At its Upfront presentation on Monday, Fox unveiled its schedule for the upcoming 2016-17 television season. And there are trailers galore! The network is leading with shows that have a strong legacy, bringing back Prison Break, rebooting 24 with Corey Hawkins as the lead, and making TV magic out of classic movies like Lethal Weapon and The Exorcist. (And let’s not forget the network is remaking The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) But what we’re really excited for is the original programming from Lee Daniels’s girl-group show Star with Queen Latifah and Lenny Kravitz; Pitch; Making History; and Shots Fired. These are some of the shows we’re excited for:
HIGHS
Pitch
It’s the quietest shows that pack the biggest punch. While the actual MLB has yet to produce its own Mo’ne Davis, Pitch is hoping art can inspire life: Kylie Bunbury stars as Ginny Baker, the first woman to play Major League Baseball. In the three-minute trailer, Baker navigates all of the intense pressure that would come with such a distinction, and already makes us think we need a box of tissues nearby. The show also stars Ali Larter, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mark Consuelos, and Dan Lauria.
Star
It looks like there’s some season one of Empire magic in this trailer for Star. The upcoming Lee Daniels show follows three young and hungry female singers (played by Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny, and Brittany O’Grady) as they make their way through the industry. There will be original music, which the three actor-singers performed to close out the Upfront presentation after a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die for You.†The trailer looks like classic Lee Daniels with no lack of subtlety (the lead character’s name is Star, okay?) and celebrity turns from Lenny Kravitz and Queen Latifah, who literally take us to church.
Making History
There are going to be more funny takes on history! In the vein of Drunk History and Time-Travelling Bong, Fox is getting into that old-timey comedy game with Making History starring Happy Endings’ Adam Pally, Leighton Meester, and Yassir Lester. This time, the time-travelling device is a duffel bag that Pally’s character uses to see his girlfriend in the colonial era. Only, he might have messed up the American Revolution all in the name of inter-century dating.
Shots Fired
The Gina Prince–Bythewood mini-series, Shots Fired, has been in development for about a year, and now we finally have our first look at it. The show stars Sanaa Lathan and Stephan James as investigators from the Department of Justice looking into the shooting of a white civilian by a black cop in a small Southern town. Helen Hunt, Richard Dreyfuss, and Stephen Moyer also star in Fox’s play for those limited series Emmys.
We’re withholding judgment on these shows for now:
The Exorcist
Lethal Weapon
Son of Zorn
APB
The Mick