The new 2008 Fall TV season is almost upon us, with the first new show of the season premiering on September 1st. Screen Rant has put together an extensive list of new and returning programs along with their premiere dates, along with descriptions and recommendations.

So what’s up this fall? What are we anticipating, what are we, well… not anticipating?

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This is the first time that TV show panels have been hosted in Hall H, which is the monster room that sets over 6,000 people. Heroes and Lost have enough of a following here that they’ve decided to move those panels here.

It opened with episode three of a Heroes webisode. I haven’t been following the webisodes so I’m not familiar. It was called “Going Postal” which featured a guy with super voice powers that can kill people with the force of his voice. He kills a couple Fed types. It cuts to 13 weeks later showing him captured by Cristine Rose. Seemed a bit cheesy up until the scene where she showed up.

As one of our commenters pointed out quite strongly in my Flip Side of the Writers’ Strike post (you’ll need to scroll down a bit), season two of Heroes has been less than stellar, especially when compared to season one. It turns out series creator Tim Kring is acutely aware of the shortcomings of the series so far this season.

Kring sat down with Entertainment Weekly to talk about the show’s weak ratings (compared to last year) and the problems with the series. Among the items he mentioned were the romances on the show that didn’t work, the slow pace, introducing new characters completely unconnected to the ones we already know and getting to the central focus way too late.

According to Variey, Heroes: Origins, the Heroes spinoff that had been planned to air during that show’s hiatus, had been cancelled.

The word is that it is related in large part to the threat of the anticipated writer’s strike, although it may also have something to do with this season’s weaker ratings for Heroes. The show has taken a bit longer this season to pick up steam and finally start moving forward with it’s story, with the first few episodes kind of dragging. Having said that, as of this week’s episode it does finally seem to be on track.

Regarding Origins, the show may not be totally dead: Depending on how things work out it may just be pushed back to next season. I think it’s kind of a bummer, it sounded like a cool concept.

Source: Superherohype.com

So, Cavemen, based on the Geico commercials, airs tonight on ABC. By the time many of you read this, it will have premiered and the world may have just come to a startling, explosive end. Just kidding. I know I’m not tuning in, but we here at Screen Rant would love to hear what you think.

Heck, Vic may have “taken one for the team,” and watched the premiere episode. It’s a fact that the original pilot, officially screened earlier this year for major television critics, was rated the worst new show for this season. So, ABC and the Cavemen producers re-worked it, recast some parts, and the new pilot is what you’re seeing tonight. But those pesky critics didn’t get a chance to see it beforehand.

I don’t know about NBC’s new show Chuck, but at least with the season two premiere of Heroes and the series premiere of Journeyman they’re on the right track. The two shows packed a solid one-two punch of mystery/sci-fi entertainment in their premiere episodes of the 2007 Fall season.

There will be some pretty good spoilers following, so stop reading if you don’t want to know.

Heroes began with the familiar voiceover combined with quick scenes from season one intercut with scenes from future episodes, showing us that Sylar is indeed still alive as well as giving us a peek at a few of the new characters. As a matter of fact, by the end of the show we see that everyone who was at the final showdown last season survived. The episode picks up four months after the events of last season’s finale.

As the premiere for the new season of Heroes approaches (Monday 9/24/07), I am spending the weekend watching the DVD set of the first season. I’m about halfway through and am more and more excited about the new season.

So on top of that, you can imagine how happy I am to learn that some big-time talent is on board to write (and, in some cases, direct) episodes of the newish series: Heroes: Origins! Fans of the show Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats), Michael Dougherty (co-writer of Superman Returns, X2: X-Men United) and Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) are all set to write an episode of the new show, with Smith and Roth directing as well. How cool is that?

The 2007 Fall television season has started and for those of you who are Tivo-less and need to know when shows are starting, there are some biggies coming up next week. I won’t be covering them all, because I already watch too much TV and some just don’t interest me, but here are the ones that I think may be of interest to Screen Rant readers:

According to Heroes series creator and producer Tim Kring, season two will have an even scarier villain than Sylar, if you can believe that. In season one, Zachary Quinto played the soft spoken but uber-creepy villain who absorbed the powers of other “supers” by basically opening up their skulls via telekinesis.

A bunch of movie bloggers met with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the guys behind last year’s Crank), whose next film is the upcoming thriller Pathology. They gave us a sneak peek at the first ever trailer for the film. From what was in the trailer, it would be the red band version so I anticipate it will be cut a bit before being released. Pathology stars Milo Ventimiglia who plays Peter Petrelli in NBC’s Heroes.

First I have to say thanks to the guys over at Lakeshore Entertainment and to John Campea over at The Movie Blog for putting the gathering together. It was great to get to meet the guys who run FirstShowing.net and SlashFilm.com. I also met some great folks from RottenTomatoes.com. All great folks and it was great to finally meet people that I’ve “known” online for quite a while.
One extra cool thing was that Zachary Quinto, Milo Ventimiglia and Masi Oka from NBC’s Heroes were there. I had the opportunity to speak with Zach and spent quite a while talking with Milo, who stuck me as a really grounded guy. Super-nice guys, and it was actually weird talking to the guy who played Sylar but not having him creep me out.