Fall Preview 2016: Will Fox’s ‘Pitch’ soar past center field?
Who’s ready for something a little different this fall? We gotta give Fox credit for being risk-takers, since they are going far out there in bringing “Pitch” to the small screen. It’s a sports drama with a full MLB license about a female major-league pitcher, and we really have no clue how it will fare. Yet, that’s exciting! We don’t often have gambles on network TV like this; “Friday Night Lights” is the last drama we’d consider somewhat similar to this; while it was beloved by critics, it wasn’t really delivering enormous ratings.
For more on “Pitch” and what makes it interesting, check out our full preview of it below.
Premiere Date and Timeslot Competition – Thursday, September 22 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. As of right now, we do think that this could be a timeslot largely up for the taking. Due to “Scandal” going off the air until midseason, ABC has an unknown there in “Notorious.” Meanwhile, NBC has “Chicago Med,” and CBS is ultimately going more of the comedy route. None of these shows are exact comparisons.
Logline – “The emotional story of young pitcher Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury), a beautiful, tough and incredibly gifted athlete who instantly becomes the most famous person in the country when she’s called up by the San Diego Padres, making her the first woman to play Major League Baseball.”
Cast – Cast – Kylie Bunbury, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mo McRae, Meagan Holder, Tim Jo, Ali Larter, Dan Lauria, and Mark Consuelos.
Trailer – In many ways, this is both really poignant and really run-of-the-mill. It tells you most of the pilot in a few minutes time, and in terms of its narrative seems to follow the arc of almost every other major inspirational sports movie out there. Yet, at the same time the performances seem on-point, and having that full MLB license tends to go a long way. (Also, as someone who has a San Diego Padres cap, we certainly don’t mind that they went with this particular team.)
Overall Take – We love the risk by Fox to do a sports drama at the time when they’re not prevalent on network TV. Yet, we have two major concerns: Whether or not MLB could regulate a lot of the content, and also that this could be a better TV movie than a full-fledged series. Yet, we really hope that it works since it’s inspirational, interesting, and celebrates one of the reasons so many people watch sports: The underdog story.