Fox's Fall 2005

Here is Fox TV's somewhat confusing schedule. A number of shows on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday run from September to January and are replaced by shows debuting in January and running through to May. (As usual, list and grid originally provided by The Futon Critic.)

Cancelled: My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss, The Next Great Champ, The Complex: Malibu, Point Pleasant, Quintuplets, Jonny Zero, Kelsey Grammar Presents: The Sketch Show, Life On A Stick, North Shore, Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest For The Best, The Swan, Totally Outrageous Behaviour, Tru Calling, Who's Your Daddy, The World's Craziest Videos.

Retained: 24, American Idol, That '70s Show, Stacked, The O.C., Cops, America's Most Wanted, MADtv, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, The Family Guy, American Dad

Moved: House, The Bernie Mac Show, Malcolm in The Middle, Arrested Development.

New: Kitchen Confidential, Prison Break, Bones, Head Cases, Reunion, The Gate, The War At Home, The Loop.

Complete Schedule (New Shows in Capitals)

Starting in September
Monday
8:00-8:30 PM Arrested Development (New Day and Time)
8:30-9:00 PM KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL
9:00-10:00 PM PRISON BREAK

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 PM House (New Time)
9:00-10:00 PM BONES

Wednesday
8:00-8:30 PM That '70s Show
8:30-9:00 PM Stacked
9:00-10:00 PM HEAD CASES

Thursday
8:00-9:00 PM The O.C.
9:00-10:00 PM REUNION

Friday
8:00-8:30 PM The Bernie Mac Show (New Day and Time)
8:30-9:00 PM Malcolm In The Middle (New Day and Time)
9:00-10:00 PM THE GATE (working title)

Saturday
8:00-8:30 PM Cops
8:30-9:00 PM Cops
9:00-10:00 PM America's Most Wanted
11:00 PM-Midnight MADtv

Sunday
7:00-7:30 PM Animated Encores
7:30-8:00 PM King Of The Hill
8:00-8:30 PM The Simpsons
8:30-9:00 PM THE WAR AT HOME
9:00-9:30 PM Family Guy
9:30-10:00 PM American Dad

From January On
Monday
8:00-9:00 PM House (New Day and Time)
9:00-10:00 PM 24

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 PM American Idol
9:00-10:00 PM BONES

Wednesday
8:00-8:30 PM That '70s Show
8:30-9:00 PM Stacked
9:00-9:30 PM American Idol
9:30-10:00 PM THE LOOP

Fox also has one comedy available as a mid-season replacement.

Here are some brief summaries of Fox's new shows this season. Full summaries are found at the Futon Critic site.

Prison Break: A brilliant structural engineer launches an elaborate plot to break his brother (who he is convinced is incident) off of Death Row.

Bones: Emily Deschannel plays a forensic anthropologist and novelist based on real life novelist Kathy Reich. Dr Temperance Brennan is a brilliant forensic anthropolgist who has a remarkable ability to read the clues left behind in bodies so badly deteriorated that ordinary methods won't work. She works for the Jeffersonian Institutions Medico-Legal Lab with a variety of equally brilliant colleagues, and is frequently teamed with FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz from Angel) who distrusts scientists and science when it comes to solving crimes. They clash professionally and personally...but I'm willing to bet there'll be some of that old debbil sexual tension.

Head Cases: Chris O'Donnell plays superstar lawyer Jason Payne whose life takes a massive turn for the worse when his wife throws him out of the house and he suffers a nervous breakdown. After leaving therapy he finds himself with no job, no home and no support system except an "outpatient buddy" named Schultz. He's a low rent lawyer and eventually the two become partners to fight for the legal rights of the underdog and keep each other sane.

Reunion: The lives of six high school seniors is tracked over a twenty year period. The series starts at their 20th high school reunion where we learn that one of them has been died under suspicious circumstances...but we don't learn which one until the season finale. The episodes in-between deal with important moments in their lives.Will Estes, Sean Faris, Alexa Davalos, Amanda Righetti, David Annable, and Chyler Leigh star.

The Gate: Graham Hale (Johnny Mesner) and Ava Lyford (Marguerite Moreau) are detectives with the San Francisco Police Department's Deviant Crime Unit, under Lt. Matt Cavanaugh (Chi McBride). Hale and Lyford investigate crimes committed by some of the most abberant criminals in the city, but their own secrets and hidden agendas might end up destroying them. The Gate is a working title and might be changed by the time the series reaches the air.

The War At Home: David and Vicki (Michael Rappaport and Anita Barone) figure that if they can get their three teenaged kids safely off to college without a prison record, they'll be ahead of the game. The trouble is that they know all of the stuff they got up to when they were in high school; anything their kids might do, they did - twice. The series adopts a gimmick from reality TV by using "confessional" moments where the characters tell us things they'd never tell each other.

Kitchen Confidential: Chef Jack Bourdain (Bradley Cooper) is a brilliant cook who hit bottom through a combination of booze drugs and women. Now clean and sober he can't get a job until the owner of an upscale restaurant hires him to turn the place around...in 48 hours. Jack hires a trio of renegades from his past (played by Owain Yeoman, Nicholas Brendon, and Tony Cho) to help turn the place around while the boss's daughter Mimi (Bonnie Sommerville from NYPD Blue) waits for him to fail.

The Loop:Sam (Brett Harrison) has just started his first adult job at an airline but the temptation is always there to goof off with his buddies. Sam wants both options. He lives with his brother Sully (Eric Christian Olsen) who survives on a series of odd jobs, and his best friend (and secret crush) Piper (apparently uncast as yet). At work he has to deal with the constant demands of his boss Russ (Philip Baker Hall) and the constant sexual advances of his colleague Meryl (Mimi Rogers).

Comments: Is Fox trying to kill House? It's usually a bad sign when a series is moved around the schedule and they're doing it twice in one season, first from 8 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday then from Tuesday to Monday. A couple of the dramas look like they might work pretty well - The Gate has some of that X-Files feel to it - but of the comedies the only one that really interests me is Kitchen Confidential. I assume that Fox has Nanny 911waiting in the wings, because I have a feeling they'll need it.