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US Fall trailers: FOX, NBC.

Manifest, The Cool Kids, New Amsterdam, Proven Innocent & more.

It is Upfronts time in the US and networks have begun revealing their Fall schedule to advertisers.

NBC and FOX have so far given clients a taste of their new shows.

Descriptions come courtesy of Variety.

NBC

Manifest
When Montego Air Flight 828 landed safely after a turbulent but routine flight, the crew and passengers were relieved. Yet in the span of those few hours, the world had aged five years and their friends, families and colleagues, after mourning their loss, had given up hope and moved on. Now, faced with the impossible, they’re all given a second chance. But as their new realities become clear, a deeper mystery unfolds and some of the returned passengers soon realize they may be meant for something greater than they ever thought possible. From Robert Zemeckis and Jack Rapke comes an emotionally rich, unexpected journey into a world grounded in hope, heart and destiny. The cast includes Melissa Roxburgh, Josh Dallas, Athena Karkanis, J.R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, Jack Messina and Parveen Kaur.

https://youtu.be/_nFaAQTQNBY

New Amsterdam
Inspired by Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in America, this unique medical drama follows the brilliant and charming Dr. Max Goodwin, the institution’s newest medical director who sets out to tear up the bureaucracy and provide exceptional care. How can he help? Well, the doctors and staff have heard this before. Not taking “no” for an answer, Dr. Goodwin must disrupt the status quo and prove he will stop at nothing to breathe new life into this understaffed, underfunded and underappreciated hospital — the only one in the world capable of treating Ebola patients, prisoners from Rikers and the President of the United States under one roof — and return it to the glory that put it on the map. The cast includes Ryan Eggold, Freema Agyeman, Janet Montgomery, Jocko Sims, Anupam Kher and Tyler Labine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Vg5dpyno8

I Feel Bad
Emet is the perfect mom, boss, wife, friend and daughter. OK, she’s not perfect. In fact, she’s just figuring it out like the rest of us. Sure, she feels bad when she has a sexy dream about someone other than her husband, or when she pretends not to know her kids when they misbehave in public, or when she uses her staff to help solve personal problems. But that’s OK, right? Nobody can have it all and do it perfectly. From executive producer Amy Poehler comes a modern comedy about being perfectly OK with being imperfect. The cast includes Sarayu Blue, Paul Adelstein, Aisling Bea, Zach Cherry, Johnny Pemberton and James Buckley.

FOX

The Passage
Based on author Justin Cronin’s best-selling trilogy of the same name, “The Passage” is an epic, character-driven thriller written by Liz Heldens (“Friday Night Lights”). Executive-produced by Heldens, Emmy Award winner and Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Ridley Scott (“The Martian,” “Gladiator”) and writer/director Matt Reeves (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “Cloverfield”), THE PASSAGE focuses on Project Noah, a secret medical facility where scientists are experimenting with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease, but also carries the potential to wipe out the human race. When a young girl (Saniyya Sidney, “Fences,” “Hidden Figures”) is chosen to be a test subject, a federal agent (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, “Pitch”) is tasked with bringing her in, but ultimately, becomes her surrogate father, determined to protect her at any cost – even as Project Noah’s work threatens to unleash an unimaginable apocalypse.

REL
Inspired by the life of Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out,” “Insecure,” “The Carmichael Show”), REL is a multi-camera comedy starring Howery as a loving husband and father living in Chicago, who finds out his wife is having an affair, and must rebuild his life as a single father, following his divorce. The comedy also stars Sinbad (“A Different World,” “The Sinbad Show,” “Jingle All The Way”), Jess “Hilarious” Moore (“Wild ’N Out”) and Jordan L. Jones (“NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Wisdom of the Crowd”).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3rpbxfJxec

Proven Innocent
Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner and “Empire” co-creator Danny Strong partners with David Elliot (“Four Brothers”) to tell the emotional story of one woman’s fight for the innocence of others, as well as her own. “Proven Innocent” follows an underdog criminal defense firm led by a fierce and uncompromising lawyer, who was wrongfully convicted in a sensational murder case that made her an infamous media obsession, a household name and a national cause célèbre. The drama stars Rachelle Lefevre (“Under the Dome,” “A Gifted Man”), Vincent Kartheiser (“Mad Men”), Russell Hornsby (“Seven Seconds,” “Grimm”), Brian d’Arcy James (“13 Reasons Why,” “Spotlight”) and Tony Award winner Nikki M. James (“BrainDead,” “The Good Wife,” “The Book of Mormon”).

