Timeline
Video: Winter TV preview
By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times Television Critic
The winter ritual of death and rebirth known as the television midseason is upon us once again, that sacred rite by which the medium survives by sacrificing old shows to make room for new, in hopes of propitiating viewers and bringing good luck and better ratings. That’s the general idea, at any rate.
And here again, a partial, not wholly impartial accounting:
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| date | headline | series | description | html |
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| Jan. 7, 2013 | 'Deception' | NBC | Detective Meagan Good goes undercover in the family of her rich, dead former best friend to find what secrets lurk behind the cobwebs, in the closets, and under the carpets. Laz Alonso is the fed who puts her there, and Victor Garber, who is always somewhere on TV, is now here. Writer Liz Heldens has a “Friday Night Lights” pedigree. |
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| Jan. 9, 2013 | 'Washington Heights' | MTV | Glossy and gorgeous neighborhood docu-series set among friends and “friends” at the western tippy-top of Manhattan sends out an overall positive vibration, the odd brawl notwithstanding. (Fans of “How to Make It in America” — I can’t be the only one — could be happy here.) |
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| Jan. 10, 2013 | 'Deadliest Space Weather' | Weather Channel | How would Earth fare in the meteorological conditions of other planets? Think: You know the answer. |
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| Jan. 10, 2013 | '1600 Penn' | NBC | Already previewed sitcom features a wacky First Family that does not resemble any First Family you know. I am not being ironic. Eldest First Son Josh Gad, who co-created, has made himself wackiest. |
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| Jan. 12, 2013 | 'Cyndi Lauper: Still So Unusual' | WE | Hard-working Girl Who Just Wants to Have Fun seems to wear a different outfit in every shot of this follow-me reality show, co-starring her house-husband husband and teenage son. Relatively low drama, in a nice way. |
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| Jan. 14, 2013 | 'Pete Rose: Hits & Mrs' | TLC | Still banned from baseball and its Hall of Fame, the aging but in his own mind ageless Charlie Hustle at least has a reality show now. Former Playboy model and mother of two Kiana Kim is his much-younger fiancee. You do wish them luck. |
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| Jan. 14, 2013 | 'Continuum' | Syfy | Wired-up police agent Rachel Nichols travels back in time from an efficient but corporate-fascist future to modern-day Vancouver in pursuit of mass-murdering freedom fighters. (Yes, it is a Canadian series.) Logical conundrums abound. |
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| Jan. 14, 2013 | 'The Carrie Diaries' | CW | “Sex in the City” prequel finds smart-girl Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) a high school student in the kicky new wave 1980s while the ghost of John Hughes smiles from above. (Bonus for “Doctor Who” people: Freema Agyeman is aboard.) |
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| Jan. 15, 2013 | 'Real Husbands of Hollywood' | BET | Kevin Hart-produced parody reality show, with a dash of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” has Hart, Nick Cannon, J.B. Smoove, Robin Thicke and others making fun of themselves by seeming to take themselves seriously. |
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| Jan. 16, 2013 | 'Kroll Show' | Comedy Central | Nick Kroll (“The League”) gets his own sketch-type show. Jonathan Krisel (“Portlandia,” “Tim and Eric”) co-writes and directs. |
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| Jan. 17, 2013 | 'Legit' | FX | Impolitic Australian comic Jim Jeffries plays impolitic Australian comic Jim Jeffries in one of those comedies where disrespect can be a sign of respect and unapologetic horribleness becomes life-affirming. Dan Bakkedahl (nebbishy) and D.J. Qualls (quadriplegic, but just the character) help rewrite the rules. |
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| Jan. 17, 2013 | 'Newsreaders' | Adult Swim | Even faker fake news, more deeply and not actually reported, from some names associated with “The Daily Show” (including Rob Corddray and David Wain), and some names associated with those names. |
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| Jan. 19, 2013 | 'Ripper Street' | BBC America | Corking Victorian police procedural set in East London, just after that Jack the Ripper business. Matthew Macfayden broods majestically as the cop in charge (the historical Edmund Reid), flanked by right-hand man Jerome Flynn, who can take a punch, and left-hand man Adam Rothenberg, doing forensic science between debauches. |
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| Jan. 21, 2013 | 'The Following' | FOX | The first of the season’s two cult-of-serial-killers shows pits un-retired FBI agent Kevin Bacon against crazy literature professor James Purefoy and his several followers. Edgar Allan Poe is dragged in for literary weight. Kevin Williamson, of “Scream” and “Dawson’s Creek,” thought it up, bless him.
