Conversely, It Felt Like Few People Came to the Fox Upfront

Apparently renewals for 911 and The Resident were up in the air right up until crunch time, so that may explain why no one from either of those shows popped by the Fox presentation on Monday. At least they got the two biggest stars from 911: Rob Lowe, but you’d think they’d have stacked the deck with as many of them as possible, no?

The new shows on FOX are few. That ghastly-looking Susan Sarandon (and Trace Adkins, and Anna Friel, and randomly Beth Ditto of The Gossip) country music drama, Monarch, got shoved to the fall from its January slot, so that’s finally allegedly coming to us. Jon Hamm has an animated cop show from the same group that makes Bob’s Burgers, and Hannah Waddingham — not present, probably busy shooting Ted Lasso — heads a comedy called Krapopolis about “a flawed family of humans, gods and monsters that tries to run one of the world’s first cities without killing each other.” It also stars Richard Ayoade (whom I like) and Matt Berry (on whom I am neutral). There’s an LAPD missing person’s unit show that hasn’t been cast yet, but one of the EPs is John Eisendrath — famously of Beverly Hills, 90210 — so let’s hope it’s FULL of people who have been on that show. Finally, there’s Accused, an anthology show starring Marlee Matlin, Jill Hennessy, and Michael Chiklis, which is based on a UK series and ” opens in a courtroom with the accused without knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial. It follows how an ordinary person got caught up in an extraordinary situation, ultimately revealing how one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back.” Billy Porter is listed as a director, so that’s fun. And that’s IT. TV is really in a period of contraction, no?

[Photos: Photo Image Press, Andrew H. Walker, AFF-USA/Shutterstock]