Were you counting the days until Tim Allen’s TV return or the premiere of Once Upon a Time? Well, you’re gonna have to wait a bit: ABC said it will debut just three new series — new dramas Pan Am, Revenge, and Charlie’s Angels — during TV’s official premiere week (September 19 to 25). Taking a go-slow approach to the fall-season rollout is probably a smart move, since ABC ordered about 500 new shows for next season and trying to premiere them all over a week or two in September would likely have been a marketing nightmare.
The Alphabet network’s premiere week will begin with Dancing With the Stars and Castle debuting Monday, September 19. There’s more Dancing on September 20, along with the second season debut of Body of Proof. The network will give its two established Wednesday comedies, The Middle and Modern Family, one-hour season premieres on September 21. Family co-creator Steve Levitan said last week that his show’s return will focus on the family’s big summer vacation (to where, he’s not saying yet). The one-hour Family will lead into the 10 p.m. bow of Revenge. Then on Thursday, September 22, ABC revives Charlie’s Angels, pairing it with a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy; Private Practice gets its season premiere a week later. On Sunday, September 25, look for the return of Desperate Housewives and the premiere of Pan Am. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is also back on this night, but only for a few weeks; it moves to Fridays October 21.
ABC’s other new shows will pop up over the course of six weeks, starting with the September 28 launch of new comedy/spelling nightmare Suburgatory and the return of budding Vulture crush Happy Endings. ABC is giving Glee a chance to cool down before debuting new Tim Allen show Last Man Standing on Tuesday, October 11. (The network is describing it as a one-hour premiere, though we’re betting it’ll be two half-hour episodes.) Allen’s time-slot companion, Man Up! (which now boasts an exclamation in its title … of course!), lumbers on to the lineup October 18. And, finally, the aforementioned Once Upon a Time gets the honor of debuting Sunday, October 23. We don’t get the strategy behind the latter: Once is a family show, and ABC currently has it debuting opposite Game 3 of the very family friendly World Series, while its second episode on October 30 will face the always high-rated “Treehouse of Horror†episode of The Simpsons. The Evil Queen will not be happy about this.