2015 Midseason Preview

The New Year is right around the corner which means all your favorite midseason shows are coming back and they’ll be joined by a pant-load of new ones vying for your affections. Check out the complete list of shows below in the order of their premiere dates. New series debuts have been given descriptive blurbs carefully hand crafted by slave labor in third world countries to give you an idea what to expect. The new shows that look the most promising are marked with an asterisk (No children were harmed in the manufacture of these asterisks).

Besides the returning series, I’m most curious about ABC’s Agent Carter and American Crime; AMC’s Better Call Saul; Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore; CBS’s The Late Late Show with James Corden; FOX’s Wayward Pines; HBO’s Togetherness; NBC’s Odyssey; Netflix’s Daredevil and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; and Sundance Channel’s Babylon.

Megan, Joey, Clarence and I will be discussing the shows we’re most excited about having back or checking out for the first time in our next ADTV Water Cooler Podcast (airing January 5), so take a look at what’s coming and let us know in the comments which shows you’re most looking forward to yourself.

Undercover Boss (1/2 CBS – Fridays)

Downton Abbey (1/4 PBS – Sundays)

Galavant (1/4 ABC – Sundays) 4-episode musical with tunes by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater filling the space during Once Upon a Time‘s hiatus. The story follows the heroic title character in his adventures against an evil king who stole his lady love.

The Celebrity Apprentice (1/4 NBC – Sundays)

Worst Cooks in America (1/4 Food – Sundays)

The Bachelor (1/5 ABC – Mondays)

*Marvel’s Agent Carter (1/6 ABC – Tuesdays) The Marvel super hero universe carves out another hour on the small screen with this 8-part post-war spinoff of Captain America. Haley Atwell (The Duchess, Captain America) plays Peggy Carter who does office work for the Strategic Scientific Reserve while also secretly doing espionage work for Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Iron Man’s dad and the future founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. James D’Arcy (Cloud Atlas) plays Stark’s butler, Jarvis, who assists Carter on her adventures. Agent Carter will occupy the time slot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. during that show’s winter hiatus.

Cougar Town (1/6 TBS – Tuesdays)

MasterChef Junior (1/6 FOX – Tuesdays)

The Challenge (1/6 MTV – Tuesdays)

American Idol (1/7 FOX – Wednesdays)

Empire (1/7 FOX – Wednesdays) This new musical drama set in the Hip Hop universe was created by Lee Daniels (The Butler) and it stars Hustle and Flow‘s Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson along with Gabourey Sidibe (Lee Daniels’ Precious).

Hindsight (1/7 VH1 – Wednesdays) On the eve of her second wedding, a woman is given the opportunity to see if she can make better choices in her life when she’s sent back in time to New York in the mid-90s on the morning of her first wedding to a man who was all wrong for her.

Archer (1/8 FX – Thursdays)

*Babylon (1/8 Sundance – Thursdays) This 6-part, hour-long police comedy-drama from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) originally aired on England’s Channel 4 and now it comes to the United States. Brit Marling (Another Earth) plays an American PR expert who travels to England to help spruce up the image of the London Police, but runs into conflict with the officers and administration including Police Commissioner James Nesbitt (Five Minutes of Heaven).

Portlandia (1/8 IFC – Thursdays)

Banshee (1/9 MAX – Fridays)

Cold Justice (1/9 TNT – Fridays)

Comedy Bang! Bang! (1/9 IFC – Fridays)

Glee (1/9 FOX – Fridays)

Episodes (1/11 SHO – Sundays)

Girls (1/11 HBO – Sundays)

House of Lies (1/11 SHO – Sundays)

Looking (1/11 HBO – Sundays)

Shameless (1/11 SHO – Sundays)

*Togetherness (1/11 HBO – Sundays) Indie filmmakers Mark and Jay Duplass (Jeff, Who Lives at Home) hit the small screen with this half-hour comedy-drama about two married couples sharing living space. Mark Duplass and Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, The Informant) play a couple whose relationship is fizzling. Steve Zissis (Jeff, Who Lives at Home) and Amanda Peet (Please Give, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) the other couple who are Duplass’s best friend and Lynskey’s sister respectively. Complications ensue.

Eye Candy (1/12 MTV – Mondays) This thriller based on R.L. Stine’s (Goosebumps) book of the same name follows a young hacker (Victoria Justice, LOL) who helps the police investigate a possible cyber-stalker.

