Fox is going through some changes for its fall and midseason schedules for the 2019-2020 TV seasons, which will be a great thing for fans looking for more sports-related entertainment during the primetime week. Not so much a great thing for fans of Empire, though, as it looks like Season 6 will be the drama's final year on Fox. But before we dig into the details, let's check out the network's full fall schedule below.
MONDAYS8 p.m. - 9-1-1 Season 39 p.m. - PRODIGAL SON Season 1TUESDAYS8 p.m. - The Resident Season 3 (New Night)9 p.m. - Empire Season 7 - (New Night)WEDNESDAYS8 p.m. - The Masked Singer Season 29 p.m. - NOT JUST ME Season 1THURSDAYS7:30 p.m. - Thursday Night Football Pregame Show8 p.m. - NFL Thursday Night FootballFRIDAYS8 p.m. - WWE's Smackdown LiveSATURDAYS7 p.m. - Fox Sports Saturdays: Fox College FootballSUNDAYS7:30 p.m. - The OT8 p.m. - The Simpsons Season 318:30 p.m. - BLESS THE HARTS Season 19 p.m. - Bob's Burgers Season 109:30 p.m. - Family Guy Season 18
Let's go through all the points accordingly, shall we?
The New Shows
First up, we have Fox's recently renewed hit 9-1-1 leading into the Greg Berlanti-produced killer-chasing thriller Prodigal Son, which will center on former Walking Dead star Tom Payne as a criminal psychologist whose main target is his serial killer father, played by Masters of Sex vet Martin Sheen. The show sounds like bloody hoot, and will also stars The Orville's Halston Sage, Scandal's Bellamy Young and Longmire's Lou Diamond Phillips.
The other big new drama on the schedule is Not Just Me, which will be from mega-producer Jason Katims, of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood fame. In the show, Timothy Hutton (American Crime) plays a father and fertility doctor who reveals to his immediate family that he used his sperm in over 100 conceptions over the years. The series centers on sisters played by Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), Emily Osment (The Kominsky Method) and Megalyn Echikunwoke (90210) who come together to form a sisterly bond while navigating their ever-changing personal lives.
Third up, we have a new animated project project joining the Sunday-night lineup, Bless the Harts, which was created by Last Man on Earth vet Emily Spivey. The show centers on a Southern family that always struggles with money problems but is otherwise rich on life and love. It has an all-star cast including SNL's Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, Workaholics's Jillian Bell, The Mindy Project's Ike Barinholtz, among others.
The Big Changes
Tuesday nights will obviously look different on Fox now, with the medical drama The Resident shifting over to Tuesday nights, in order to make room for Prodigal Son on Mondays. The Resident left fans with a big cliffhanger to worry about when Season 2 wrapped up, so that'll likely be where things kick off for Season 3 on its new night.
As well, Empire is moving from Wednesdays to Tuesday nights, which is a strange move for the established drama, even taking into account all of the controversy-tinged headlines that dinged up the back half of Season 5. Fox also revealed that Empire will be ending with Season 6, which will help to curb so many questions about Jussie Smollett's involvement in the last batch of episodes. (It's worth noting that Empire will celebrate its 100th episode in Season 6.)
Welcome WWE and NFL Primetime
Part of the reason why Fox's scripted slate got sidelined for the 2019-2020 season is because the network has lucrative deals with the NFL and the WWE. (It's not entirely independent of Disney taking over the majority of Fox's commodities.) The fall season will see Fox taking its second-year stab at Thursday Night Football, which spent years as an exclusive on CBS, NBC and the NFL Network. The telecast has been criticized for airing lesser contests, but Fox has aimed to bring the best it can.
The popularity of the WWE has waned in recent years for several reasons or another, but that could change now that the pro wrestling organization is being embraced by one of the Big 4 networks. While the flagship Raw series will remain on USA, Vince McMahon's later-week series Smackdown Live will be making the jump with its roster of superstars. Friday nights have a pretty specific TV-viewing demographic, and it'll be interesting to see how many people turn into the live fights.
Held For Midseason
While the schedule above shows that The Masked Singer Season 2 will be around for Wednesday nights, Fox announced that the costume-friendly competition was renewed for Season 3, which will be debuting on February 2, after the Super Bowl, and it will make its regular time slot premiere on Wednesday, February 5.
As well, Fox will be holding the hit series Last Man Standing and The Orville for midseason debuts. It makes obvious sense for The Orville, which is an effects-heavy show that requires lengthy pre-productions and post-productions. Last Man Standing's midseason debut is possibly a choice made by the creative team, or it's possibly because of the lack of schedule room, although it's hard to know what Fox is going to do for Friday nights when Tim Allen's sitcom is expected to return.
To be expected, there are also a ton of new projects coming to the midseason that fans will surely get excited about once more previews start getting released. There's Deputy, which stars True Detective's Stephen Dorff in a neo-Western from Training Day and Suicide Squad's David Ayer. Filthy Rich is a saucy soap about a wealthy and religious family headed by This Is Us' Gerald McRaney and Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall. Meanwhile, in the cyber-drama neXt, Mad Men's John Slattery will play a Silicon Valley mastermind whose A.I. developments start working against him.
On the comedy side, there's Duncanville, from Parks and Rec's Amy Poehler and The Simpsons' Mike and Jane Scully. Poehler voices the 15-year-old fantasy-embracing Duncan and his mother. The show also boasts Modern Family's Ty Burrell, Poehler's former P&R co-star Rashida Jones and lots of other awesome comedic minds.
The other animated comedy is The Great North, from Bob's Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, which follows a unique family of Alaskans headed up by Parks and Rec's Nick Offerman and his real-world wife, Will & Grace star Megan Mullally. SNL vet Will Forte and Bob's Burgers' Jenny Slate will co-star.
Finally, Jason Biggs will make his primetime sitcom mark for Outmatched, in which he and Lethal Weapon's Maggie Lawson will play parents to a squad of four children, where three of them happen to be certified geniuses. The show comes from L.A. to Vegas creator Lon Zimmet, so expect the show to be a little more over-the-top than its mild premise implies.
So, there you have it, TV fans. Fox is going to some interesting places in 2019 and 2020, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend to learn when all these shows will be making their big debuts.
