Fall television snippets: A day-by-day look at new series

By Robert Lloyd

Los Angeles Times (TNS)

The new shows include:

MONDAY

Kevin Can Wait

CBS, 8:30 p.m.

Kevin James stays in his comfort zone as he takes his 21st century Ralph Kramden out for another multi-camera spin. Here he’s a newly retired policeman who can’t get that party started. Erinn Hayes plays the traditionally better-looking wife.

The Good Place

NBC, 10 p.m.; moves to Thursday at 8:30 p.m.

Spiky afterlife comedy from Michael Schur (“Parks and Recreation”) finds newly dead Kristen Bell accidentally assigned to a pastels-and-fro-yo heaven her worldly exploits don’t qualify her for. Ted Danson is the Mr. Jordan in this scenario.

TUESDAY

Bull

CBS, 9 p.m.

Dangerously titled legal drama about a brilliant but troubled trial consultant (Michael Weatherly) and his quirky team seems to suggest that the only path to justice is to game the jury. Co-created by and based on the earlier career of TV shrink “Dr. Phil” McGraw, it floats on a sea of broken souls.

This Is Us

NBC, 10 p.m.

Given that the pilot is a kind of O. Henry dodge, untwisted until the end, let’s just call this a we’ve-come-for-your-feelings dramedy SEmD that old word! SEmD in which surprisingly connected characters want to be seen for who they really are. Something like that.

WEDNESDAY

Speechless

ABC, 8:30 p.m.

ABC continues its drive for diversity in single-camera family comedies SEmD no less admirable for being so evidently intentional SEmD with Minnie Driver as the driven mother of teenager Micah Fowler, who has cerebral palsy. Two other kids make three.

Designated Survivor

ABC, 10 p.m.

Kiefer Sutherland in what would be a minor role in “24,” as a Cabinet secretary who becomes the president after a terrorist attack kills everyone more important. Natascha McElhone is the new first lady; Kal Penn, who worked in the actual White House, is working in this pretend one.

Lethal Weapon

Fox, 8 p.m.

Televisionification of the brawny detective film franchise in which a lone wolf with a death wish (Clayne Crawford) and a family man with the opposite of that (Damon Wayans Sr.) somehow make it work.

Sept. 22

Notorious

ABC, 9 p.m.

Heavy-breathing melodrama in which cable news producer Piper Perabo and celebrity lawyer Daniel Sunjata SEnD standing in for producers Wendy Walker and Mark Geragos SEnD shape reality to their ends. Will leave you feeling good neither about the news nor the law.

Pitch

Fox, 9 p.m.

Kylie Bunbury plays the first woman in Major League Baseball in this straight-faced grown-up take on “The Bad News Bears”; things go no more smoothly than you would imagine. The San Diego Padres provide the real-world team and park.

Sept. 23

MacGyver

CBS, 8 p.m.

Comical spy adventure reboot leaves the mullet, or most of it, back in 1992 but keeps the Swiss Army knife. Lucas Till is the new Richard Dean Anderson, saving the world with a paper clip and whatever.

The Exorcist

Fox, 9 p.m.

Blockbuster 1970s demonic possession novel/film survives the television transition with its cinematic creepiness intact. Ben Daniels and Alfonso Herrera are the old- and new-school priests called to de-Satanize the offspring of Geena Davis, now with two daughters and a husband (Alan Ruck) losing his wits. The central question SEmD will they play “Tubular Bells”? - is for you to find out.

Sept. 30

Crisis in Six Scenes

Amazon

Woody Allen’s first TV series SEmD and as with any Allen project you read the cast list first. This one (set in the late ’60s) includes Miley Cyrus, Elaine May (!), Lewis Black, Michael Rapaport, Joy Behar, Rachel Brosnahan, Becky Ann Baker and Allen himself. Did I say Elaine May? The rest is just details.

