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Shifting Gears

Entertainment

Thoughts on ABC’s early 2025 schedule for mid-season with new show premieres, season resumption and season finale dates revealed

by Sports Benches

There was a huge announcement about ABC’s mid-season schedule beginning in January 2025 and finally not only we will have season premieres for some new shows both reality & scripted but also season resumptions and season finale dates for some already booming content as well. 

Comedy/Sitcoms

Let’s start with the comedy side and it looks like Tim Allen’s brand new show Shifting Gears will kick off Wednesdays at 8pm starting January 8th followed by the ever popular Abbott Elementary to round off the hour at 8.30pm. Then 9 & 10 pm slows will be taken by both Celebrity Jeopardy and the already returning What Would You Do? social experiment show.

What does it mean for The Conners? Well looks like their six-episode journey towards the finish line for season 7 will begin around the Spring time in March. 

This is interesting as maybe we will get to see all three sitcoms after all while they can always throw in another version of The Bachelor franchise if they like or else have a bit of Steve Harvey airtime (total of 90 minutes) like it was earlier this year.

Oh, it’s also nice to see the updated Shifting Gears logo that is good for TV now this is set for takeoff not long from now. You can see the pilot version of the show above before their full season approval by the network not long later. 

Drama

Looks like High Potential and Doctor Odyssey will get a second half season run since their new shows have been going relatively well. HPI to be back in action to solve crimes straight after Christmas and New Year where they will be sandwiched between mid-season premieres of Will Trent and The Rookie at 9pm since Dancing With The Stars have already finished with their year by now. Who would love a full night of dramedys? Everyone asked and ABC has delivered it in return.

Plus, Doctor Odyssey, 9-1-1 and Grey’s Anatomy as part of the Thursday band will be back to empty the tank from early March to around mid-late May as usual.

Everything else?

Yes, Monday night will be seen differently other than a new season of The Bachelor at 10pm, with one coming out the Hulu unscripted library called The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. There’s still no premiere yet for Celebrity Wheel of Fortune for Pat Sajak’s final wheel as host but looks like it will either be on Monday or Wednesday for the spring cycle. Again, maybe Wednesdays would be a good time to roll off both on a high going into mid-2025 on Pat’s Celebrity Wheel (will be expected to continue next season under everywhere man Ryan Seacrest) and The Conners. 

And if that’s not enough, we finally see the season premiere reveals for a number of other new unscripted shows. The revival of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be home on Thursdays for at least two months starting January 2 & the long-awaited Docuseries Scamanda will finally begin from January 30 until the usual Thursday scripted gang takes over again.

Then we will get to see which next new comedy and drama shows will be up for pilot or maybe straight-to-series when these projects usually hit within the year-long development mark also going into early next year as most future studio ties will be under 20th Television going forward having recently took over ABC Signature. We shall find out until then including the possibility of an all-new 9-1-1 spin-off (not FOX’s Lone Star) specifically for ABC that could take place from Hawaii.

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Entertainment

ABC Network News: Thoughts on Tim Allen’s Shifting Gears set for a series order in early 2025 while Ty Burrell’s Forgive & Forget does not as his project won’t be moving forward

by Sports Benches

So there we have it, ABC’s mid-season comedy line-up is all set with three rather than four shows going into early 2025. 

Abbott Elementary continues yet another full season (Currently on Season 4) at the halfway mark while The Conners’ 7th and final season begins at the same time with six episodes to go, and now Tim Allen’s Shifting Gears joins the party as the next new sitcom for ABC since the recently axed Not Dead Yet back in early 2023. In case you missed it, its about Tim’s persona Matt going through a personal restoration of his own on top of his successful restoration car business when his teenage daughter moves in alongside her teenage kids following her divorce on what is going to be a long ride together from here.

That means, Ty Burrell’s Shifting Gears pilot unfortunately didn’t make it into the network’s plans – so no series order from them. Thought they would be up there after a year of in-development alongside someone who is well known for Modern Family before being given a pilot order a few months ago. 

But then things began to go downhill I’m afraid when it comes to the pilot presentation after management got the chance to watch this for an assessment. 

Although some of the bits and pieces were not bad including some crucial tweaks, such as the re-cast of Hank’s son in a bid to appease management. But again, the plot when being added on a video tape copy just couldn’t quite translate what the network wants to offer to their audience for TV. 

It would’ve been great if a sitcom like this be on any one of the TV networks out there to tackle dementia in a positive way had this gone into a series for mid-season.

At the end of the day, it’s ABC’s decision – who doesn’t sound confident on showing a sitcom that would potentially upset some of the audience – about someone having dementia & wanting to make memories while he can that affects the elderly. 

Especially when Forgive and Forget was filmed in front of a studio audience which is something the network wants to do to cut costs going forward. Probably another reason why Burrell’s project didn’t do well when his Modern Family success was via single-camera. Maybe ABC would’ve gave them another chance there instead in a different format, but then they’re less reliant on single-camera comedies & more into drama and reality/unscripted as said with their $$$.