Face Off (1/13 Syfy – Tuesdays)

Parks and Recreation (1/13 NBC – Tuesdays)

Broad City (1/14 COM – Wednesdays)

Man Seeking Woman (1/14 FXX – Wednesdays) Jay Baruchel (This is the End) plays a 20-something single guy who just wants to find the woman of… ZzzZZZzZZZZzzZZ.

Workaholics (1/14 COM – Wednesdays)

12 Monkeys (1/16 Syfy – Fridays) Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi cult hit starring Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis gets adapted for the small screen. A man is sent back from the future to stop a plague from destroying mankind except he lands a few years before the plague hits and gets institutionalized as a nutjob (is he or isn’t he?).

Helix (1/16 Syfy – Fridays)

The Fall (1/16 NFX)

World’s Funniest Fails (1/16 FOX – Fridays) Another in a long line of shows with clips of stupid people doing stupid things.

The Musketeers (1/17 BBC – Saturdays)

*The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (1/19 COM – Mondays) The Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore steps into Stephen Colbert’s rather massive clown shoes.

Justified (1/20 FX – Tuesdays)

Arrow (1/21 CW – Wednesdays)

Best New Restaurant (1/21 Bravo – Wednesdays) Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio hosts this reality competition show pits promising new restaurants against each other in challenges in hope of finding “Best New Restaurant.”

Backstrom (1/22 FOX – Thursdays) Rainn Wilson (The Office) is an ornery Portland detective in this crime procedural based on the novels by Swedish author Leif G.W. Persson.

King of the Nerds (1/23 TBS – Fridays)

Black Sails (1/24 Starz – Saturdays)

Sirens (1/27 USA – Tuesdays)

Suits (1/28 USA – Wednesdays)

The Americans (1/28 FX – Wednesdays)

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2/? HBO) Described by HBO as “documentary event,” this six-parter from Andrew Jarecki  and Marc Smerling (Capturing the Friedmans) “exposes long-buried information discovered during their seven-year investigation of a series of unsolved crimes, and the man suspected of being at its center – Robert Durst, scion of New York’s billionaire Durst family – and was made with his full cooperation.”

Fresh Off the Boat (2/4 ABC – Tuesdays) Chef Eddie Huang’s memoir about his Asian family’s assimilation into suburban US culture in the 1990s gets the sitcom treatment. While the show debuts on a Wednesday, its regular slot is Tuesday.

Allegiance (2/5 NBC – Thursdays) NBC rips off The Americans with Hope Davis and Scott Cohen as a couple of re-activated Russian spies who must convince their CIA analyst son to turn to betray his country.

*Better Call Saul (2/8 AMC – Mondays) Breaking Bad favorite Saul Goodman Attorney at Law gets his own hour-long spinoff series. Six years before he met Walter White, Saul was a lawyer named Jimmy McGill rising in the legal ranks defending all manner of Albuquerque scum. The show debuts in two parts on Sunday 2/8 and Monday 2/9. Its regular slot will be Mondays.

Schitt’s Creek (2/11 POP – Wednesdays) I almost completely wrote off this Canadian comedy debuting on the former TV Guide Network just based on the title alone until I realized it starred SCTV alum Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara. They play a wealthy couple forced to move to a backwater town after losing all their money.

The Slap (2/12 NBC – Thursdays) An eight-part drama based on an Australian mini looking at what happens when someone slaps another parent’s brat at a birthday party. Peter Sarsgaard, Uma Thurman, Thandie Newton, Melissa George, and Zachary Quinto star.

Rizzoli & Isles (2/17 TNT – Tuesdays)

The Odd Couple (2/19 CBS – Thursdays) Matthew Perry takes another crack at post-Friends success as the messy Oscar opposite Thomas Lennon’s (Reno 911) fussy Felix, the two friends from Neil Simon’s play (and the hit 70s sitcom) who are thrown together following a divorce.

Vikings (2/19 HIST – Thursdays)

The Night Shift (2/23 NBC – Mondays)

Survivor (2/25 CBS – Wednesdays)

The Amazing Race (2/25 CBS – Wednesdays)

House of Cards (2/27 NFX)

Battle Creek (3/1 CBS – Sundays) Because it doesn’t have any non-CSI ideas, CBS hopes lightning can strike twice for Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) and they’ve pulled one of his 10-year-old scripts out of the trash. Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters star as a pair of odd couple detectives in the titular Michigan town.

Secrets & Lies (3/1 ABC – Sundays) Former Mr. Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, stars as a man who finds a dead child only to get pinned for the murder. Juliette Lewis is the detective investigating the crime. In True Detective fashion, the story will be wrapped up over the course of 10 episodes.

