Now That’s What I Call Network TV

(Clockwise from top left) High Potential, Doctor Odyssey, Joan, and Matlock are some of this fall’s most promising new network dramas. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Carlos Lopez-Calleja/Disney, Sonja Flemming/CBS, ITV, Tina Thorpe/Disney

Wait, did the 30 Rock joke come true? Have we time traveled back to 1997 through science or magic? Or maybe — maybe — is it that the new fall network-TV slate in 2024 feels more promising than it has in years? It’s not a sudden shift in ambition or scope; this year’s new network-TV dramas still largely comprise comforting hourlong mysteries and medical emergencies that get solved by improbably attractive people. None of these new shows are Lost, and aside from the flukey things happening over on the CW, none are even trying to be a genre outside of the current network-TV defaults of legal, medical, or criminal procedural.

And yet, a handful of this season’s new network dramas feel distinctive and appealing in ways that TV hasn’t seen for quite some time. It may be the Suits effect, an indicator of renewed Hollywood awareness that audiences actually do gravitate toward well-made episodic shows with a hooky premise and the promise of gentle, ongoing interpersonal drama. Maybe it’s the now proven appeal of 9-1-1 and a new respect for the staying power of Grey’s Anatomy. Whatever the case, more than one show in fall 2024 seems like it’s built on the bones of Bones (this is a high compliment) with a steady heartbeat of week-to-week stories anchored by a running full-season mystery that can be dialed up or down to keep viewers on their toes and increase the excitement for season premieres and finales.

High Potential and Matlock are the two that best fit this model, and they join last season’s breakout success Elsbeth, which works in a similar vein. Doctor Odyssey, the fall’s biggest win so far, leans on a tried-and-true love-triangle element rather than a long-arc mystery, and it too is a sparkling example of what could’ve been something rote and uninspired. It’s a well-made, relaxing new version of a premise that’s already eminently familiar, and that’s precisely the point of its appeal.

Shows like Matlock and Doctor Odyssey are legitimately strong network-TV debuts, but there’s also something of a pendulum effect happening here. Prestige exhaustion has been seeping into the TV landscape for a while, and it’s taken some time for old-school network TV to take advantage of an audience craving new options for light, escapist entertainment. This is the biggest takeaway from the fall dramas. It’s nice when TV feels like TV again! Except for the duds, of course. There are definitely still some duds. Here’s our preliminary best-to-worst ranking of these new series based on their potential to become long-running network staples.

Matlock 

Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS

Network: CBS
Premise: It’s a reboot of the original TV show starring an elder Andy Griffith as a criminal defense attorney … sort of. In the new version, Kathy Bates plays Madeleine Matlock, who talks her way into a new job at a high-powered law firm because she’s become the primary caregiver for her grandson, and she tells her colleagues that it’s just a coincidence that her last name is Matlock, like on the old TV show. Except! At the end of the pilot there’s a twist! Not everything about Madeleine Matlock is as it seems!
What it will remind you of in a good way: Yes, there’s some old Matlock vibes in there, but nü Matlock will remind you more of its CBS time-slot partner Elsbeth with fewer referential cases of the week and a toned-down sense of whimsy, but with a similar sense of “underappreciated protagonist surprises her colleagues” and a regular reminder that there’s a bigger mystery also at play.
What it will remind you of in a bad way: Familiar CBS procedurals with appealing main casts but underwhelming episodic mysteries (thinking of you, So Help Me Todd).
Notable features: The biggest is the Twist, but there’s also Jason Ritter and Skye P. Marshall as big-time law-firm partners and former marital partners, there’s the general sense of playfulness around its connection to the original Matlock, and maybe most important, there’s the fact that the creator and showrunner is Jane the Virgin’s Jennie Snyder Urman.
How long it should run: As long as Kathy Bates wants it to.
How long it will run: If it can beef up its week-to-week stories so that they have as much sparkle as the underlying premise and the Ritter-Marshall interpersonal chemistry, and if Bates is up for it, Matlock could make it at least three seasons easily. Maybe more? Let Bates cook!

High Potential 

Photo: Carlos Lopez-Calleja/Disney

Network: ABC
Premise: Kaitlin Olson is a single mom making ends meet by working nights as an overnight cleaner for the LAPD, and she also happens to have a Sherlock Holmes–level brain for patterns, details, and puzzles. She notices something awry with evidence left sitting around, pulls a Good Will Hunting, and gets brought in for tampering with an active investigation. Whereupon, obviously, the LAPD officers realize she’s a genius and ask her to please come help them do their jobs.
What it will remind you of in a good way: The million other network procedurals with the rough premise of “very smart not-cop helps out the cops, using unconventional methods.” E.g., Bones, The Mentalist, NUMB3RS, Elementary, Castle, White Collar, Elsbeth, Monk; does anyone else remember that one where the non-cop was a magician? This is a TV show that feels like a TV show in the most prime-time-network-drama sense.
What it will remind you of in a bad way: See above, re: the one where the non-cop was a magician.
Notable features: Casting Kaitlin Olson was this show’s best decision. Her performance is what makes it possible for Morgan — brilliant and also working menial, paycheck-to-paycheck jobs — to feel like a plausible, appealing main character. But High Potential also has Judy Reyes, Taran Killam, and Daniel Sunjata in the cast. It’s not going to exceed the usual ceiling for “non-cop helps cops solve crimes,” but it works well.
How long it should run: High Potential is not going the full Bones, but five or six seasons would do it justice and pay Kaitlin Olson the way she deserves.
How long it will run: A six-season show? In this TV economy? We can only hope.