Marvel’s Luke Cage

Netflix

Bulletproof ex-con and reluctant non-caped crusader Mike Colter (as Luke, sort of crossing over from “Jessica Jones”) comes correct in Harlem. There’s a nightclub, naturally. With Alfre Woodard, Mahershala Ali, Simone Missick and Frank Whaley classing up the joint.

Oct. 2

Westworld

HBO, 9 p.m.

Cowboy robots with guns. Good idea! Michael Crichton’s pre-“Jurassic” amusement park disaster film gets a serial makeover. Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton are in it.

Oct. 3

Conviction

ABC, 10 p.m.

Hot-mess legal eagle, scandal magnet and former First Daughter Hayley Atwell is coerced into running a New York unit dedicated to testing the merit of controversial convictions. Can her cynicism survive intact?

Timeless

NBC, 10 p.m.

Sci-fi romp sends scientist Matt Lanter, history prof Abigail Spencer and soldier guy Malcolm Barrett to key points in history to stop bad guy Goran Visnjic from messing with the timeline. Of course they can’t help messing with the timeline.

Oct. 4

No Tomorrow

CW, 9 p.m.

Tori Anderson is a buttoned-up life drone and Joshua Sasse her attractive opposite, a seize-the-day type waiting on the end of the world. Echo Park, the Brooklyn of the West, is the heaven in which this location-rich rom-com match is made.

Oct. 5

Frequency

CW, 9 p.m.

Peyton List is an NYPD cop in touch SEmD by ham radio, why not? SEmD with the past and her since-dead father (Riley Smith), also an NYPD cop, in this two-track murder mystery, partly based on the 2000 Dennis Quaid film. What did I say about messing with the timeline?

Oct. 9

Divorce

HBO, 10 p.m.

Sarah Jessica Parker has had enough of husband Thomas Haden Church in this wintry Cheever-country comedy created by Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”).

Insecure

HBO, 10:30 p.m.

Issa Rae, whose Web series “The Adventures of Awkward Black Girl” was TV in all but venue, goes full premium cable in this sweet, real-flavored sitcom, co-created with Larry Wilmore, about L.A. south of the 10 and a woman stuck in neutral at 29.

Oct. 11

American Housewife

ABC, 8:30 p.m.

Not an anthology drama but one of those comedies in which an oddball family infests the upscale suburbs, like “The Munsters” without the coffins and such. Mom Katy Mixon delivers too many jokes about her weight, but her sass wins out. Diedrich Bader is Dad. Three kids.

Oct. 19

Chance

Hulu

Hugh Laurie as a forensic neuropsychiatrist - it’s a thing, you can Google it - in the city of “Vertigo” and “The Maltese Falcon.” Kem Nunn co-adapts his own novel, Gretchen Mol co-stars, Lenny Abrahamson (“Room”) directs.

Oct. 24

Man With a Plan

CBS 8:30 p.m.

Matt LeBlanc, your friend from “Friends,” stars in the first comedy ever to consider what happens when a man takes care of the kids. Liza Snyder is the wife going back to work. Children there are three.

Oct. 27

The Great Indoors

CBS, 8:30 p.m.

Multicamera generational comedy with Joel McHale, 44, as a globe-trotting journalist put in charge of his magazine’s millennial Web jockeys - welcome to publishing 2016. Sniping, grumbling, mutual respect ensue. With Stephen Fry as the boss. Stick around for the bear cub.

Pure Genius

CBS 10 p.m.

Augustus Prew is the brilliant but troubled tech guru whose quirky team of red-tape-averse doctors and engineers have built the hospital of tomorrow today; Dermot Mulroney is the man he wants to run it. Jason Katims (“Parenthood”) lurks behind this wish fulfillment.

Oct. 31

People of Earth

TBS, 9 p.m.

Dust-dry Wyatt Cenac’s years as a “Daily Show” “correspondent” serve him well in this role of a journalist sent to report on an alien abduction support group.

Nov. 25

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

Netflix

Catching up with those Stars Hollow folks. This is already on your calendar.