Fall TV Preview: Fox and CBS

Geez, where the hell has the bloody time gone? Seems like summer's almost over already...The brats'll be heading back to school in a few days and the Fall TV season is almost upon us. In the case of Fox, it begins in just six days with the premiere of Vanished.

As I have in the past, I'm going to pick out one or two shows from each network's line-up that look like they actually might be worth watching, and I will start with Fox and CBS.

Fox's Til Death is not one of those shows. The new Brad Garrett vehicle strikes me as yet another lame sitcom about a married that you can not believe would ever be a couple. To tell you the truth, no sitcom on any network really strikes me as being anything especially special. It seems that networks and producers are concentrating more on dramas, especially serialized dramas in the Lost mode or CSI/Law & Order style procedural dramas.

The two on Fox that look promising fit into the later mold. Justice, in fact, is produced by CSI's Jerry Bruckheimer and appears to apply the CSI formula to defense attorneys, specifically a high powered, high priced lawyer played by Victor Garber.

Standoff, meanwhile, follows the CSI model by spotlighting an area of police work that has not really been explored in a TV series before. The show follows two hostage negotiators who also happen to be romantically involved.

Meanwhile, CBS has Jericho, the story of residents of a small Kansas town who survive a nuclear war. The previews that I've seen remind me of one of my favorite novels, Pat Frank's Alas! Bablyon, another tale of survivors of a nuclear war, and that similarity of premise has me interested and intrigued enough to tune in and give the show a shot.

When I return to this topic, I'll look at what's worth watching, if anything on NBC, ABC, and the CW.