Doctor Odyssey

Photo: Tina Thorpe/Disney

Network: ABC
Premise: It’s Boat 9-1-1. It’s Love Boat Medical. It’s Cruise Clinic. In the first episode there’s a guy who gets iodine poisoning from eating too much shrimp at the buffet.
What it will remind you of in a good way: This is a Ryan Murphy network-TV production, so you’ll catch some whiffs of his big network franchise 9-1-1, which is also this show’s time-slot lead-in. At least at the start, though, Doctor Odyssey is a more relaxing approach to medical emergencies. You’ll recall a bygone era when TV offered us the fantasy of a world where everything is mostly fine, most of the time.
What it will remind you of in a bad way: That time you got food poisoning after eating seafood.
Notable features: Joshua Jackson as the titular Doctor Odyssey is the important thing here (technically he has another name, but people call him Doctor Odyssey within 20 minutes of the pilot). There’s also Don Johnson as Cap’n Massey and Philippa Soo as Nurse Avery (she makes out with Doctor Odyssey almost immediately). The first episode has a two-minute love-triangle dance-off on the beach.
How long it should run: Until the stars go cold.
How long it will run: God willing, Doctor Odyssey will be lining Joshua Jackson’s pockets for at least three seasons, when everyone renews their contracts.

Joan

Photo: ITV

Network: The CW
Premise: The CW, still apparently a network, is limping along by purchasing some foreign exports and hoping they can be cobbled together to create a schedule, and thus — Joan! It’s a six-episode miniseries starring Sophie Turner; she’s a single mother in London in the 1980s. She has an abusive ex, and she becomes a jewel thief to support her daughter.
What it will remind you of in a good way: Grim historical British miniseries like A Very Royal Scandal, and a different British miniseries also out this fall called Rivals.
What it will remind you of in a bad way: The fact that the CW used to have shows like Riverdale and Supernatural, and now it’s this?
Notable features: Sophie Turner is the main draw here, because the role allows her to be nervy and gorgeous and anxious and messy. She’s a loving mother; she’s a manipulative thief; she’s a victim of Thatcherism, and what else can they expect her to do? She also wears wigs!
How long it should run: It will run six episodes because it is a British miniseries also airing in the U.K.
How long it will run: Once again: six episodes.

Brilliant Minds 

Photo: Rafy/NBC

Network: NBC
Premise: Zachary Quinto is a hyperserious neurologist based very vaguely on the remarkable British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. He consults on cases no one else can solve, and his methods? Baby, if you guessed they’re unconventional, you would be right.
What it will remind you of in a good way: The goal here is to work in the rough territory of House, The Good Doctor, and New Amsterdam. What if this doctor were different!
What it will remind you of in a bad way: The devastating failures of the American medical system.
Notable features: In the first episode, Dr. Wolf — who has face blindness, a fridge full of ferns, and a traumatic backstory involving his mother — kidnaps an elderly patient from the hospital, throws him onto the back of a motorcycle, and crashes the patient’s granddaughter’s wedding in hopes that the patient will briefly remember how to play the piano. Spoiler: He does.
How long it should run: Seven episodes.
How long it will run: This one does not have The Good Doctor’s legs, but people do love a doctor breaking the rules. Two seasons if they’re lucky.

Rescue: HI-Surf 

Photo: Zach Dugan/FOX

Network: Fox
Premise: Don’t think too hard about this one. They’re lifeguards in Hawaii, they run around beaches rescuing people who decided to surf despite the shark sightings, and they experience mild interpersonal drama.
What it will remind you of in a good way: Remember Baywatch? Probably you don’t remember it with much detail; it’s been a while. But this show is guaranteed to make you say, “Wait, is this what Baywatch was like?”
What it will remind you of in a bad way: Remember Baywatch?
Notable features: Everyone on this show is hot in anodyne, unremarkable ways, and none of the drama is especially striking. If you want lots of footage of people swimming through choppy waves, including extended sequences of very fit people carrying heavy things underwater for training purposes, though, this is the show for you.
How long it should run: Eight episodes.
How long it will run: It will teeter on the renewal bubble after season one ends and then disappear quietly into the ocean mists.

Murder in a Small Town 

Photo: Kailey Schwerman/FOX

Network: Fox
Premise: In this Canadian import, a new detective shows up in, yes, a small town, where, yes, someone gets murdered. He quickly becomes romantically involved with the librarian. The first episode makes it seem like this could be a long-running mystery but then it all fizzles out, we discover the famous guest star did it, and apparently this’ll become one of those small towns where a new terrible murder happens once a week.
What it will remind you of in a good way: Every other small-town murder project you’ve ever read or watched where the detective is gentle and well-meaning and it’s usually cloudy outside.
What it will remind you of in a bad way: Every other better version of this idea.
Notable features: The new detective is played by Rossif Sutherland; he’s probably intended to be sensitive and serious and appealing, but there’s a truly astonishing lack of sexual or even platonic energy to this man. Kristin Kreuk plays the librarian love interest. It’s like watching your nice aunt attempt to have chemistry with Depressed Canadian Paddington Bear.
How long it should run: Three episodes.
How long it will run: Other than the first episode’s James Cromwell guest-star role, Murder in a Small Town seems like a relatively inexpensive production. Maybe it gets to finish its season?