2020 TV Upfronts: Fox announces 2020-2021 schedule; see photos and videos

May 11, 2020

by Carla Hay

Gerald McRaney, Aubrey Dollar and Kim Cattrall in “Filthy Rich” (Photo by Alan Markfield/Fox)

Fox has officially announced its 2020-2021 schedule. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Fox’s in-person upfront presentation (which is usually held at the Beacon Theatre in New York City) was cancelled and the announcement was made online instead. Most of the existing shows had previously been announced as renewed. However, the upfront presentation made it official that the following shows have been cancelled: “Empire,” “BH90210,” “Almost Family” (originally titled “Not Just Me”), “What Just Happened??! With Fred Savage,” “The Orville” (which has moved to Hulu) and “Deputy.” Fox has not yet announced the fates of “Last Man Standing,” “Prodigal Son,” “The Resident,” “Outmatched,” “Spin the Wheel,” “Labor of Love” and “The Ultimate Tag.”*

*[May 19, 2020 UPDATE: Fox has announced that it has renewed “Last Man Standing” and “The Resident.”]

*[May 21, 2020 UPDATE: Fox has announced that it has renewed “Prodigal Son.”]

New scripted shows on Fox include “Call Me Kat,” “Filthy Rich,” “The Great North,” “Housebroken,” and “neXt.” The cop drama “L.A.’s Finest,” which originally premiered exclusively on the Spectrum cable system in 2019, will be re-aired on Fox. Also moving from cable TV for repeat airings on Fox is National Geographic’s alternative programming series “Cosmos: Possible Worlds,” hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Several actors who are familiar to TV audiences are starring in these shows, including “Call Me Kat” star Mayim Bialik (formerly of “The Big Bang Theory” and “Blossom”); “neXt” star John Slattery (formerly of “Mad Men”); “Filthy Rich” stars Kim Cattrall (an alum of “Sex and the City”) and Gerald McRaney, whose numerous former TV shows include “House of Cards,” “Promised Land,” “Major Dad” and “Simon & Simon”; and “L.A.’s Finest” stars Jessica Alba (who became famous for starring in the “Dark Angel” TV series) and Gabrielle Union, who previously starred in “Being Mary Jane.”

Fall premiere dates will be announced at a later time. Please note that shows picked up but not listed on the schedule below will have their season debuts at other times in the 2020-2021 season. They include new shows such as “Call Me Kat,” “The Great North” and “Housebroken,” as well as renewed shows such as “9-1-1,” “9-1-1: Lone Star,” “Beat Shazam,” “Duncanville,” “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell & Back,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “MasterChef” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”

The following is an excerpt from a Fox press release:

FOX FALL 2020 SCHEDULE

All times listed are Eastern Time only.

MONDAY

8-9 p.m.   “L.A.’s Finest”
9-10 p.m. “neXt”

TUESDAY

8-9 p.m.   “Cosmos: Possible Worlds”
9-10 p.m. “Filthy Rich”

WEDNESDAY

8-9 p.m.   “The Masked Singer”
9-10 p.m. “MasterChef Junior”

THURSDAY

7:30-8 p.m. “Fox NFL Thursday Presented by Verizon”
8-8:19 p.m.  “GMC Kickoff”
8:20 p.m.      “Thursday Night Football Presented by Bud Light Platinum”

FRIDAY

8-10 p.m.      “WWE’s Smackdown Live”

SATURDAY

7-10:30 p.m. “Fox Sports Saturday”

SUNDAY

7-7:30 p.m.  “NFL on Fox”
7:30-8 p.m.  “The OT”/Fox Encores
8-8:30 p.m.  “The Simpsons”
8:30-9 p.m.  “Bless the Harts”
9-9:30 p.m.  “Bob’s Burgers”
9:30-10 p.m. “Family Guy”

NEW DRAMA SERIES

“FILTHY RICH”

Aaron Lazar, Deneen Tyler, Mark L. Young, Melia Kreiling, Benjamin Aquilar, Gerald McRaney, Kim Cattrall, Aubrey Dollar, Corey Cott, Olivia Macklin and Steve Harris in “Filthy Rich” (Photo by Justin Stephens/Fox)

From writer/director Tate Taylor (“Ma,” “The Help,” “The Girl on the Train”) comes FILTHY RICH, a southern Gothic family drama in which wealth, power and religion intersect – more correctly, collide – with outrageously soapy results. Meet the Monreauxes, a mega-rich Southern family famed for creating a wildly successful Christian television network. On the cusp of launching a digital retail arm of the company, the family’s patriarch, EUGENE (Emmy Award winner Gerald McRaney, “This Is Us,” “24: Legacy”), dies in a plane crash (or so we think), leaving MARGARET (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Kim Cattrall, “Sex and the City”), a now-“Oprah” to the religious and Southern communities, to take charge of the family business.

Not surprisingly, Eugene’s apparent death greatly impacts the Monreaux children: ERIC (Corey Cott, “The Good Fight,” “Z: The Beginning of Everything”), the couple’s ambitious son, who assumes he will now run the show; and daughter ROSE (Aubrey Dollar, “Battle Creek”), a budding fashion designer, who constantly struggles to evade the vast shadow cast by her mother. If that wasn’t enough, the Monreauxes are stunned to learn that Eugene fathered three illegitimate children, all of whom are written into his will.

