Coming This Fall

The TV season used to run from September through May. There were four networks with original programming so you only had to memorize a few channel numbers to get your viewing schedule planned out. Now every nickel and dime network is creating their own original programs. The “seasons” are only 10 or 12 episodes long and they start and stop at any time throughout the calendar year. With so many new avenues I thought I’d pitch a few ideas of my own to every network on the dial and see if I can get a bite.

Bingo and Bango—Identical twin cops get re-assigned as each other’s new partner. Bingo is obsessive/compulsive, reading a criminal his Miranda rights as many as 30 times. Bango is bi-polar playing good cop/bad cop all by himself. Watch the fireworks each week as they try to blend their mental illnesses to solve crimes and not piss off their glue sniffing captain.

Scratch MacDougal—written for the David Kelley assembly line of lawyer shows, this one finds lovable curmudgeon Scratch MacDougal taking any case that walks through his door to pay alimony to 7 ex-wives and keep current girlfriend Maxine happy. Watch Scratch prepare paperwork to close on the first house for a young couple while simultaneously defending a schnauzer charged with public urination.

The Babysitter is a Ninja!—A new reality show places a real-life ninja in a duplex living next door to the Hendersons, Barb and Barry, and their two kids. In between fighting agents of the Yakuza, the ninja becomes the children’s babysitter in the hours after school before Barb and Barry get home from work. Which will get to him first: Danny’s flute lessons or the triad’s assassins?

Meet Pain—Ashley Van Lusterberg lives in apartment 6c of an exclusive building. She works in the corporate offices of a tony New York Wall Street firm and dresses in designer clothing even to go to the grocery store. Apartment 6d across the hall is soon rented by The Painhammer, guitarist for death metal band Maggot Infested Intestines. He dresses in black leather and metal studs even just to go to the liquor store. Watch what happens when they fall in love and Ashley has to introduce her new fiancé to her parents.

Diggin’ That Grave—Rafe and Frisbee are gravediggers at the Dream Lawns Memorial Cemetery. At night after a hard day’s work they like to play cards . . . with the corpses! That’s right, it’s network TVs first zombie sitcom. Will Rafe take the pot with his pair of sixes or will Mrs. Goldberg bluff him out of another week’s pay. And the hi-jinks don’t just happen at night. Watch the hilarity as Frisbee tries to keep the bodies from rising from their graves early, in the middle of the Hightower funeral!

Pam and Eggs—Conman Eddie “Eggs” Larson meets Pam “Vavoom” Greer, a hooker with a rack of gold. They join together to fleece the city for all its worth. But soon they also find themselves raising 3 young children they find living in Central Park. Every day is an adventure as Pam and Eddie teach the kids to spot the rubes and the kids teach them what it means to be a family.

Hopefully in a few months you’ll be seeing one or more of these quality shows coming to a network schedule. I’m not picky, any of them will do, even NBC.