FOR THE RECORD: WINTER TV - An article in Sunday Calendar on Jan. 6 previewing upcoming television shows said that the “The Following” would premiere Jan. 31. It is to premiere Jan. 21. |
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| Jan. 22, 2013 | 'Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan' | BBC America | The human formerly known as the hobbit Merry shows himself at home with bugs and snakes, caves and jungles, exotic street cuisine and Third World bargaining customs as he goes in search of fabulous creatures that could kill him, but don’t. |
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| Jan. 22, 2013 | 'The Taste' | ABC | “The Voice”-style food competition features blind tasting and group mentoring, Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey are your culinary Adam, Christina, Blake and CeeLo, not necessarily in that order. |
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| Jan. 24, 2013 | 'Incredible Crew' | Cartoon Network | CN takes a page from the old, but not that old Nickelodeon playbook with this Nick Cannon-produced teencentric sketch comedy (a la “All That”), long on commercial and TV parodies, flying food, squirting liquids. |
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| Jan. 29, 2013 | 'Nikki & Sara LIVE' | MTV | Podcasting comics Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer (“You Had to Be There”) dip a common toe into the old media in this weekly late-night half-hour. |
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| Jan. 30, 2013 | 'The Americans' | FX | Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are Russian spies-next-door, living undercover in America, with American kids, in the Cold War year of 1981. (Ronald Reagan in the White House, “Tusk” on the soundtrack). This presents some unusual challenges. |
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| Jan. 31, 2013 | 'Do No Harm' | NBC | Steven Pasquale's brilliant neurosurgeon is bipolar like you would not believe in this Jekyll-versus-Hyde death match with notes of “House” and Cinderella and a faint aftertaste of “Awake.” |
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| Feb. 1, 2013 | 'Out There' (February 2013) | IFC | Small-town coming-of-age cartoon from “South Park” vet Ryan Quincy. Some characters are very hairy, with puppy-dog noses. |
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| Feb. 4, 2013 | 'Monday Mornings' | TNT | David E. Kelley gets back to medical drama, adapting a novel by CNN correspondent and real-life neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Bill Irwin, Jamie Bamber, Jennifer Finnigan and Sarayu Rao scrub up. |
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| Feb. 8, 2013 | 'The Job' | CBS | Hiring-fair elimination series sounds like “The Apprentice” with a soupcon of “Shark Tank.” (The person is the product.) Donald Trump is not in it. |
(CBS)
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| Feb. 14, 2013 | 'Zero Hour' | ABC | Anthony Edwards is that rare thing, a bald, middle-aged action hero, as ABC continues its quest to make complicated conspiracy thrillers work as network TV. This one, for the Dan Brown crowd, features Rosicrucians, Nazis, special clocks, apocalyptic prophecies, hidden maps, supernatural stuff and eternal recurrences — you know the drill. |
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| Feb. 14, 2013 | 'Immortalized' | AMC | Competitive taxidermy. Yep. |
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| Feb. 14, 2013 | 'Freakshow' | AMC | Family-enterprise reality show set at Todd Ray’s Venice Beach Freakshow, among its oddities, living, stuffed and pickled. |
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| Feb. 19, 2013 | 'The Cult' | CW | The second of the midseason’s serial-killerpaloozas has a meta aspect, as a TV show within the TV show starts inspiring mayhem within the show we are to take as real, but not within the show within the show, which we aren’t. Or are we? It would seem safer, somehow, to look away. |
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| Feb. 26, 2013 | 'Armed & Ready' | Travel Channel | Legless adventurer Kevin Michael Connolly trains with Army Rangers, climbs trees with lumberjacks, cliff-dives, surfs and does whatever else he wants to do in this sporty travel show. |
(The Travel Channel)
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| Feb. 26, 2013 | 'Golden Boy' | CBS | Theo James becomes New York’s youngest police commissioner, but not right away. Detective Chi McBride is his partner, his mentor. Note — moves to its regular night, Fridays, March 8 |
(CBS Broadcasting, Inc. )
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| March 1, 2013 | 'Bates Motel' (March 2013) | A&E | “Psycho” prequel from Carlton Cuse (“Lost”) and Kerry Ehrin (“Friday Night Lights”) stars Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore as mother and Norman Bates, before they both lived in the head of Anthony Perkins, except set now. |
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| March 3, 2013 | 'Red Widow' | ABC | Radha Mitchell is your ordinary wife and daughter and sister of criminals — and mother of two — placed by circumstances in the thrall of someone really bad. She will have to do some things she is less than comfortable with, I am willing to bet. (Yes, I know you were there first, “Mob Doctor.”) |
(ABC)
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| March 6, 2013 | 'Vikings' | History | They come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow. Forward-thinking Travis Fimmel is the Norseman who seeks to drive his ships to new lands, while chieftain Gabriel Byrne is happy to ply the hammer of the gods in the same old way. Nine episodes sort it out. |
A screen grab the "Vikings" promotional trailer.
(History Channel)
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| March 18, 2013 | 'Top of the Lake' | Sundance Channel | Jane Campion (“The Piano”) writes and directs a seven-part missing-girl mystery, with a cast including Elisabeth Moss, Holly Hunter and Lucy Lawless. |
(Sundance Channel)
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| March 30, 2013 | 'Orphan Black' | BBC America | Tatiana Maslany plays the lead and the lead and the lead and the lead and the lead in this made-in-Canada clone opera. |
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| March 31, 2013 | 'Masterpiece Classic: Mr. Selfridge' | PBS | A series-long biopic of the American founder of the fancy British department store chain will keep the costume in the drama after “Downton Abbey” shutters for the year. Jeremy Piven, whom you were not expecting, is the Selfridge in question. |
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Published: Jan. 3, 2013
Credits: By Robert Lloyd / Los Angeles Times Television Critic, TimelineSetter