Image via Complex Original
Last week, television networks Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and The CW debuted trailers for their new fall 2015 lineup, so we obvs watched all of them to bring you... OUR HOT FIRST TAKES. Which shows will become our guilty pleasures? Which ones will tickle our funny bone? Need a new Shondaland fix? How do we feel about Supergirl (stay tuned for our more in-depth post about that, by the way)? Here's a quick breakdown of everything we're excited about—and embarrassed to be excited about—come fall.
We all scream for Scream Queens
Yasss queen! Pair show creator Ryan Murphy with Emma Roberts (previously: American Horror Story), and you get a whole lot of blood and bitchiness. Shortly following the premiere of MTV's teen horror Scream this summer, the star-studded Scream Queens (which also stars Ariana Grande lol) will slash its way across TV screens with even more teen drama, gore, and tongue-in-cheek humor. Feeling slasher nostalgia? I sure am. I scream, you scream, we all scream for scream queens. —Kristen
DC's TV reign continues
DC Comics can't get their shit together on the silver screen, but on TV? They've had this shit locked in tandem with The CW for three years with Arrow (much longer than that depending on your opinion of Smallville) and there's no sign of complacency. Successfully launch The Flash into one of the best freshman series of this just-concluded TV season? Cool, now let's take it even further. A few of the heroes we've already met across both series and then some band together for an adventure of TV-budget-Avengers proportions? Don't be surprised if this ends up being cooler than the impending Justice League movie. —Frazier
Here's another hit, Shonda Rhimes.
Sure that show about doctors in the jungle bricked and Private Practice never had a tenth of the buzz its parent show Grey's Anatomy did (well, does). But Shonda Rhimes is a goddamn TV auteur now, a brand even. She can literally program an entire night on ABC primetime with the aforementioned vet Grey's Anatomy, YAS Twitter flagship series Scandal, and freshman graduate How to Get Away With Murder. Now she's adding to the family with The Catch and while I don't watch either of her three series due to a mix of light disinterest and lack of time, I can't front: this might be a joint worth carving time out in the schedule for. Mirielle Enos is a worthy addition to Shonda's squad of strong-willed alpha females, and the show's conceit looks interesting. Hard to sustain over a season or series, but intriguing nonetheless. May as well get in on the ground floor instead of being spoiled by Twitter like I usually am. Peep the twisty trailer above. —Frazier
Muppets!
An "adult," primetime mockumentary-style Muppets show? Sounds kind of random and desperate on ABC's part, but that's none of my business, though. The truth is, Kermit, Miss Piggy and the gang have a solid 60 years worth of fandom to lean on. The cynics will have their pitchforks out for sure, but the diehards will show out for it, as evidenced by that movie starring Jason Segel a few short years ago, that freaking quadrupled its budget. If there's one thing you can count on TV executives to (try to) continually exploit, it's nostalgia. —Frazier
The Most Awesomely Awful series that I will probably watch at least a few hours of: Lucifer
Lmao, Lucifer gets bored in Hell, comes to the City of Angels (GET IT?!) and starts helping the LAPD solve crimes? And not in some grand scheme to influence evil either, out of the latent goodness of his soulless heart. OK fam, sure thing. If that's not bad enough, Satan's portrayal as the charming cad with a cool accent and mischievous, evil glint in his eye is about as basic as basic gets. And the series is helmed by none other than Tom Kapinos, the same guy who brought us Californication which went from inoffensively funny to pretty damn worthless in record time. Every other procedural pilot sounds dull and over-formulaic—sorry, Kristen—but at least this sounds like garbage on an awe-inspiring level. —Frazier
Procedural Crime...with a twist!
