It's so strange to think of Fox in its current state. By several metrics it's the #1 network on TV today, scoring the highest ratings for unscripted programs by far and grabbing huge numbers for scripted shows. There's a pretty solid chunk of Fox's demographic that isn't old enough to remember the network when it was the scrappy, low-rent channel that survived by airing shows no other network would touch. It specialized in blue collar appeal, using occasionally grotesque American parodies like Married With Children and The Simpsons along with early reality series like COPS to grab those viewers who mostly weren't represented on the other networks. Fox has always been more willing to take on genre projects, doing science fiction long before the 00's obsession with serialized dramas like Lost. Along with its ever-more-interesting cable counterpart FX, Fox has somehow become the most interesting network on television. Given how many of the 09/10 season's shows are returning or continuing in the Fall on Fox, the network is only debuting three new series in September.

Lone Star (September 20th)

TV loves con men, or at least the glamorous, fictional depiction of con men. They're good looking, smart, able to get whatever they want with little effort and their ability to pick locks, pockets and the right words border on the supernatural. That's why characters like Robert/Bob Allen of Fox's new drama Lone Star will always have a place on the airwaves. James Wolk's character has been publicized with that particular name/nickname because he lives two different but related lives. In one he's a man married to someone with close ties to a wealthy Houston, Texas oil company, in the other he's a con man working the gullible subset of Midland's populace. Lone Star is presumably the story of how Robert/Bob's lives begin to fall apart amid the mounting pressures of his lies. Wolk is joined by a couple of recognizable ringers like John Voigt and David Keith, while the production staff has a long list of names associated with quality programming elsewhere in TV and film. As long as it doesn't turn into an increasingly improbable soap opera, Lone Star could be Fox's next big hitter.

Raising Hope (September 21st)

How do you make a network comedy about a dim-witted but nice guy raising a baby he didn't expect without making the show a schmaltzy bid for mediocrity? Well, you can give it to Greg Garcia, whose considerably successful show My Name is Earl managed to make an irrepressibly lovable morality play out of trailer park culture. Raising Hope, despite its potentially groan-inducing premise, actually looks pretty funny and affecting. Lucas Neff plays a slacker named Jimmy who inherits the responsibility for an infant after her mother, one of Jimmy's old flames, gets sentenced to several years in prison. Together with his own ill-prepared but loving parents (Garret Dillahunt and Martha Plimpton), Jimmy takes on the task. Presumably, hilarity is supposed to ensue. It looks like Shannon Woodward of The Riches will be popping in as Jimmy's checkout-girl love interest. If Raising Hope can find some good stories after the stock "how do I take care of a baby?" stuff runs out, it might be pretty good.

Running Wilde (September 21st)

I liked Arrested Development and I couldn't shut off Sit Down and Shut Up fast enough, so Mitch Hurwitz has to prove that his one great (creative) success was more than a fluke of great casting and gifted writers. Running Wilde is his high-concept Will Arnett vehicle premiering on Fox this Fall and right now its prospects don't look all that good. Arnett plays the cartoonishly selfish, spoiled heir to an oil company whose life collides with the idealistic conservationist who also happens to be his childhood crush. I've never thought of Arnett as being a great leading man. He's hilarious but he's more of a clown than a main character. As for co-star Keri Russell, she's a bit bland and has never been particularly funny. Running Wilde is either going to achieve some kind of unexpected comic transcendence or it's going to quickly reveal itself as a show with a premise that never should have been stretched beyond the kind limitations of a feature film. Regardless, it's probably going to be canceled faster than Joss Whedon's next show.