Winter TV Scouting Report: Scoop on 26 Shows

Premieres: Thursday, Jan. 2, at 8 p.m. on NBC
Stars: Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Ken Jeong
What To Expect: Creator Dan Harmon returns after a one-year exile for a ''regrounding'' of the show. Jeff Winger (McHale) returns to the halls of Greendale as a teacher — and possible savior. ''He's pressed into the position to keep this school afloat,'' says Harmon. ''We take the idea of Greendale as an institution just a hair more seriously than we've done in the past. We look at it sort of our Dundler-Mifflin of The Office, if you will. It's a thing that's real, that has stakes to it, that needs to be solvent or it can't exist anymore.'' —Dan Snierson

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 5, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS
Stars: Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery
What To Expect: The Crawleys are back to make you remember how unclassy you are! Although things are looking bleak this season, with the family clashing over what they feel is best for newly widowed single mother Lady Mary (Dockery) as she copes with Matthew's (Dan Stevens) fatal car accident. ''Mary can't move on and I don't think [she] will for a long time,'' says Dockery. ''But everyone around her is trying to bring her out of this dark spell that she's under.'' Meanwhile, Lady Edith's (Laura Carmichael) romance with her newspaper editor still hangs in the balance, Cousin Rose (Lily James) dallies with a black jazz singer, and an electric mixer spells trouble for Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol). Bates (Brendan Coyle) and Anna (Joanne Froggatt) will also face a major trauma this season that throws off their happy ending. —Marc Snetiker

Premieres: Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 9 p.m. ET on CBS
Stars: Josh Holloway, Marg Helgenberger, Meghan Ory
What To Expect: An ex-Delta Force (Holloway) joins the ranks of U.S. Cyber Command as a super agent who receives a microchip in his brain that allows him to access the worldwide grid. That may make him powerful, but still vulnerable, which interested Holloway. ''He can get shot, he can get killed just as easily as you and me can, and that was appealing to me,'' says the Lost alum. ''I didn't want him to be this super human that you can't hurt, or Robocop, who is more machine than human. This is simply a computer chip in his head, so yes, you have information, but that's it.'' —Dan Snierson

Premieres: Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 10 p.m. ET on BET
Stars: Gabrielle Union, Omari Hardwick, Lisa Vidal
What To Expect: Union plays an Atlanta news anchor who struggles with a dysfunctional family and a messy romantic life that includes an affair with a married man. ''It's authentic and it's brutally honest,'' says Union of BET's first hour-long drama. ''You'll see characters that within an episode you may love, you may hate, you may cry with.'' —Tim Stack

Premieres: Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 10 p.m. ET on FX
Stars: Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, Joelle Carter, Michael Rapaport
What To Expect: Season 5 brings the return of Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) — who'll come into money and buy the whorehouse Audrey's from Boyd (Goggins), naturally — as well as the introduction of his Florida cousins, led by this year's big bad, Darryl Crowe Jr. (Rapaport). They arrive in Harlan after Raylan (Olyphant) helps vanquish their latest criminal enterprise in the premiere. ''It's that sense that they're carrion birds. They come in. They're invasive. They're hard to get rid of,'' executive producer Graham Yost says. Boyd, meanwhile, will travel to Detroit with Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns) in the premiere to address problems with their heroin pipeline. He'll also still be waiting for jailed and frustrated Ava (Carter) to be assigned a judge to her case so he can threaten the person and get her out. In other words, get ready for a large body count. ''It's a violent group of people that we're spending time with. So it's going to be messy,'' Olyphant says. ''People are going to go down.'' —Mandi Bierly

Premieres: Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 10 p.m. ET on TBS
Stars: Courteney Cox, Busy Philipps, Christa Miller, Josh Hopkins
What To Expect: Laurie (Philipps) and Travis (Dan Byrd)'s new relationship continues to blossom, the gang drinks wine, Jules (Cox) finds herself dealing with more issues stemming from her father's early onset Alzheimer's, the gang drinks wine, and we discover someone plays with a miniature version of the neighborhood that they built themselves. (Spoiler: It's Tom.) Also, Matthew Perry guests stars! ''He's such a pro,'' says Cox of having her former Friends co-star on set, ''and always up for anything.'' —Sandra Gonzalez