I guess no one wants to watch straight-up crime procedural shows anymore (RIP CSI). I admit this begrudgingly 'cause my favorite TV show is still Criminal Minds and I hope it stays on TV FOREVER. The short-lived and underrated—but rather conventional—Stalker just got the axe earlier this week, as well, which begs the question: What do the people want? Perhaps crime shows with a TWIST? Fall 2015 is packed with the not-quite-CSI shows. ABC's Quantico is like Criminal Minds but way sexier and way more... Hunger Games, while the movie-to-TV adaptations Minority Report (Fox) and Limitless (CBS) lean towards the sci-fi. —Kristen
The Gossip Guys are all right
That's right Upper East siders, both Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick (read: Nate Archibald and the one and only Chuck Bass) have both been rescued from the unemployment line by ABC. Chace will co-star in Oil, which given the title, clearly has no shame in its bald attempt to be a modern Dallas (nevermind that TNT's been airing a true-blue Dallas sequel series for years now). I personally have no interest in another sprawling town-and-business centric melodrama—the oil magnate's played by Don Johnson, his son is a spoiled fuck-up whom he refuses to bequeath the business to, earnest brokeboi Chace is shaping up to be a surrogate son/rival brother blah blah blah. Westwick's Wicked City, on the other hand, has potential. It could easily fill the void recently vacated by The Following as a substance-less, borderline misogynistic serial killer torture porn, with Bill Compton Stephen Moyer stepping into Kevin Bacon's inept cop shoes. But the setting—1982 on the Sunset Strip—looks live, as is the overall premise that each hypothetical season will tackle a different era of Los Angeles. Plus, let's face it, Chuck Bass was one or two Mommy issues removed from being a serial killer anyway. —Frazier
That CW show with a wacky plot
The CW has been low-key killing it, but it's impossible to explain some of the shows' plots without getting a few raised eyebrows. Jane the Virgin and iZombie have both been standouts for me this year but, like, how do you sell "virgin gets pregnant and juggles two dudes" or "doctor becomes zombie, starts seeing visions and solving crimes"? You just have to watch it for yourself and fall in love. Which is why I'm giving CW's latest comedy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a chance despite its wackiness. It's about, well, a CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND who moves all the way across the country for love, and the trailer is beyond bonkers. (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb is an executive producer, which may explain the adorkableness and constant singing from its protagonist, Rebecca (Rachel Bloom). —Kristen
A CBS show actually worth watching?!
For the past decade or so CBS has, deservedly, been labeled the heartland's network, home to the most basic, formulaic, and unchallenging TV series, made to appeal to your grandparents and/or your cousins who write Mad Men off as boring and can't abide "bad-guy" protagonists. The last time I personally fucked with a show on The Eye was summer 2009's criminally underrated one-season slasher Harper's Island (it's on Netflix; enjoy and you're welcome). I almost didn't even watch any of their new trailers for this because, who really cares about CSI: Milwaukee and NCIS: Disney World, ya dig? And they surely wouldn't have anything as intriguingly awful as Lucifer. But lo and behold as I settled in to watch the Life in Pieces trailer expecting an even safer version of Modern Family—it is co-starring Colin Hanks, after all—instead we have a new family comedy that may just be worth our time, bruh. Bear through the trailer until the disparate members of the family tree gather together for a most unusual funeral and you might be as surprised as I was at the level of quirk lurking underneath the lily white surface (which, really? c'mon guys even Modern Fam will always have their diversity at the very least). Your boy might intentionally land on CBS for the first time in half a decade. —Frazier
That one actually good ABC comedy that'll probably get canceled
There's some curse on ABC comedies because actually good shows keep getting canceled (see: Selfie, Don't Trust the B in Apt 23). Is it because they have terrible titles? Or do I have terrible taste in TV? Hope I'm not jinxing anything here but I'm afraid Ken Jeong's new sitcom Dr. Ken might face the same fate. Hoping for the best, though, because I'm really loving the new influx of Asians on American television. —Kristen
Everything on NBC looks like Hot Garbage™
Listen, I fuck with Greg Berlanti, but another long-game conspiracy show just sounds exhausting and the Blindspot trailer isn't seducing me into taking the journey. Meanwhile your boy Wesley Snipes lost out on being Lucious Lyon just to play faux Nick Fury in an action series with inexplicable gambling metaphors (it's set in Vegas, that's why!) Zack Morris goes to that great place in the sky where all sitcom legends go to die: a much lesser sitcom that will either die quietly or quietly run for close to a decade even though everyone you know says they hate it. Melissa George is a doctor who's nice at basketball. The largely undefined Neil Patrick Harris variety hour sounds like a mess of Emmy-hosting proportions. Oh, and we can't forget the Heroes return absolutely no one asked for, validated here with a hilariously thin and pointless trailer. PASS on everything, fam. —Frazier
