Late September is the time of year when the big four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) roll out their fall schedules, with streaming and cable outlets offering a few new shows. Aliens are popular this season, as are clueless guys tasked with saviorlike missions for the world. Think that’s a lot to handle? Try making a comeback after years away from the small screen.
Star we’re most excited to see
Kyra Sedgwick, “Ten Days in the Valley”
Oct. 1, 10 p.m., ABC
When Kyra Sedgwick launched the TNT detective show “The Closer” 12 years ago, she found herself with a bona fide hit — 9.2 million viewers at the show’s peak in 2007 — that gave rise to a host of imitators (“Rizzoli & Isles,” “Major Crimes”). Her character — Brenda Leigh Johnson, a whip-smart detective with prom hair and a problem with romantic commitment — proved irresistible, landing native New Yorker Sedgwick, 52, a Best Actress Emmy in 2010.
Sedgwick called it quits in 2012, going on to co-star in indie films such as “The Edge of Seventeen” and directing her first movie, “Story of a Girl.”
Now, Sedgwick is back on the small screen in the 10-episode limited series “Ten Days in the Valley.” She plays Jane Sadler, a high-strung TV writer for a cop show with round-the-clock deadlines and a penchant for “leaving bits of truth on the cutting-room floor.” In Episode 1, we learn that Sadler’s young daughter, Lake, has gone missing.
“I was interested in doing a show where I’m not solving a mystery. I am a mystery,” Sedgwick said at a TV conference in August. “Hand in hand with the mystery of this character is the mystery of what happens to her daughter … We really, literally go back in time and find out why Jane is the way she is.”
Sedgwick throws herself into the role of a sometimes deceptive woman running one step ahead of her own version of the facts.
Most familiar new star
Leah Remini, “Kevin Can Wait”
Sept. 25, 9 p.m., CBS
Seems like Kevin (James) couldn’t wait. Although its sophomore season is coming up, “Kevin Can Wait” feels like it’s starting all over again. In Season 1, Erinn Hayes played James’ wife Donna. But the actress was axed in June to make way for Remini, James’ former co-star on the long-running sitcom “The King of Queens.” The anti-Scientologist will play Vanessa Cellucci, Kevin’s former police partner, who joins forces with him again as he comes out of retirement. Since Donna was alive at the end of last season, “Kevin” jumps 10 months into the future to allow the family to grieve over her sudden death.
Breakout star
Iain Armitage, “Young Sheldon”
Sept. 25, 8:30 p.m., CBS
Once “Big Bang Theory” co-creator Chuck Lorre and his partners decided to create a prequel to the monster hit comedy, they needed the perfect kid to play the younger Jim Parsons. Where to start? It was all decided when a phone video arrived from Georgia, where Iain, then 8, was spending Christmas with his family.
“We looked at it and went, ‘Oh, my God. We can’t possibly be this lucky.’ He was just spectacular,” Lorre says.
More articulate than actors three times his age, Iain brings the perfect mixture of innocence and precocious humor to the role of young Sheldon, a math-and-science whiz who attends high school at 9 and is a source of embarrassment for his teenage brother George, who’s in some of the same classes.
The story that won’t die
“Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders”
Sept. 26, 10 p.m., NBC
Remember Lyle and Erik, the brothers who blew away their parents in a 1989 Beverly Hills bloodbath, then went on a shopping spree? Their stories, replete with two trials, deadlocked juries and life sentences, were told in two TV movies in 1994. Then, earlier this year, Courtney Love gave a bizarre performance as Mama M in “Menendez: Blood Brothers,” a Lifetime TV movie.
Now Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order” franchise has launched its own true-crime series about the murders. Claiming to have unearthed new evidence, the producers are serving up an eight-episode retread, with Emmy winner Edie Falco as defense attorney Leslie Abramson. Do we really need to go through this family’s psychosexual laundry again?
Star we’re most afraid to see again
Iwan Rheon, “Marvel’s Inhumans”
Sept. 29, 8 p.m., ABC
When we last saw Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, his face was being eaten off by hounds in the Season 6 finale of “Game of Thrones.” Rheon infamously played Ramsay Bolton, a sadist who raped heroine Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) during their hellish marriage.
It’s not surprising casting directors snapped Rheon up when the dogs were done with him. He landed a starring role on the new drama “Marvel’s Inhumans” as the clever, charming Maximus. (Inhumans, by the way, are a race of superpowered beings who’ve kept their existence hidden from the world at large.) Given Rheon’s bent for playing homicidal maniacs, it’s a good bet he’ll act in his own self-interest.
