TV Surveillance

The peak into next season rolls on with Fox, the network known for two things: canceling great shows and “American Idol.” Sadly, the network did not do much with its 2009-10 schedule to change that perception, as a few cult favorites met their unfair demise and the “Idol” effect continued to power Fox’s scheduling practices.

However, though Fox has that unfriendly stigma, it is hard to knock its moves, as the network ended up with seasonlong ratings victories in all three major age demographics (18-49, 18-34 and 25-54) and the highest-rated program (“Idol”).

Therefore, Fox didn’t have that many holes to fill in the schedule – but made a few interesting choices anyway.

New shows

Of all the groups of new shows, Fox’s stable seems to be the worst. On paper, only one of the newbies looks good, one could be solid and the rest will probably be canceled by Thanksgiving.

The aforementioned bright spot is “Human Target,” a program loosely based on a DC comic about a bodyguard who takes on a different identity each week to protect people. The premise isn’t groundbreaking, and it will probably deviate far from the comic, but the cast is fantastic – including Mark Valley (“Fringe”), Chi McBride (“Pushing Daisies”) and Jackie Earle Haley (“Watchmen”). And television could always use another action-centric program. Sadly, the show won’t debut until 2010.

“Glee” debuted this past spring when Fox was trying to test the waters of its potential, and most critical response was positive. I felt like that episode juggled tonal issues and some cliched writing, but I certainly saw many things I liked. It will be interesting to see how much patience the network has with it.

The other new programs are really lame. So lame I’m not even going to mention them, moving on.

Returning shows

This is where Fox made some noise. Even though the network had a lot of success this past season, it is seemingly willing to take risks and try for even more instead of sitting back with what it has.

The biggest shocker came when Fox decided to bring back the buzzy but horribly rated “Dollhouse,” which it shifted to Fridays before it ever debuted in February and never gave a whole slew of support.

But rabid critical and fan response, which always happens with a Joss Whedon product, to the latter arc of the season and Whedon’s assurance that he could produce the show on the cheap convinced Fox that it was better to deal with the devil they know than the one they do not.

Alas, in the midst of the “Dollhouse” renewal, Fox decided to axe that program’s Friday night partner in ratings failure, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” which probably shot itself in the foot with an excruciatingly slow midseason arc, leaving its similarly rabid fan base with nothing but sorrow to accompany it.

In other big scheduling news, Fox decided to push another run of the summer hit “So You Think You Can Dance” to the fall, giving it the same timeslots that “Idol” has from January through May. And although “Dance” won’t bring “Idol”-like numbers, and might even lose the night against the competition, this move helps Fox because the network won’t have to rearrange everything when “Idol” arrives. This way, shows that air on Tuesdays and Wednesdays will already be comfortable there and, in Fox’s mind, won’t lose viewers. 

Finally, Fox had the gumption to move its biggest new hit “Fringe” from its cozy spots behind “House” or “Idol” and into Thursdays at 9 p.m., only the most competitive time slot on network television, when it will go up against “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Office,” “CSI” and “Supernatural.” Time will tell if “Fringe” is actually popular or just a recipient of megahits.
 
Final analysis

With such a good year and an overall solid slate of programming, Fox didn’t have much to do. And so some would say that it simply switched up some of its schedule just to mix it up, but I can’t see a bad decision in the mix, even if the crop of new shows leaves a bit to be desired.