Premieres: Friday, Jan. 10, at 9:30 p.m. on Fox
Stars: Geoff Stults, Parker Young, Chris Lowell
What To Expect: The Office meets the Army as super-soldier Pete (Stults) gets booted Stateside and heads his siblings' Rear Detachment platoon in this comedy from Cougar Town's Kevin Biegel. He drew on his family's military history, as well as his relationship with his two brothers for enthusiastic puppy dog Randy (Young) and sarcastic middle child Derrick (Lowell). Casting got it right: ''In real life [too], I can't get rid of Parker. He calls me every night. He wants to stay over,'' Stults says. ''When we were in New York for the Upfronts, he was like, 'Hey man, why don't I just stay in your room?' I said, 'Parker, they got you your own f---in' room. Go stay in your own room.' He's like, 'Yeah, but we're gonna be together all day, so I'll just crash over. It's a big bed.' 'You're not sleeping in my bed, dude.''' —Mandi Bierly

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 12, at 9 p.m. ET on HBO
Stars: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke
What To Expect: Dunham tells EW that Hannah and Adam (Adam Driver) will really make a go of their relationship in a way they haven't before; that a newly single Shoshana (Mamet) has become a ''sexual dynamo''; we'll learn where and what Jessa (Kirke) has been up to when she returns from her travels and Marnie (Williams) will be at a ''new low'' after a dramatic split with Charlie (Christopher Abbot, who left the show). Plus, Elijah (Andrew Rannells) returns mid-season and there'll be plenty of guest stars including Felicity Jones, Amy Schumer, Colin Quinn, Orange is the New Black's Danielle Brooks, and Richard E. Grant. ''We always have so much fun with the casting but we sort of went buckwild this year,'' says Dunham. —Sara Vilkomerson

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 12, at 9 p.m. ET on HBO
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan
What To Expect: HBO's gritty new anthology series will chronicle a new crime story featuring a new cast each season. The first eight-episode tale follows two mismatched Louisiana homicide detectives (McConaughey and Harrelson) as they hunt for a mysterious serial killer. ''There's a big arc that evolves over a 17-year period,'' says Harrelson. ''The script is fantastic.'' —Josh Rottenberg

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 12, at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime
Stars: Emmy Rossum, William H. Macy, Jeremy Allen White
What To Expect: The untamed Gallagher family is back after season 3's walloping finale sent the characters spiraling across Chicago as winter arrived. ''The biggest change is who's living in the house on a full-time basis,'' teases exec producer Mark Mylod. Expect a shake-up as we find Lip (White) struggling with college life, Frank (Macy) scheming to avoid facing his mortality, Ian (Cameron Monaghan) heading into the army, and Fiona (Rossum) living large with her office job. Plus, we'll meet Debbie's (Emma Kenney) shocking first boyfriend and at least one new Gallagher family member who will affect the tight-knit clan. —Marc Snetiker

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 19, at 10 p.m. ET on PBS
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman
What To Expect: Well, you can expect the season premiere of the Arthur Conan Doyle update to satisfactorily explain how Cumberbatch's Sherlock survived his apparently fatal fall in the finale of season 2 (and a riot amongst Sherlock-ians if it doesn't). Also? In the second of this season 3's three movie-length shows, Sherlock acts as best man at the wedding of Watson (Freeman) while the finale introduces a new villain played by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen. Executive producer Steven Moffat says he had been thinking of making the character American until he saw Mikkelsen's audition tape. ''He was so stunning I didn't get to the end,'' laughs Moffat. ''I just picked up the phone and said, 'We absolutely have to have him!' At which point the character became Danish.'' —Clark Collis

Premieres: Sunday, Jan. 19, after the NFC Championship Game on Fox
Stars: Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy, Shawn Ashmore, Valorie Curry
What To Expect: It's a whole ''new world,'' says executive producer Marcos Siega of The Following's second season. After tying a few loose ends left frayed after season 1's bloody finale, the Fox drama will jump ahead a year, when former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) is on the mend. ''He's been running. He's now teaching. He's gotten his act together,'' Siega says. And he'll need to be in fighting shape, considering his nemesis Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) may not be dead after all. —Amy Wilkinson