Art imitates politics
“The Mayor”
Oct. 3, 9:30 p.m., ABC
Rapper Courtney Rose (Brandon Micheal Hall) stages an elaborate publicity stunt to get some exposure for his stalled recording career: He runs for mayor of an economically struggling Northern California town. As fate would have it, the upstart candidate wins. Here comes the hard part: He has to do the job. Producers of this seemingly ripped-from-the-headlines comedy swear they had the idea before the 2016 election. Uh-huh.
‘Seinfeld’ reunion — sort of
“Jerry Before Seinfeld”
Sept. 19, Netflix
Jerry Seinfeld returns to the Comic Strip, the New York club where he launched his career, in this one-hour comedy special. Along with the jokes, we’ll get a look at his library of legal pads, with every joke he’s written since 1975.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”
Sunday, Oct. 1, 10 p.m., HBO
Larry David, everyone’s favorite misanthrope, returns for a 10-episode ninth season that reunites the old gang — Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines and J.B. Smoove — for the first time in six years. That’s a lot of aggravation to keep inside. Time to vent!
Slackers save the world
“Ghosted”
Oct. 1, 8:30 p.m., Fox
“Kevin (Probably) Saves the World”
October 3, 10 p.m., ABC
Believing that down-on-their-luck guys are our biggest hope, TV producers are serving up two similarly themed shows this fall. In the comedy “Ghosted,” a bookstore employee (Adam Scott) who believes his wife was abducted by aliens teams up with a shopping-mall security guard (Craig Robinson) to fight back.
In the drama “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World,” genial parasite Kevin Finn (Jason Ritter) moves home with his widowed sister (JoAnna Garcia Swisher). One day a meteorite lands nearby. Out steps an angelic creature who tells Kevin his mission is to help a selfish race through acts of kindness. Touched by a slacker?
Everything old is new again
“Will & Grace”
Sept. 28, 9 p.m., NBC
NBC is so excited about this revival that network chairman Bob Greenblatt renewed it for a second season before any of the new episodes were broadcast. Picking up 11 years where they left off, series creators contrived a way to put Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing) back in the same apartment. It’s either going to feel like a middle-aged, gay “Friends” or like somebody broke the funhouse mirrors.
Most likely to fail
“Dynasty”
Oct. 11, 9 p.m., the CW
The online reactions to the YouTube trailer haven’t been good (“This is going to tank so bad!!!! Where is the glamour? Where is Alexis?” writes cloverfield 911). And one wonders if a retread about the superrich Carrington family will get any attention from the CW target audience of 18- to 25-year-olds. Do any of them even know what a sensation the original “Dynasty” was from 1981 to ’89? With a cast of actors young enough to be Joan Collins’ grandchildren (Elizabeth Gillies as Fallon, James Mackay as Steven), it’s going to be an uphill battle.
Most likely to succeed
“SEAL Team”
Sept. 27, 9 p.m., CBS
With the “NCIS” franchise showing its age, CBS has come to its own rescue by serving up a new action-packed procedural that features Navy SEALs as they execute dangerous missions. Proven network TV leading man David Boreanaz (“Buffy”) heads up the male-dominated cast, and there’s one welcome surprise: Jessica Paré has abandoned her black leotard from her “Zou bisou bisou” number in “Mad Men” to play CIA analyst Mandy Ellis. “SEAL Team” also has an enviable slot, running after the stalwart “Survivor” and against the fading “Modern Family.”
TV math
Ever get the funny feeling that the new TV show you’re watching might be a combination of other series you’ve seen before? These debut series will leave you with déjà vu.
“The Good Doctor” = “House” + “Rain Man”
“Bates Motel” star Freddie Highmore switches gears from psychopath to an autistic doctor who’s also a genius in this new drama (“The Good Doctor,” Sept. 25, 10 p.m., ABC).
“My, Myself & I” = “This Is Us” + “The Wonder Years”
“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Bobby Moynihan stars in this comedy about the three lives of one man (“Me, Myself & I,” Sept. 25, 9:30 p.m., CBS).
“The Brave” = “24” + “State of Affairs”
Anne Heche takes a page from Katherine Heigl’s career playbook in this combo of “24” and Heigl’s failed CIA drama (“The Brave,” Sept. 25, 10 p.m., NBC).
“The Gifted” = “Third Rock From the Sun” + “The Addams Family”
Stephen Moyer and Amy Acker play ordinary American parents whose teenaged children are . . . mutants. As if that’s not enough, they go on the run to escape a nosy government agency (“The Gifted,” Oct. 2, 9 p.m., Fox).