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Will Trent

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Thoughts on Gina Rodriguez set for another ABC gig as a new regular for the upcoming Will Trent season off the back of her stints on Not Dead Yet and Lucky 13

by Sports Benches

Didn’t know Gina Rodriguez is getting yet another ABC gig off the back of her time with the Not Dead Yet sitcom as Nellie which was recently axed over the summer after two seasons. First of all post-NDY, she was the co-host of the brand new Lucky 13 game show alongside Shaquille O’Neal that began last month. 

Now she will be a regular in season 3 of the hit Will Trent drama ahead of its mid-season launch in around January-February that is also on the same network and the same 20th Television production.

She will be playing an Assistant District Attorney lawyer, who is new to Atlanta & may be forced to work with Will to solve gang crimes within the area, named Marion Alba. Interesting to see if he will stick with Angie (Erika Christensen) or go with Marion? We shall see in the new year as Gina will be there for some time in Atlanta just like Erika whom they are both both based in the West Coast over in LA.

Looks like she and Disney are going onto another level now and good for her getting more screen time on ABC both as actress and TV show host. Yeah, life won’t be the same for NDY when they had a great following as it would be great if this would’ve been kept elsewhere even on Hulu. Unfortunately, continuous poor ratings is not something ABC wanted to keep at the end of the day & therefore, they decided to end NDY after season 2.

But life with Gina goes on ABC with more Lucky 13 where they’ll have back-to-back episodes next week.

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Thoughts on ABC’s new look for 2024-25 prime-time season with first trailers finally out for High Potential & Doctor Odyssey

by Sports Benches

Yesterday, ABC has revealed its 2024-25 prime-time TV schedule with a couple of changes to its line-up where the long-awaited High Potential joins Dancing with the Stars on Tuesdays at 10pm while Dr. Odyssey is a straight swap for Station 19 on Thursday nights where they have sandwiched in between 9-1-1 (another of Ryan Murphy shows) and Grey’s Anatomy at 9pm.

We can see some of the original HPI elements being transferred onto the upcoming American version as her name is Morgan Gillery (French being Morgane Alvaro) who always has a lollipop, furry clothing, three kids, cleaning attire including gloves and most importantly, a good brain with an IQ of 160 we didn’t know she can solve crimes that the police couldn’t do.

On Dr. Odyssey or Doctor Odyssey, we can surely tell you that this straight-to-series order is coming through a cruise ship and isn’t turning back with more details happening on the inside at a later date. So rest assured we will see the first bunch of episodes being filmed with a plot, trailer and full line-up of cast and characters soon enough ahead of its premiere around September/October. Again, an easy pick considering Ryan Murphy’s 9-1-1 was a good move from FOX to ABC this year and the network wants to work with him more when Shonda Rhimes’s properties nowadays other than Grey’s is now on Netflix.

For the Wednesday side, it seems Abbott Elementary will be the only sitcom out there at 9.30pm for now as The Conners’ final six episodes will be set at the mid-season mark with The Golden Bachelorette kicking things off for 90 minutes. Then they went with a limited-series documentary about a mother faking cancer which is based on a podcast called Scamanda.

And Sundays will all be about The Wonderful World of Disney rather than celebrity game shows following America’s Funniest Home Videos with some Mondays expecting to be The Bachelorette when the network isn’t airing Monday Night Football.

All we need to find out now in the coming months whether or not if Shifting Gears and Forgive & Forget will be joining both Abbott and The Conners as chances have been increased to have two new sitcoms onboard, even though it’s still not yet guaranteed when this Wednesday line-up for Fall looks a bit different. That way, they can make 2nd half Wednesday line-up more structured for their sitcom slate while the remaining hour block would belong to a revival of Extreme Makeover.

Plus, it would be best if ABC Signature updates their logo to the current network one when the on-air branding was last changed back in August 2021 as well as its ident too at some stage. Surely, it will look good to kickstart HPI (yes, it’s called High Potential but still calling HPI when it was a original hit in France) alongside Grey’s Anatomy & The Rookie.

Speaking of The Rookie, yes, they might be left with the main show now that The Rookie: Feds was axed after just one year but they still have plenty to offer and starting off in the 2nd half would put this show back on the map after celebrating its 100th episode recently. So understand that this show needs a bit of a rethink in order to get back to basics rather than splitting into two different timeslots back in 2022-23 – like Sunday at 10pm during the Fall & Tuesday 8pm during the winter. Don’t know where they will end up going into the new year but yeah, better to have a consistent timeslot on a certain day for this.

