (DirecTV)
The Walking Dead (AMC)
The Affair (Showtime)
Jane the Virgin (The CW)
Stars: Gina Rodriguez, Justin Baldoni, Andrea Navedo, Brett Dier, Yael Grobglas, Ivonne Coll, Michael Rady, Jaime Camil
Premiere date: October 13
Admittedly, I didn't think twice about this show at first. The premise was a bit too much of a stretch for my taste: A straightedge career woman (Gina Rodriguez) who's spent her lifetime treasuring her virginity gets accidentally artificially inseminated during what's supposed to be a routine pap smear. What's more, the sperm turns out to be that of her cheating ex-boyfriend, whose battle with cancer left that sperm as his only chance for having a kid. Basically, it sounds like a storyline straight out of Passions.
However, the star of the series, Gina Rodriguez, stunned the crowd at the TCAs with a speech on cultural identity that could make anyone give this show a second chance. Here's just an excerpt (the complete version you can read here):
And for me, to look on younger girls and to say, ‘Well, Gina’s like me, maybe not necessarily the same skin color, maybe not necessarily the same background, but like that’s me. I’m not alone. I can do it too.’ So every role that I’ve chosen has been ones that I think are going to push forward the idea of my culture, of women, of beauty, my idea of liberating young girls, of feeling that they have to look at a specific beauty type. And I wasn’t going to let my introduction to the world be one of a story that I think has been told many times.
Yeah, I'm tuning in, at least for the pilot. —Tara Aquino