FOX's Fall 2003 Schedule (1 Viewer)

[Dan Rudolph]

Yes, fastlane is gone.

Finally! Something to watch on Fridays.

Don't get your hopes up. Fox's record is that anything on Friday will make it 1 season, max. I believe the last show to go longer was Millennium, which ended 4 years ago.

 

[Derek Miner]

Fox showed the pilot for TRU CALLING and teased WONDERFALLS and STILL LIFE at the San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend.

My view is that TRU CALLING is a big disappointment. The dialogue was astonishingly bad and the plot a big jumble.

From the description above:

TRU CALLING combines the sexiness and speed of "Alias" with the procedural crime format of "CSI."

Okay, I don't watch ALIAS, so I can't comment, but the influence of CSI is in the show, but only superficially. The pilot actually owed more to RUN LOLA RUN, as we are treated to many, many... many shots of Eliza Dushku running around town accompanied by pounding techno music. Oddly enough, Tru is never out of breath (An awkwardly placed throwaway line tells us she was a track star, though). Appropriately enough, the first question asked of the show's cast and producer at a Q&A was, "Is she ever going to get a car?"

The second piece screened by Fox was the first six minutes of WONDERFALLS. This series is due to premiere in January, I believe. The description above pretty much hits the basic plot. The style is very much in the vein of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, The clip shown was actually quite amusing. I laughed heartily several times. The lead, Caroline Dhavernas, has a lot of potential, I think. The opening of the show paints her much like Enid in GHOST WORLD, expressing her contempt for the world with sarcastic comments, but the show description makes me think there are a lot of places to go with her. Someone from this show (I didn't catch who) announced at the Con that Tim Minear from ANGEL is coming on to be the show runner.

Former BUFFY exec-producer Marti Noxon actually showed up to introduce a teaser for STILL LIFE. The clip was essentially an extended promo, giving an overview of the plotline. The show is definitely straight drama. The hook, as described above, is that the show is narrated from beyond the grave by the dead son. I can't really pinpoint what this show will be like. It will depend heavily on the characters being compelling rather than deathly boring.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The ONLY thing that makes the show like Alias is a gorgeous girl running around for a huge chunk of the show.

It's like this

Tru: I need to keep you safe!
Girl: No! Why won't you leave me alone?
Tru: You need to let me help you! But first I need to run 57 blocks!

The good news being: Faith Fu maybe a Fall 2004 project now

 

[JohnAP]

Overall, pretty uninteresting. I wonder who thought moving Boston Public to Fridays was a good idea. The last few seasons have taught us that Friday nights are the best way to kill a Fox drama.

The only shows besides that that I really liked were Futurama and Firefly, so maybe I'm just still disappointed about those shows. And as for the Firefly unaired eps, I don't believe Fox had any intention of showing them over the summer, they just said that to avoid flack and then waited and hoped everyone would just forget about it. Since we have the dvds coming, I guess it really doesn't matter.

 

[Steve_Tk]

The only thing I'm interested in is what is not mentioned. Sunday Football Pregame show and Sunday Football games.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

My guess is that the DVDs are the reason WHY they aren't being aired. The ratings wouldn't be great for the airings, so they're much more valuable as "exclusive unaired episodes."

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Fox is also putting Bernie Mac on Friday. Are they trying to kill one of their most successful shows or do they have soem weird idea that they can recreate TGIF? Not when it's teamed with Wanda at Large and Boston Public they can't.