The Last Man on Earth (3/1 FOX – Sundays) SNL vet Will Forte is the title character. Comedy ensues as he looks for other humans to repopulate the world.

Broadchurch (3/4 BBC – Wednesdays)

CSI: Cyber (3/4 CBS – Wednesdays) Because apparently the world needed another CSI show. This is their effort to appeal to a younger audience. The new team, which investigates computer crimes, is made up of Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), James Van Der Beek (Dawson’s Creek), Peter MacNicol (Ally McBeal), rap artist Shad “Bow Wow” Moss, and Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210).

*American Crime (3/5 ABC – Thursdays) Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Earl Brown, Richard Cabral, and Penelope Ann Miller star in 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley’s drama about racial tension unleashed by a murder trial.

Dig (3/5 USA – Thursdays) Jason Isaacs (Awake), Anne Heche and Lauren Ambrose star in this six-episode mini-thriller from the creators of Homeland and Heroes. An archeologist digging around Jerusalem uncovers an ancient conspiracy that could alter what we think we know about history.

*Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – (3/6 NFX) Tina Fey and Robert Carlock are the creators behind this new comedy about a woman (Ellie Kemper, The Office, Bridesmaids) who flees a doomsday cult and takes a job in Manhattan as a nanny for a wealthy socialite (Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock, Ally McBeal)

The Royals (3/15 E! – Sundays) We waged a war of independence almost 250 years ago so we could one day have sitcoms about English royalty. Elizabeth Hurley stars.

One Big Happy (3/17 NBC – Tuesdays) Ellen DeGeneres executive produces this multi-camera sitcom starring 24‘s Elisha Cuthbert as a lesbian who recruits her best friend (Nick Zano) to help her raise a child only to have him fall in love with and marry the woman of his dreams (Kelly Brook).

Undateable (3/17 NBC – Tuesdays)

*The Late Late Show with James Corden (3/23 CBS – Mondays) British actor James Corden (Doctor Who, Into the Woods) takes his first shot at hosting an American late night chat show when he takes over from Craig Ferguson.

Call The Midwife (3/29 PBS – Sundays)

The Dovekeepers (3/31 CBS – Tuesdays) Roma Downey and Mark Burnett who previously produced The Bible for TV turn their sights on the story of the Roman siege of Masada as told through the eyes of four women. Two-night miniseries.

Weird Loners (3/31 FOX – Tuesdays) More 20-somethings looking for love. These ones live in Queens.

Younger (3/31 TV Land – Tuesdays) Darren Star (Sex and the City) delivers a new show starring Sutton Foster (Bunheads) as a 40-something single mom who has to re-enter the working world and recruits her best friend (Debi Mazar) to give her a makeover so she can pass for 26.

Veep (4/? HBO – Sundays) No premiere date set as of this writing.

Silicon Valley (4/? HBO – Sundays) No premiere date set as of this writing.

Game of Thrones (4/? HBO – Sundays)  No premiere date set as of this writing.

Hannibal (4/? NBC) No premiere date set as of this writing.

Outlander (4/4 Starz – Saturdays)

A.D. (4/5 NBC – Sundays) In a sequel to History Channel’s The Bible, the story picks up after the death of Christ.

*Odyssey (4/5 NBC – Sundays) Described by the network as a Traffic-like action drama, Odyssey stars Anna Friel (Land of the Lost, Pushing Daisies) as a Special Forces soldier who discovers the jihadists her unit is fighting are funded by a U.S. corporation. Her unit is wiped out and the official story is that they were ambushed by the enemy, but Friel survives and knows that it was a private U.S. military contractor. Meanwhile, Peter Facinelli (Nurse Jackie) is a lawyer fighting a merger with the same jihadist-funding corporation and Nate Mooney (The Riches) is a hacker hired by a trust-fund activist to investigate the whole conspiracy.

*Daredevil (4/10 NFX) After a couple of previously aborted attempts at a series and one disastrous theatrical film, Marvel’s “Man Without Fear” takes another crack at the small screen.

Orphan Black (4/18 BBC – Saturdays)

*Wayward Pines (5/14 FOX – Thursdays) M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense and then some mostly terrible movies) produces this 10-episode miniseries starring Matt Dillon as a Secret Service agent sent to investigate a couple of missing Feds in the titular Idaho small town. Carla Gugino, Toby Jones, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo and Terrence Howard co-star.