Will Trent also staying where they are, who might not be ready to get a full season ride at this stage when they were also a huge hit right from the very start. But then they began during the mid-season year after year and they don’t wanna change that isn’t broken that might see them fall on the wrong path going into Season 3. Again, we understand that tactic as well.

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Thoughts on the ABC Network this week seeing new cast members onboard on respective new shows as well as season renewal verdicts on the comedy side

by Sports Benches

It’s been a while since Easter but we have heard quite a lot over the last week from ABC regarding its shortlists of new shows hoping to impress management ahead of the Fall season later this year other than Dr. Odyssey, which went straight into series.

Kat Dennings joins Tim Allen who will play his character’s daughter Riley on Shifting Gears

She might not have been acting that much other than Dollface over the last couple of years, but the 2 Broke Girls star is ready to make her way back into prime-time TV now as she will be playing the daughter of Tim Allen’s character Matt on Shifting Gears. We know so far before her announcement that Matt, a successful car restoration owner, is set for a restoration of his own after his daughter was forced to move into his home alongside her teenage kids. Now her character’s name is Riley whom she had a strained relationship with her dad growing up before she married her boyfriend she hated while having two kids along the way, which turned out to be a divorce & now she moves back in hoping to make it work with her dad this time.

This is something we have yet to see when it comes to the Allen-Dennings working chemistry but they have got great experience performing in front of a studio audience before as is the setting Shifting Gears will go with where ABC doesn’t have a recent history of multi-camera sitcoms other than tons of single-camera stuff since The Conners back in 2018.

Thoughts on The Conners and Not Dead Yet renewal bubble

While most of the current drama shows have recently been given the renewal to stay on for next season other than Station 19 & The Good Doctor, we are still waiting whether two of the current comedy shows The Conners and Not Dead Yet will also be joining Abbott Elementary for later this year or not. First of all, The Conners has been great to ABC for a few years having recovered well from the Roseanne Barr controversy as their renewal would rest on 1-2 new multi-camera pilots. Meanwhile, Not Dead Yet is right now 50/50 since the ratings aren’t there but has a great following though with Gina Rodriguez (Nell) as they could come back for Season 3 depending on the network’s line-up on Wednesday nights that would best fit their viewers.

It would be great if they can give The Conners’ creator Sara Gilbert one last season to perfect a brilliant ending to the show in a way that would put great respect to the network as I guess this show will stay on a bit longer. We saw CBS axe The Talk last week, a daytime talk show she was involved with from the beginning for the majority, as they will have a shortened 15th season to wrap things up at the end of this year before a new African-American soap comes in by January called The Gates.

With that being said, The Conners will stay, Shifting Gears would be a definite yes & Forgive & Forget is dependent on Not Dead Yet’s fate as well as potentially other new comedy pilots coming into play soon enough but ABC’s further investment into multi-camera sitcoms would give them a slight advantage despite Burrell’s success with single camera stuff like Modern Family. And more viewers would drop out even more before it’s too late if Not Dead Yet stays on for a third season where there’s worse shows than this who didn’t rate well at the start and had to be abruptly be cut away before it even finished.

Phillipa Soo and Don Johnson join Joshua Jackson for ABC’s new drama show Dr. Odyssey

And lastly, we have two new additions for ABC’s new drama show Dr. Odyssey which is going to be a medical serial but this time it will be set on a cruise ship. So far it’s a straight into series order with Joshua Jackson playing the lead character & will also be executive producing who relies on charms to make things work. Now Don Johnson and Phillipa Soo has came onboard as additional leading cast members; Again, we don’t know which characters they will be playing as Dr. Odyssey is still developing before shooting its first scenes later this year. However, I guess Soo will be lead woman/the doctor’s lover while Johnson will be the veteran working with the doctor. Speaking of Soo, she’s been with ABC before when Dangerous Liaisons didn’t make it as a pilot ten years ago while she was on Hulu’s Dopesick for a few episodes back in 2021 under 20th Television studios. Don’t forget her husband Stephen Pasquale also appeared on ABC’s cancelled straight series pilot Avalon two years ago as the leading male cop alongside Neve Campbell’s Nic Searcy – also under 20th Television. It looks like the new show’s social media accounts is beginning to pop up now with the network’s text logo and its covers on it saying “new series coming soon on ABC and Hulu”; The new show and ABC are even following each other on Instagram which is good news despite no welcome post announcement. The same goes with High Potential whose new drama show will also arrive later this year despite staying idle for so long due to last year’s strikes,. Now here’s hoping for ABC to learn their lessons by not changing their minds on cancelling a straight series order ever again like it was over the last few years such as Avalon (2022), two untitled Alec Baldwin comedy projects (2018 and 2021) & even While You Were Breeding (September 2023) via Freeform.