The Cool Kids
From executive producer Charlie Day (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”), “The Cool Kids” is a multi-camera comedy about a rag-tag group of friends living in a retirement community who are willing to break every rule in order to have fun – because, at their age, what do they really have to lose? The series stars four comedy veterans: Tony Award nominee David Alan Grier (“The Carmichael Show,” “In Living Color”), Emmy Award nominee Martin Mull (“Veep,” “Roseanne”), Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan (“Will and Grace,” “American Horror Story”) and Emmy Award winner Vicki Lawrence (“Mama’s Family,” “The Carol Burnett Show”).

https://youtu.be/sP-vqGmK5cE

Last Man Standing
Hit comedy “Last Man Standing” joins the Fox lineup. A fan-favorite for six seasons, the series stars Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, a married father of three girls, who tries to maintain his manliness, despite being surrounded by women. The series also stars Nancy Travis, Jonathan Adams, Amanda Fuller, Christoph Sanders and Jordan Masterson.

Cosmos: Possible Worlds
Airing as a global event on Fox and National Geographic in 180 countries and 43 languages, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “Cosmos” will return for its third season in Spring 2019. It will once again be executive-produced, written and directed by Ann Druyan (NASA’s Voyager Record, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” “Contact”); executive-produced by Seth MacFarlane, Brannon Braga and Jason Clark; and hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed pop-culture icon and astrophysicist. Continuing the legacy of its predecessors, “Cosmos: Possible Worlds” will translate the revelations of science into a lavishly transporting experience, taking audiences on a series of spiritual voyages of exploration. The new season will reveal previously uncharted realms, including lost worlds and worlds to come, and those that we may one day inhabit in a thrilling future we can still have.

8 Responses

  1. I’m gonna do my own Good, Bland and Bad list.

    Good: Manifest (NBC), Last Man Standing (FOX)
    Bland: New Amsterdam (NBC), I Feel Bad (NBC), The Passage (FOX), Proven Innocent (FOX)
    Bad: REL (FOX), The Cool Kids (FOX)
    It’s hard to judge doco series’ by a trailer so no thought on Cosmos. Also a bit sceptical that Last Man Standing’s trailer was recycled from the first six seasons. Not sure but still looks good.
    Mostly bland stuff. Don’t know how Brooklyn Nine Nine was cancelled for REL or Cool Kids. Manifest has me interested but execution has to be perfect for such a complicated genre.
    Also, did anyone else notice the extreme similarities between most of these trailers in terms of layout? Its like FOX and NBC hired the same editor and they just used the same template over and over… Hopefully The Passage proves me wrong about it being bland.
    I’ll be keeping my eye on…

  2. Manifest has been described as a cross between Lost and This Is Us. New Amsterdam got up because The Good Doctor and The Resident succeed (which both claimed to be novel political takes on ER but both ended up being fairly typical medical procedurals by the end of their first seasons). Seven has plenty of US medical dramas already. Will any of them get picked up for a full season? Will anyone in Australia want to buy any of them?

  3. Manifest looks interesting but requires good execution of a tough genre.
    New Amsterdam is a generic medical thingy with the, “caring one” as the new boss.
    I Feel Bad made me laugh.
    Rel is a comedy and I am not in the targetted audience.
    The Passage has possibilities if I can ignore the huge plot hole.
    The Cool Kids — three laughs which is nowhere near enough for a 2m 24s trailer.
    Proven Innocent — the writing for and acting of the lead actress is superb and might be enough to dip my toe back in a legal show.
    Cosmos’ pretentiousness makes my teeth ache.

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