Now, Margaret must use her business savvy and Southern charm to control her newly legitimized heirs, whose very existence threatens the Monreaux family name and fortune: GINGER (Melia Kreiling, “Tyrant,” “The Borgias”), the tough-as-nails daughter of a Vegas cocktail waitress, whose life was virtually destroyed by Eugene’s rejection; ANTONIO (Benjamin Levy Aguilar, “Straight Outta Compton”), a single dad and boxer from Queens, NY; and JASON (Mark L. Young, “The Comeback,” “We’re the Millers”), another scion, who is not what he seems to be. With monumental twists and turns, not to mention lies, deceit and shade from every direction, FILTHY RICH presents a world in which everyone has an ulterior motive – and no one is going down without a fight. The series is based on the New Zealand format created by Filthy Productions Limited.

“L.A.’S FINEST”

(previously aired on Spectrum)

Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba in “L.A.’s Finest” (Photo by Erica Parise/Sony Pictures Television)

From the universe of the Jerry Bruckheimer “Bad Boys” franchise and Sony Pictures Television, the one-hour series L.A.’S FINEST follows Syd Burnett (Gabrielle Union), last seen in Miami taking down a drug cartel, who has seemingly left her complicated past behind to become an LAPD detective. Paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba), a working mom with an equally complex history, Syd is forced to confront how her unapologetic lifestyle may be masking a greater personal secret. Taking on the most dangerous criminals in Los Angeles while skirting the rules, and speed limits, Syd and Nancy become a force to be reckoned with – on the streets, and in each other’s lives.

“neXt”

John Slattery in “neXt” (Photo by Ed Ariquel/Fox)

From creator and executive producer Manny Coto (“24: Legacy”) and executive producers and directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (“This Is Us”), neXt is a propulsive, fact-based thriller about the emergence of a deadly, rogue artificial intelligence, a series that asks us to look closely not only at our relationship to technology, but to one another. Silicon Valley pioneer PAUL LEBLANC (Emmy Award nominee John Slattery, “Mad Men,” “Veep”) built a fortune and legacy on the world-changing innovations he dreamed up, while ignoring and alienating the people around him, including his own daughter, ABBY (Elizabeth Cappucino, “Jessica Jones,” “Deception”), and his short-sighted younger brother, TED (Jason Butler Harner, “Ozark,” “Ray Donovan”), who now runs Paul’s company.

After discovering that one of his own creations – a powerful A.I. called neXt – might spell doom for humankind, Paul tried to shutter the project, only to be kicked out of the company by his own brother, leaving him with nothing but mounting dread about the fate of the world. When a series of unsettling tech mishaps points to a potential worldwide crisis, LeBlanc joins forces with Special Agent SHEA SALAZAR (Fernanda Andrade, “The First,” “Here and Now”).

Having escaped crime, poverty and a deadly criminal father to remake herself as a force for good, Salazar’s strict moral code and sense of duty have earned her the respect of her team – a talented but contentious group held together by her faith in their ability to defy expectations and transcend their differences, including GINA (Eve Harlow, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Heroes Reborn”), a high-strung cybercrime agent; BEN (Aaron Moten, “Disjointed,” “Mozart in the Jungle”), a straight-laced, buttoned-up hard worker, who is boring to the point of being interesting; and CM (Michael Mosley, “Ozark,” “Seven Seconds”), an ex-con hacker with a genius IQ.

But the demands of Shea’s challenging job have taken their toll on her home life, where Salazar’s young son, OWEN (Evan Whitten, THE RESIDENT, “Mr. Robot”), has been raised primarily by his father, TY (Gerardo Celasco, “How to Get Away with Murder,” “The Haves and the Have Nots”), a recovering alcoholic. Now, LeBlanc and Salazar are the only ones standing in the way of a potential global catastrophe, fighting an emergent superintelligence that, instead of launching missiles, will deploy the immense knowledge it has gleaned from the data all around us to recruit allies, turn people against each other and eliminate obstacles to its own survival and growth. Marrying pulse-pounding action with a layered examination of how technology is invading our lives and transforming us in ways we don’t yet understand, neXt presents us with a villain unlike anything we’ve ever seen – one whose greatest weapon against us is ourselves.

NEW COMEDY SERIES

“CALL ME KAT”

CALL ME KAT stars Mayim Bialik and is executive produced by Bialik and Jim Parsons. Nor further details were provided by Fox.

“THE GREAT NORTH”

From executive producer Loren Bouchard (BOB’S BURGERS), animated comedy THE GREAT NORTH follows the Alaskan adventures of the Tobin family, as a single dad does his best to keep his weird bunch of kids close, especially as the artistic dreams of his only daughter lead her away from the family fishing boat and into the glamorous world of the local mall. The voice cast includes Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Jenny Slate, Will Forte, Paul Rust, Aparna Nancherla and Dulcé Sloan. Alanis Morissette makes a guest appearance in the voice cast.

“HOUSEBROKEN”

Details are to be announced for this animated series.

NEW ALTERNATIVE SERIES

“COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS”

(previously aired on National Geographic)

Neil deGrasse Tyson in “Cosmos: Possible Worlds” (Photo by Patrick McElhenney/Fox)

Returning for its third installment, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning COSMOS will once again be executive-produced, written and directed by Ann Druyan (NASA’s Voyager Record, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” “Contact”); executive produced by Seth MacFarlane, Brannon Braga and Jason Clark; and hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed pop-culture icon and astrophysicist. Continuing the legacy of its predecessors, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS will translate the revelations of science into a lavishly transporting experience, taking audiences on a series of spiritual voyages of exploration. Created and produced in partnership with the National Geographic Channel, which aired the series this spring, the new season will reveal previously uncharted realms, including lost worlds and worlds to come, and those that we may one day inhabit in a thrilling future we can still have.

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