Fox announced their schedule for the upcoming TV season yesterday, and it features a whopping 10 new scripted shows.

Fox is going through a lot of changes because the bulk of the former Fox . . . including its production studio . . . was sold off to Disney, which owns ABC.  So it’s not a surprise that this year’s schedule is heavy on sports and reality TV.

Fox recently acquired “WWE Smackdown” from the USA Network, and since it’s a two-hour show, it’ll fill their Friday primetime lineup for all 52 weeks of the year.

Fox also has “Thursday Night Football”, which knocks out Thursdays in the fall.  So, during football season, Fox is only programming EIGHT hours of primetime entertainment, which is even less than the CW.

Here are the highlights among their 10 new scripted shows . . .

Perhaps most interestingly, there’s a “9-1-1” spin-off called “9-1-1: Lone Star”, which will star Rob Lowe.

Angela Bassett and Peter Krause star in the original, but it doesn’t sound like there will be any connected characters, so it’s mostly just a ‘spin-off’ in name and format.

There’s a new animated show called Bless the Harts, about a poor but happy group of Southerners, voiced by Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, among others.  It’ll air after “The Simpsons”, which makes sense.

 

 

Plus, there’s another animated comedy coming after the New Year called “Duncanville” about the adventures of a “spectacularly average” 15-year-old boy named Duncan.  Amy Poehler voices him and his mother . . . and the cast also includes Rashida Jones, Ty Burrell, and Wiz Khalifa.

And there’s a third animated comedy which also has a “Parks and Recreation” connection.  It’s called “The Great North”, and it stars Nick Offerman as an Alaskan single father named Beef Tobin.  And if that character doesn’t have a mustache, someone at Fox needs to be fired immediately.

The cast also includes Nick’s real-life wife Megan Mullally, plus Jenny Slate and Will Forte.  It’s possible this show might not be ready until mid-2020.

There’s a soap-style drama called Filthy Rich about a wealthy Southern family who are famous for founding a Christian TV network.  And when the patriarch dies in a plane crash, the family discovers that his will includes three illegitimate kids.

 

 

There’s a law enforcement drama called Deputy starring Stephen Dorff . . .

 

 

A futuristic sci-fi thriller called Next where a powerful A.I. goes rogue . . .

 

 

A drama called Not Just Me starring Brittany Snow and Timothy Hutton . . .

 

 

Prodigal Son, a dark comedy about a criminal psychologist whose dad was a notorious serial killer . . .

 

 

And finally, a sitcom called Outmatched, where a blue-collar couple is trying to raise four kids . . . three of which are “certified geniuses.”  It stars Jason Biggs from the “American Pie” movies and Maggie Lawson from “Psych”.

 

 

There’s one notable non-scripted show.  It’s called “Ultimate Tag”, and it’s kind of what it sounds like.  A, quote, “high-octane physical competition show based on the classic playground game of chase.”

It’s hosted by JJ Watt of the Houston Texans and his brothers TJ of the L.A. Chargers and Derek of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

(There’s a rundown of all the new shows in this Fox press release.  And there’s a look at Fox’s fall schedule, here.)