Winter TCA 2018: New FOX Sounds A Lot Like Old FOX

Plus, news on a few upcoming episodes of Family Guy.

From the sounds of it, Dana Walden and Gary Newman are treating the Disney-FOX deal as an impasse at the moment if what’s to be believed as presented by the exec duo at the kick off of the TCA tour. Key takeaways from the panel include a business-as-usual environment for the next 18 months and will include 20th Century FOX ordering pilots, series, and the like. Also, it doesn’t sound like the Disney buy will hurt Family Guy or The Simpsons in terms of the Standards & Practices department is concerned:

For starters, the FOX broadcast network is looking at the buy as a great way to wipe the slate clean for a fresh start with the possibility of following a Gotham-like model of not necessarily owning anything in regards to production with the exception of just picking up the check and letting Warner Bros. do the heavy lifting. Live events, sports, and news will be a big part of the network, but there are 24 hours in a day and last I checked Sunday Night Football airs on NBC, so don’t expect to see The Simpsons and Family Guy go anywhere fast.

“They’re not acquiring Fox to turn it into some sort of PG company — or, as I think Bob [Iger] has said, to Disney-fy it.” says Gary Newman.

In fact, Family Guy had some good news coming out of the gate. The show is getting ready to celebrate its 300th episode on January 14th with an episode entitled “Dog Bites Bear,” that features NBA Hall-of-famer Dikembe Mutoumbo and Danny Trejo as guest stars. The episode will see Stewie and Brian get into a friendship-ending fight after Brian commits a terrible act to one of Stewie’s beloved toys. Meanwhile, Peter refuses to wash his hand after meeting his favorite breakfast cereal mascot, Boo Berry

We also got to learn more about the show’s season finale featuring Ian McKellen as a guest star. We already knew the synopsis of the episode entitled “Send in Stewie, Please,”  which involves Stewie who gets sent to the office of his school’s child psychologist, Dr. Cecil Pritchfield (Ian McKellen), after pushing one of his classmates. During the session, Stewie experiences a series of personal and emotional revelations about himself. What we didn’t know is that FOX plans to air the episode with limited commercials thereby giving the episode an extended length run-time. How much is uncertain at this juncture, and I’m not sure how much a difference a 22-minute episode makes with a 25-minute episode as compared to say an hour-long effort, but regardless, it sounds like we should be excited.

Our Take

For my money, New FOX sounds like it’s going to be similar in nature to what Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media are. Multi-billion dollar companies that don’t actually produce their own entertainment programming but will pay for exclusive rights for sports leagues and whatnot. I have a feeling WWE, UFC, and maybe even some boxing promoters are salivating at the notion of potentially expanding their footprints on FOX’s many affiliates.

 

Update 5pm ET: TVGuide got some additional details coming from Seth and Co. after their table read. While the click-bait headline for a possible The Orville crossover with Family Guy doesn’t sound like it’s happening right away (a script has been written, but hasn’t been approved by Seth yet), we did get additional details about an upcoming Family Guy episode happening this season entitled “Girl, Internetted,”  where Meg becomes internet famous for having a Man v Food type show where she eats an exorbitant amount of food that leads to diabetes and a sponsorship deal with Pancreatone.

And that Kevin Spacey gag? Turns out, that was just luck according to The Wrap.