‘Mindy Project,’ ‘Nashville’ and ‘Vegas’ among TV critc’s fall winners

During the recent TV critics press tour in Los Angeles, NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt was asked why critical darling “Community” was being cut back to 13 episodes and banished to Friday nights.

His response was surprisingly blunt.

“I think we’re going to transition with our comedy programming and, you know, try to broaden the audience and broaden what the network does,” he said. “You know, those Thursday comedies, which the critics love and we love, tend to be a bit more narrow than we’d ultimately like as we go forward.”

Translation: goodbye “The Office” and “30 Rock,” both coming to the end of their award winning runs this season. Hello comedies with monkeys.

NBC, which built its reputation with classy comedies such as “The Cosby Show” and “Cheers” and made Thursdays “Must See” with “Friends” and “Seinfeld” is aiming lower this fall.

Hey, they aimed higher last winter with the Broadway-inspired “Smash.” It was barely renewed and you won’t see any “Smash” clones on the other networks this fall.

Instead you’ll see “Animal Practice” (premiering Sept. 26), a sitcom about a veterinary hospital, which features Justin Kirk from “Weeds” in scrubs opposite a monkey. “Guys With Kids,” a Jimmy Fallon-produced sitcom premiering Tuesday on Global and Wednesday on NBC, is about just that — three first time fathers. Expect plenty of bottle feeding gags.

Matthew Perry is back, this time as a sports radio talk show host who has to attend group therapy sessions in “Go On” (premieres Tuesday on NBC and Global).

NBC is so convinced this is the new normal they’ve even called one of their new shows just that. “The New Normal” (premiering Monday and Tuesday on NBC and CTV) is about a single woman who becomes a surrogate mother for a gay couple. Ellen Barkin steals the pilot as an Archie Bunker-like Nana.

The concepts couldn’t get much higher. The networks hope ratings will follow.

Greenblatt basically said to critics, “No more soup for you.”

With many urban viewers lost to smarter cable fare, the networks are out to hold on to what’s left. The new shows are for viewers who want to come home from work, put up their feet and turn off their minds.

There’s nothing subtle about the new dramas, either. Networks no longer want viewers to feel lost with dense and complicated dramas like “Lost.”

“The Mob Doctor” (Sept. 16 on CTV and 17 on NBC) is just that —a female medic who works off her debt to the mob by pulling screwdrivers out of their noggins. “666 Park Avenue” (Sept. 30, ABC, City) is a spooky show set in a New York luxury apartment. “Beauty and the Beast” (Oct. 11, The CW, Showcase), is the same old story except Beauty (“Smallville” star Kristin Kreuk) is now a babe cop and the Beast (New Zealander Jay Ryan) is a stud with a scar.

Are there any shows for critics this fall? Here are a few I’d watch a second time:

“Nashville” (Oct. 10, ABC, CTV TWO). Plenty of critics are still sweet on Connie Britton, our “Friday Night Lights” heroine. Here she’s playing an aging, Reba McEntire-like country queen who is being asked to open for a snarky, Taylor Swift-like country pop princess (Hayden Panettiere). Tucked behind “Modern Family” and with a built-in country following, “Nashville” probably doesn’t need to be this slick of a soap to survive.

WARNING: Not to be confused with McEntire’s new comedy “Malibu Country” (Nov. 2, ABC), which, cast legend Lily Tomlin aside, is like warmed-over grits.

“The Mindy Project” (Sept. 25, Fox, City) was written, created by and stars Mindy Kaling who broke through on “The Office.” Her pilot wasn’t perfect — as unfinished at times as the title — but there were plenty of fanciful, original moments which stuck out in a seen-it-before season (including my favourite — Mindy’s underwater girl talk with Barbie). A stellar supporting cast, including a few “Saturday Night Live” players in the pilot, make this a smart new companion for Fox’s “New Girl.”

“Vegas” (Sept. 25, CBS, Global) may be the test show for the whole new “broaden the audience” theory. Dennis Quaid plays the good guy, a cowboy sheriff who aims to clean up the strip circa 1960. The bad guy, who helpfully wears a black hat, is a casino mob boss played by Michael Chiklis. There are horses and cool cars and fist fights and it all taps into the same retro “Rockford Files” vibe as CBC’s successful “Republic of Doyle.”

Other new dramas this fall are more ambitious — especially ABC’s submarine hour “Last Resort” or CBS’s Sherlockian whodunit, “Elementary” (both Sept. 27) — but “Vegas” might be the right show at the right time.

“The Neighbors” (Sept. 26, ABC) is on most critics’ Worst New Show list. It is everything critics hate — a high concept (aliens take over a suburban community until one “normal” family moves in) — and lowbrow humour (the aliens all give themselves the names of American sports figures, like Larry Bird and Jackie Joyner-Kersee). The cast is alien to most viewers.

Yet it made me laugh — out loud. That made it stand out from almost every other comedy pilot this season.

___

Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.