What’s next before we finish April and enter May?

I guess ABC Signature is currently seeing their current broadcast TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, The Rookie and The Good Doctor reaching its finish line soon for this shortened prime-time season thanks to the writer’s and actors’ strikes for most of last year, which is probably the reason why they haven’t come up with the next season pilots just yet. But I guess we will at least see one new drama and comedy pilot coming up from their end and hopefully, they get a new logo and outro since ABC updated their on-air ident for a few years now. And if any new shows are to join past the pilot stage, I expect to see 1-2 new comedy pilots depending on Not Dead Yet as well as at least one new drama show replacing The Good Doctor (High Potential doesn’t count since it’s from last year and Dr. Odyssey would fit in between 9-1-1 & Grey’s on Thursday nights).

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Entertainment

Thoughts on the ABC Network finally unveiling their weekly scripted programming line-up a few days ago for the rest of the shortened 2023-24 Prime-Time TV season

by Sports Benches

Finally this week, ABC has now able to finalise their weekly scripted programming schedule that will run between February and around the middle of 2024 following a long & painful six month hold up from the writers and actors strikes. As it stands during winter to spring on weekends, Saturdays is for sports and Sunday is full of non-scripted and reality tv stuff including its long-time return of What Would You Do? straight after two hours of American Idol at 10pm. Plus, Fridays will always be Shark Tank at 8 before ending the weekday week with two hours of true crime reporting of 20/20 between 9-11pm.

But some shows will have brand new time slots this time on a different day of the week. We will now see The Good Doctor on Tuesday nights at 10am beginning on the 20th of February after The Rookie (9pm) and Will Trent (8pm) as Mondays will all be reality and non-scripted starting in late January with the two-hour Bachelor show at 8pm as well as a limited 20/20 spin-off true crime series (name TBA). Then Wednesdays will always be the home of comedy with a plethora of half-hour sitcoms kicking off a few weeks beforehand (1st to 2nd week of February) such as new seasons of The Conners (1/7), Not Dead Yet (1/7) & Abbott Elementary (1/14) between 8-9.30pm. Although the new season episode of Abbott Elementary will go for an hour, it remains to be seen what the 9.30-10pm slot will be like at a later date – probably a repeat of Abbott unless ABC can find something else to fit in since Home Economics won’t be coming back after 3 seasons. We will also get to see an hour in all-new season of Judge Steve Harvey at 10pm as well. And there will one newcomer moving in after six season from a different network (FOX) called 9-1-1 on Thursdays, which focuses on Los Angeles’s first responders department. Meanwhile, the Grey’s Anatomy franchise has shuffled a bit where the flagship show remains at 9pm after 9-1-1 while spin-off firehouse drama Station 19 will now be at 10pm rather than 8pm. All of these action packed shows will be back on March 14th.

Post-Notes

Interesting take there considering The Good Doctor has followed Dancing With The Stars from being on Mondays for a long time to Tuesdays now. If The Good Lawyer came in which the strikes have saw them miss the cut, then it would’ve been a 10pm Tuesday night show that follows on a day after the main show. The Thursday line-up is fine while Mondays will be the new reality by sharing with Monday Night Football & I guess Wednesday is a little difficult for ABC in regards to the 9.30-10pm time slot. But I guess with The Conners approaching its end & depending on the Season 2 performance of Not Dead Yet, they might to bring one new comedy show going forward – having not taken any new ones from their recent pilot cycle earlier this year. I do assume though by Fall next year, High Intellectual Potential (adopted from France) will be a perfect fit at 10pm on Wednesdays replacing A Million Little Things since it’s a crime comedy show. And I’m sure another new drama or two will be up on Sunday nights during the months go by in 2024 for the next pilot cycle as scripted programming is here to stay but the main focus for ABC going forward is that they will go or chop & change after each year for quality than quantity.

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