By Arts and Entertainment Editor Nicole Bansen and Assistant Arts and Entertainment Editor Brandon Benarba
September is an exciting month for television. With summer coming to an end, it is goodbye beaches and hello remote control. It is the return of popular favorites, a few of which will be finishing this year, and a fresh start for new series premiering this fall.
A common thread among shows this year is popular actors and actresses making their return to television. One of the biggest faces returning to television is Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar in the sitcom The Crazy Ones. The show, which is Williams’s first television series since 1982, follows Williams and Gellar as a father-daughter pair in charge of an advertising agency, and the challenges of running a company with family. The show is set to premiere on CBS on Sept. 26 at 9 p.m.
Premiering at the same time is The Michael J. Fox Show, which is loosely based on the titular actors life. Fox plays a news anchor diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease who retires to focus more on his health and family. NBC is putting a lot of faith behind the three-time Emmy winner, as they have already ordered a full 22-episode season for the show.
After making multiple successful movies, Marvel studios is cooperating with ABC to bring their film universe to the television screen. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sees Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) returning from the dead to assemble a team of top-agents to protect the world. Joss Whedon, creator of multiple fan-favorite television series and director of The Avengers, is directing the first episode and will help oversee the entire show. Early showing of the pilot episode generated a lot of positive buzz about the show, but we will have to wait until Sept. 24 to see what happens.
Two popular shows are also getting spin-offs this year, with The Vampire Diaries and Once Upon a Time both receiving a spin-off series. The Originals follows the world’s original vampires and their return to a vampire controlled New Orleans. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, which is based on the famous Lewis Carroll novel, takes Alice (Sophie Lowe) out of the Story Brook’s asylum and thrusts her into Wonderland. Both spin-offs will have returning characters from the original series. Both shows are set to air in October.
How I Met Your Mother, one of the most popular comedies currently on air, is coming to an end this year. The final season with begin airing on Sept. 23. The show, which finally showed off the infamous mother (played by Anna Camp) last season, is splitting the focus of this season between the wedding of Robin and Barney and building the relationship between Ted and the nameless mother.
Strangely, this season’s plot line is going to take place over a single weekend, which should make the 22-episode season move right along.
Starting this year, FX is launching a comedy-focused channel called FXX, which is set to launch with the newest seasons of The League and Always Sunny In Philadelphia on Sept. 4. Always Sunny will launch their ninth season, and like every season, there will be plenty of guest appearances, including a episode inspired by Game of Thrones.
The biggest returning show this fall is The Walking Dead, which will begin its fourth season on Oct. 13 on AMC. Fans of the show had mixed opinions about how the third season ended, but the new showrunner Scott Gimple is promising a new threat for the group, and the return of last season’s antagonist The Governor. Still, the new season is set to deliver on what made the show popular in the first place: blood, zombies, and brutal kills.
Big, returning names is the theme of the upcoming television season. It seems that major networks are relying on these big names in order to bring in views for their new series, but they probably will not be able to steal views away from the final season of Breaking Bad.
