• by Steve Sternberg , Featured Columnist, June 6, 2018

I’ve been evaluating network programming for more than 30 years.  During that time I’ve seen many excellent pilots flop as regular series, and more than a few lackluster pilots become long-running hits.  It’s relatively easy to pick misses, but the major hits usually come out of nowhere.  Although I did say last year that “The Good Doctor” was the best medical drama pilot I had ever seen, neither I nor anyone else predicted it to be one of the highest-rated shows on the air.

Here’s my take on this year’s crop of new fall pilots -- not predictions on which will be hits and misses, but rather which ones I liked the most, and which have the most potential if promoted properly.

Best Drama
"A Million Little Things” (ABC Wed. 10-11):  Friends from Boston, who met and bonded several years ago when they all got stuck in an elevator together, try to come to terms with why one of them committed suicide.  More uplifting than it sounds. ABC is hoping this will be its “This is Us,” and it has that potential.  Best new pilot I’ve seen this year.

Best Comedies
"Single Parents” (ABC Wed. 9:30-10):  A diverse group of single parents (including the always great Brad Garrett) lean on one another as they try to raise their precocious seven-year-olds.  It was a pleasure to watch a pilot I expected to be so bad that turned out to be this funny.  Only question is, can it be maintained on a weekly basis without getting stale?

"The Kids Are Alright” (ABC Tue. 8:30-9):  Two of my favorite TV actors, Michael Cudlitz and Mary McCormack, head a large traditional Irish-Catholic family trying to navigate big and small changes and the generation gap during the turbulent 1970s.  One resonant example: the pro-Nixon dad calls Watergate “phony news.”

Other comedy pilots that looked good: CBS’s “The Neighborhood,” starring Cedric the Entertainer, about a white family from the Midwest that moves into a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, and FOX’s “Rel,” starring comedian Lil Rel Howery, about a guy who lives on the South Side of Chicago trying to be a long-distance father after he discovers his wife is having an affair with his barber.

There is no pilot for CBS’s “Murphy Brown” reboot, since its creators wanted to be as topical as possible.  But how can a Murphy Brown take on “fake news,” social media and the Trump administration not be funny?

Most-Disappointing Pilots
"Magnum P.I.” (CBS Mon. 9-10):  It’s not that they inexplicably took the comma out of the title, or that they replaced the lead (Tom Selleck), a white guy with an iconic mustache, with a Hispanic guy with a goatee (Jay Hernandez), or that Higgins, a middle-aged white guy whose interaction with Magnum drove much of the original’s humor, became a woman with no humor at all.  It’s that there is no chemistry among the cast, and the comedic elements that made the original series seem so fresh at the time are virtually nonexistent here. Those who remember the original will be disappointed, and those who don’t will wonder what the fuss was all about.  Magnum would be better as a recurring character on “Hawaii Five-0.”

"Charmed” (CW Sun. 9-10):  The new cast members in this reboot have neither the charisma nor the chemistry of the original trio.

Hardest-to-Predict Pilots
God Friended Me” (CBS Sun. 8-9):  A self-proclaimed atheist with a popular podcast is friended by God on Facebook, and then poked to help strangers.  The pilot was better than I expected.  

"Manifest” (NBC Mon. 10-11):  When a turbulent flight lands, the passengers and crew discover that while only a few hours passed for them, five years have passed for the outside world.  This combination of “Lost,” “Resurrection,” and “The Leftovers” will be an instant hit or miss.

The Generic Pilots
ABC’s “The Rookie,” CBS’s “FBI,” and NBC’s “New Amsterdam” have decent casts trapped in generic, run-of-the-mill pilots.  It remains to be seen if that changes in subsequent episodes.