To those who had the chance to watch the pilot, glad you saw it whereas the TV audience may not be able to ever since it’s going to be archived in a warehouse vault. But you never know what’s going to happen since these failed pilot lifelines being picked up by other networks are very rare as 20th Television is not forgiving and forgetting this one just yet.

And on Shifting Gears, we all know having this star power cast alongside a killer script/plot for Tim Allen’s next TV gig was easy enough for ABC to bring them in following their pilot presentation last month. Sure, it’s almost like a straight-to-series as always where their selection process is based on quality than quantity – see High Potential as a reference from early last year based on the hit French police dramedy, while they also had some off-set changes lately likewise with Burrell’s latest pilot. 

But this is a project that’s still highly well regarded just to make sure all systems can go for the network to begin foster a good relationship with the viewers via Allen once again like it was in the past when you look back at Home Improvement and later Last Man Standing.

What will look like as said with their 2025 mid-season schedule, mainly on Wednesdays, is maybe they’ll start with 60-90 mins on reality from 8pm followed by 90 mins of comedy and maybe another half-hour from elsewhere.

That’s the plan going forward as keep an eye out on Shifting Gears over the next few months such as the key art, logo, pictures and the first look promo before they will finally make it on the air early next year. For now, congratulations to Allen with the call-up once again as we look forward to see him return to the Disney family on ABC & 20th Television soon enough.

Note: The Shifting Gears logo above was maybe via a pilot presentation screenshot on IMDB as this may not be the official one being implemented by ABC but we’ll see.

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Entertainment

Update on ABC Network’s two sitcom pilots of 2024 with a good chance of having both Shifting Gears & Forgive and Forget on the air for mid-season in January/February 2025

by Sports Benches

So two of the ABC half-hour comedy pilots of 2024 is now up to the pilot filming stage recently with Shifting Gears already had their presentation over the past week which will be seen by management while Forgive and Forget has just begun doing it on their own before following the same process. As we all know, Shifting Gears is all about a father (Tim Allen) who run a successful classic car restoration business but needs time to try and re-connect with his long lost daughter who just moved into his house alongside her teenage kids. Forgive and Forget, on the other hand, has something to do with Hank (Ty Burrell) wanting to re-connect these memories with his son Ben while he can after he was unexpectedly diagnosed with dementia.

Yes, the decisions is still not yet been finalised but they’re getting there with first-look trailers and official photos expected to come out in 1-2 months ahead of an expected airdate going into the mid-season cycle in either January or February 2025. That’s where ABC will be able to bring it home with their Wednesday sitcom line-up where another top season of Abbott Elementary goes on as well as the last six episodes of Season 7 in The Conners before their end of era and maybe 1-2 new sitcoms coming in with both Shifting Gears and Forgive and Forget – should the executives be happy to give the green light.

According to today’s update from Deadline by Nellie Andreeva, it looks like both new sitcoms will certainly be going ahead into a series order this time around. Here are the reasons why:

  • Both sitcoms are in a multi-camera format that is cheaper for the network to produce as part of their plans going forward;
  • Both sitcoms have star names in their respective pilots such as Tim Allen (Home Improvement, Last Man Standing, Toy Story and The Santa Clause) and Kat Dennings (2 Broke Girls) for Shifting Gears as well as Ty Burrell (Modern Family) in Forgive and Forget;
  • Both sitcoms’ plots/scripts for the next prime-time cycle went well that is so fitting for ABC to roll both of them out going into the new year in place of Home Economics and Not Dead Yet whose shows have already been axed.

Yes, having both sitcoms going forward almost feels like a straight-to-series order but at least the network is taking their time that bests fit their audience on the the big ABC on TV and Hulu across on-demand/online thanks to their year-round development process when the traditional “Pilot Season” may be a thing of the past. So no more quick decisions as if it’s an elimination contest where they typically pick a couple for pilot, send back for the executives upstairs for an assessment and then some will get the chance while others be thrown out and have their copy being archived in a top-secret vault storage.

I also had a look of Shifting Gears’ IMDB profile page today and they too now got their intro title card off the back of their recent pilot taping as this might not be the show’s official logo if they were given a series order but you never know. Watch this space as ABC is very certain to welcome two new sitcoms onboard (and both also under the subsidiary 20th Television umbrella) featuring two veterans of Tim Allen and Ty Burrell any minute from now over the next few weeks to months.

UPDATE 29/6/24: I also just saw the logo now of Forgive and Forget via Diana Maria Riva’s instagram page from a few days ago who plays one of the characters there (Hank’s ex-wife and shares an adult son together with Ben) on the other ABC comedy pilot. Likewise with Shifting Gears, they both come in a multi-camera format that has a studio audience/laughing track in it as part of the network’s plans to make these scripted sitcoms more affordable going forward. With that being said and as long as the pilot presentation goes well based on the script plot and its acting performance, this one will most certainly join Shifting Gears as one of ABC’s two brand new comedy shows during the mid-season mark in around January/February 2025.

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