Premieres: Thursday, Jan. 23, at 9 p.m. ET on Fox
Stars: Greg Kinnear, Miranda Otto
What To Expect: It's a dramedy based on an Australian format about a self-destructive criminal attorney who defends the indefensible. ''He's very much a guy who strives on crisis,'' says executive producer Peter Duncan. —Lynette Rice

Premieres: Saturday, Jan. 25, at 9 p.m. ET on Starz
Stars: Toby Stephens, Luke Arnold, Hannah New
What To Expect: Pirates! But not the same kind of pirates. Executive producer Jon Steinberg (Jericho, Human Target) along with Robert Levine plundered actual pirate history for this Treasure Island prequel to create a less fantastical take on the genre (no parrots!). Largely set around New Providence Island in 1715, Black Sails follows the feared pirate Capt. Flint (Stephens), who's after $5 million in treasure on a heavily guarded ship, and a rascally young sailor named John Silver (Arnold) who holds the key to its location. ''In some respect, they're politicians, gangster bosses, union men,'' says Steinberg. ''No matter what industry you're in, managing people has the same challenges. This is about how to manage pirates.'' —James Hibberd

Premieres: Friday, Feb. 14, on Netflix
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Mara
What To Expect: Political power players Frank (Spacey) and Claire Underwood (Wright) continue their ruthless attempts to rise within the ranks of the D.C. world, which affects their own union. ''The Underwoods' marriage will be front and center,'' says creator Beau Willimon. ''That partnership, for me, has always been one of the most fascinating and thrilling things to explore.'' —Tim Stack

Premieres: Saturday, Feb. 22, at 10 p.m. ET on History
Stars: Travis Fimmel, Katheryn Winnick, Donal Logue, Alexander Ludwig
What To Expect: The season starts off with the big, bloody, brotherly battle that fans have been waiting for, and doesn't calm down after that. Ragnar (Fimmel) and Lagertha (Winnick) will have their own conflicts at home, a certain king in England will spell trouble for everyone, and Hunger Games vet Alexander Ludwig joins the show as an older version of Ragnar's son Bjorn. If it sounds like things are moving pretty fast, good. Says creator Michael Hirst, ''I don't want to stop writing this until the Vikings discover America.'' —Ray Rahman

Premieres: Monday, Feb. 24, at 9 p.m. ET on TNT
Stars: Josh Henderson, Jesse Metcalfe, Julie Gonzalo, Jordana Brewster
What To Expect: We could talk about Elena (Brewster) accepting Cliff Barnes's offer to be his proxy at Ewing Global, or Christopher (Metcalfe) getting busy with a Southfork ranch hand played by 90210's AnnaLynne McCord, or John Ross (Henderson) continuing to cheat on new wife Pamela (Gonzalo) with Emma (Emma Bell) as a business move. ''I feel like just about every episode it's John Ross hungrily making love with someone. That's the new term this year for John Ross — he's 'hungrily making love,''' Henderson says. Wait, clarification: ''That's what the description is with Pamela, maybe not necessarily with others. The problem is there's definitely others.'' —Mandi Bierly

Premieres: Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 9:30 p.m. ET on ABC
Stars: Blake Lee, Andrew Santino, Vanessa Lengies, Alexis Carra
What To Expect: Ten strangers find themselves in the same bar on the same night — which pairs will hit it off by the end of the night and which will hit the road alone? That's the question that will be explored during the first season of this comedy experiment from Hangover writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, where each episode explores a different pairing of people. ''Frankly, we were tired of the same ol', same ol','' says Moore. ''This seemed like a very different way to do a romantic comedy.'' Adds Lucas: ''The idea, to us, that was intriguing is that as a guy, every girl guy you meet when you're single could be your wife or she could be someone you never talk to again for the rest of your life. Those were interesting stakes.'' —Sandra Gonzalez

