One of my regular late August / early September rituals is combing through the broadcast networks' fall premiere schedule and verifying that I've set up the DVR to record the shows as they are coming on. I usually have this finished by late August, but I'm running behind this year.
I took a look at this season's schedule, and it's a beast. As a "comic book guy", I feel compelled to check out some of the new offerings based on books I've read. On another note, as the film industry has hemorrhaged quality writers (a topic too lengthy to get into here), the state of episodic television storytelling has risen exponentially in recent seasons. Thus, my DVR will be working overtime this season. Here's what's I'm recording this year (schedule in Eastern Time):
Sunday
Once Upon a Time (8p, ABC – for Holly)
Boardwalk Empire (8p, HBO)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (8:30p, FOX - for Holly)
Family Guy (9p, FOX)
The Walking Dead (9p, AMC)
Comic Book Men (12a, AMC)
Monday
(Until 10/27) The Big Bang Theory (8p, CBS)
Gotham* (8p, FOX)
Sleepy Hollow (9p, FOX – for Holly)
Scorpion* (9p, CBS)
Tuesday
The Flash* (8p, CW)
Agents of SHIELD (9p, ABC)
Supernatural (9p, CW)
New Girl (9p, FOX – for Holly)
The Mindy Project (9:30p, FOX – for Holly)
Chicago Fire (10p, NBC)
Wednesday
The Middle (8p, ABC)
Arrow (8p, CW)
The Goldbergs (8:30p, ABC)
Modern Family (9p, ABC – for Holly)
Chicago PD (10p, NBC)
American Horror Story: Freak Show (10p, FX)
Thursday
(After 10/27) The Big Bang Theory (8p, CBS)
Elementary (10p, CBS – for Holly)
Scandal (9p, ABC – for Holly)
Friday
Constantine* (10p, NBC)
Midseason
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Agent Carter* (ABC)
The Newsroom (HBO)
Better Call Saul* (AMC)
Mad Men (AMC)
Cougar Town (TBS – for Holly)
(* denotes new shows added to the roster.)
Sunday and Tuesday's line-up has three shows on the list going at the same time, so we're due to upgrade our current 2-tuner TiVo to one of the new 4-tuner baseline models to keep up with the lineup. While this season seems to be pretty light on comedies (we lost "The Office" and "How I Met Your Mother" in recent seasons, with "Parks & Recreation" starting later on), there are a ton of comic book properties (7) I want to check out as well as some of my older standbys ("Supernatural", "Chicago PD/Fire", "American Horror Story").
By my count – and excluding Holly's shows – the DVR will be recording 14.5 hours of content each week by the end of October when the season's in full swing. It's extremely unlikely that I'll be able to keep up with that volume, so some shows will have to be postponed to DVR purgatory or dropped during the season. However, the new shows look like strong contenders, so this may be tricky. I may need to designate specific shows as "binges" and resign myself to catching up with them during the Thanksgiving to January hiatus around the holidays.
I've compiled this list each year for the last five years or so, and this might be the biggest I've ever seen it grow. There's a lot going on here, so it will be interesting to see how the season progresses and how well I shed the "must clear the DVR" compulsion I have from time to time.
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