I CAN'T TELL YOU MUCH YET, BUT.....

.....here's what shaping up for next year's TV season. I can't reveal any details, only that I haven't seen any of the new series pilots yet. I will see all of Warner Bros. new pilots by the end of the month and our all of the competitive pilots by mid June. At this point I can only speak to either what's already been announced and picked up or what trends I forsee developing.

With almost its usual coincidental economic timing, with the U.S. and world trying to pull itself out of the Great Recession, the sitcom is back, baby! The #1 new one hour, Glee, is a musical comedy, and the sitcom genre was recently revived this season with the hilarious Modern Family. The whole genre seems to be reinvigorated with fresh ideas and bold concepts.

The bad news for next season, the dramas all seem safe and boring. It's another season with a "different take" on the cop show, the doctor show, the lawyer show, or the ever reliable "family drama". After the failure of Flashforward and with Lost going off the air, any show with a heavily mythologized storyline that you need to see every single episode of, is out. It seems the networks are saying the viewer engagement is not a successful ratings story. Which is sad, because I really like shows with heavily mythologized storylines. I like getting into the lives of the characters each week. For instance, one of my favorite shows of this season was Vampire Diaries and I watched all 22 hours of that show.

I also think that in a digital world, none of the networks will be making any radical time period changes with their new or existing shows. The only network in a position to move strong shows to be more competitive is CBS. And CBS should make some radical changes. I would move The Mentalist or NCIS into CSI's Thursday 21:00 time period. CSI is on the way out, and rather than allow it to die on the vine, CBS should move a stronger show into one of the most profitable time periods in television.

I will write more once I've seen the pilots and make some predictions of what shows I think will be hits.