Premieres: Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 10 p.m. on FX
Stars: Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich
What To Expect: Elizabeth (Russell) survives (no shock) and Phillip (Rhys) moves back home. ''Elizabeth tries to be a family, but it's not so easy,'' says series creator Joe Weisberg. ''If last season was all about them and their marriage, we felt this year is going to be more about family and kids.'' —Jessica Shaw

Premieres: Thursday, Feb. 27, 10 p.m. ET on IFC
Stars: Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein
What To Expect: The show will up the absurdity ante even further this year, lampooning everything from topless protestors to certain leaf vegetables. ''I think this is the best season we've done so far,'' says Brownstein. ''Everything coheres this year, thematically.'' Adds Armisen, ''We really love the idea of 'human bandwidth.' We kept that in mind when we wrote this season.'' —Ray Rahman

Premieres: February, post-Olympics on NBC
Stars: David Walton, Minnie Driver, Benjamin Stockham
What To Expect: Emmy-winning TV guru Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) takes the reins to turn Nick Hornby's 1998 novel/Hugh Grant's 2002 movie into a quirky family sitcom. Perennially immature musician Will (Walton) gets a lesson in growing up from his new neighbors, offbeat single mother Fiona (Driver) and her precocious son Marcus (Stockham). ''The stories are driven by Marcus's tenacity to get close to Will, so over the course of the series, this family is forming but they'll never admit that to each other,'' says Katims. —Marc Snetiker

Premieres: March 3 on A&E
Stars: Vera Farmiga, Freddie Highmore, Max Thieriot
What To Expect: The Psycho reboot returns for a second season that, according to executive producer Carlton Cuse, will focus a great deal on identity. Says Cuse, ''The sort of thematic of the second season is, 'Who am I?' For Norma, 'Am I entitled to the life I've always dreamed of having?' For Norman it's, 'Who am I?' as he becomes more aware of the darkness inside him. There's sweet charming Norman and then there's this darker creature that inhabits his soul.'' —Tim Stack

Premieres: Thursday, March 6, 10 p.m. ET on USA
Stars: Kevin Bigley, Kevin Daniels, Michael Mosley, Jessica McNamee
What To Expect: On USA's first-ever scripted comedy, producer Denis Leary combines two of the things he knows best — rescue work and comedy. The freshman sitcom will center on a group of Chicago EMT buddies who find hazards on and off the job — think of it as the funny flip-side of Leary's previous show, Rescue Me. ''There's obviously a lot of drama in the EMT world,'' Leary says, ''but there's also a lot of comedy to mine there, too.'' —Ray Rahman

Premieres: March, after the Olympics, on NBC
Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Gillian Anderson, Rachael Taylor
What To Expect: A rogue organization kidnaps a busload of children with powerful parents from the D.C. area. ''It's a spy story!'' promises Mulroney. ''It'll be fun to get through.'' —Lynette Rice

Premieres: Wednesday, March 18, at 9 p.m. ET on The CW
Stars: Eliza Taylor, Thomas McDonell, Isaiah Washington, Henry Ian Cusick
What To Expect: Based on Kass Morgan's YA book of the same name, Clarke Walters (Taylor) is sent to Earth with 99 other exiles from the ''Ark,'' the space station holding the only survivors from a nuclear apocalypse. With resources running out on the Ark, the leaders (including Chancellor Jaha, played by Washington) send the teen delinquents back to their home planet to determine if it's survivable. ''If you like The Vampire Diaries or Arrow — which is apparently our lead-in — you'll definitely like this show,'' says exec producer Jason Rothenberg. ''I am trying to make it for the fanboys. The sci-fi fans of this world will love the world we're creating.'' —Breia Brissey

Premieres: Sun, Mar. 19, at 10 p.m. ET on ABC
Stars: Omar Epps, Frances Fisher, Kurtwood Smith
What To Expect: After an 8-year-old boy — who died 30 years earlier in a drowning accident — suddenly reappears in rural China, an immigration agent (Epps) reunites him with his long-grieving parents in small town Missouri. ''We're doing something different,'' says showrunner Aaron Zelman (Damages). ''People are going to see something that they're not expecting on network television.'' —Stephan Lee