Fall TV schedule takes shape with cancellations, renewals and additions

It’s looking like the fall TV season won’t see its traditional September launch due to the industry shutdown in place since mid-March. The broadcast networks are, however, moving ahead with their 2020-21 schedules, even though episodes of new and returning shows have yet to be filmed. CBS and Fox have mostly kept their fall schedules …

It’s looking like the fall TV season won’t see its traditional September launch due to the industry shutdown in place since mid-March.

The broadcast networks are, however, moving ahead with their 2020-21 schedules, even though episodes of new and returning shows have yet to be filmed.

CBS and Fox have mostly kept their fall schedules intact, with CBS adding the Chuck Lorre sitcom “B Positive” and a reboot of “The Equalizer” starring Queen Latifah. Fox, meanwhile, has added the family drama “Filthy Rich” (starring Kim Cattrall), “Next,” a sci-fi drama starring John Slattery (“Mad Men“) and Season 1 of crime drama “LA’s Finest” (Gabrielle Union, Jessica Alba) which originally aired on Spectrum.

But this past week, both ABC and NBC went a long way toward firming up their primetime slates with a frenzy of cancellations, renewals and additions.

Here’s at look at all their moves.

ABC

Cancelled: “The Baker and the Beauty.” The short-lived sitcom starring Nathalie Kelley and Victor Rasuk, based on an Israeli format, won’t return — though Kelley says it’s being shopped elsewhere and seems confident it will find another home.

Renewed: “For Life.” The drama series starring Nicholas Pinnock as an inmate-turned-jailhouse lawyer, fighting not only for his fellow inmates but to overturn his own wrongful conviction, will return for its second season.

Moved: The seventh season of “Black-ish,” which ABC slated to return in midseason, has been moved up to the fall — swapping places with the new sitcom “Call Your Mother,” starring Kyra Sedgwick as an empty-nest mom who moves cross-country to be closer to her kids. “The Conners” will be slotted for Wednesday night at 9 p.m. to replace “Modern Family,” which ended its run in May, and “The Bachelorette” moves from its traditional summer perch to Tuesdays at 8 p.m. 

Added: The revival of “Supermarket Sweep,” hosted by Leslie Jones, will air Sundays at 8 p.m., while the drama “Big Sky” — David E. Kelley’s detective drama starring Natalie Alan Lynd, Katheryn Winnick and Ryan Phillippe — will air Tuesdays at 10 p.m.

NBC

Cancelled: “Indebted, “the midseason sitcom starring Fran Drescher and “Bluff City Law,” starring Jimmy Smits and Caitlin McGee as a Memphis-based father/daughter civil rights legal team. The axe also swung on “Sunnyside,” the sitcom starring Kal Penn as a (fictional) ex-Queens Councilman helping local immigrants searching for the American Dream.

Renewed: “Manifest” — about a flight that disappeared then landed five years later with its passengers intact — will live to see a third season with stars Melissa Roxburgh, Josh Dallas, Athena Karkanis and Jack Messina.

Added: Chris Meloni returns to the “Law & Order” fold in “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” reprising his “SVU” character, Elliott Stabler, who returns to New York City a decade after retiring to run an organized crime task force. The series will air Thursdays at 10 p.m. following “SVU,” which continues to go great guns as it enters its 22nd season with stars Mariska Hargitay, Ice-T, Kelli Giddish and Peter Scanavino.