Fall TV Previews: Keri Russell/Will Arnett's 'Running Wilde'

On paper, this has a Sabrina-like premise: The daughter of a housekeeper who worked for an extremely wealthy family (until the housekeeper was fired) had a childhood crush on the rich son. But because Fox’s Running Wilde is created by folks affiliated with Arrested Development and stars Will Arnett, odds are that any potential love affair will be uniquely wacky.

Let’s hope that the wacky equals laughs.

Arnett plays Steve Wilde, the idiot rich son who attempts to “help” Keri Russell’s Emmy Kadubic, the housekeeper’s daughter -- who'd been helping a poor tribe in the Amazon where Steve dad wants to drill for oil -- by moving the entire tribe to California mansion. This left Emmy, a single mom, with no job since the people she’d been helping and whose culture she’d been studying now live in the United States.

“You have lorded having nothing over me since the day you found out I had everything,” Steve said to Emmy, accusing her of acting superior to him. When it’s revealed that Steve invited Emmy and her “mute” daughter to live in his Beverly Hills mansion, that’s where it’ll become all nutty and Arrested Development-like. I hope.



Running Wilde premieres on Sept. 21 at 9:30.

Fall TV Previews: J.J. Abrams' 'Undercovers'

Among the shows for which I have high hopes this fall is the new NBC drama Undercovers, created/produced/directed by J.J. Abrams of Lost, the most recent Star Trek movie and Alias. After reading about the show and seeing the preview I thought: Alias, minus Rambaldi, Jack Bristow, Arvin Sloane and baby Bristow/Vaughn.

The premise of Undercovers is like an after-Alias: These married caterers, who used to be CIA spies five years ago, are called back into the fray, just when they were looking for something to amp up the excitement quotient in their marriage. What better than espionage to get the juices flowing?



Several of the scenes in the preview reminded me of Sydney and Vaughn – which is good because I miss Alias – like seeing Steven and Samantha Bloom fleeing a building while wearing jump suits (I thought of Syd and Vaughn in the Vatican), Samantha in the black lingerie (Syd on the SD-6 plane with the master computer) and Samantha stomping on a guy (Syd in the pilot episode in the parking lot after she’d been pursued by SD-6 goons).

What do you think?

It premieres on Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on NBC.