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10 things to expect from the '15-'16 TV season

Flexible scheduling, more comic book characters and a double dose of Rob Lowe are just a few of the things broadcast networks have in store.

FALL TV is still far away, with dozens of new and returning summer shows about to start clamoring for a spot on your DVR.

But last week, as broadcast networks unveiled 2015-16 plans to advertisers in New York, September seemed close enough to see trends for the coming season:

Season? What season?: Flexible, cable-like scheduling means that broadcast series premiere year round, that seasons are fluid and may be shorter or broken into halves, as Fox plans to do with the second, 18-episode season of "Empire." So, more "fall finales," more confusion. But fewer reruns.

Blasts from the past: Besides the six-episode return of "The X-Files," scheduled to launch Jan. 24 on Fox with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and creator Chris Carter aboard, NBC this fall is rebooting "Heroes" as "Heroes Reborn," and later in the season bringing Craig T. Nelson back as "Coach," in which Hayden Fox will be helping his son, newly hired as head coach "at an Ivy League university in Pennsylvania where they know nothing about sports."

While Penn fans scratch their heads, let's do the math: The coach's son was adopted late in the show's 1989-97 run on ABC, making him old enough to play college football by now.

Consolidation of power players: You already know about Shonda Rhimes, who, with producing partner Betsy Beers, was responsible for three ABC dramas this season - "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal" and "How to Get Away With Murder" - and will be adding another, "The Catch."

That leaves Rhimes a couple of shows behind producer Greg Berlanti, who'll have six series over three networks, adding CBS' "Supergirl," NBC's "Blindspot" and the CW's "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" to NBC's "The Mysteries of Laura" and the CW's "Arrow" and "The Flash."

Good news about diversity: Emboldened by ABC's success with shows like "Scandal," "How to Get Away With Murder," "Fresh Off the Boat" and "Black-ish," and Fox's hit "Empire," most broadcasters seem, finally, to have gotten serious about making sure that people of color are better represented on network TV.

Bad news about diversity: Executives have started referring, gallingly, to individual members of minority groups as "diverse," as in, "One of the leads is diverse."

TV goes to the movies: Next season's crop of "inspired-by" series includes ABC's "Uncle Buck," with Mike Epps in the John Candy role, Fox's "Minority Report," CBS' "Limitless" (with Bradley Cooper, who starred in the movie and is a producer on the show, set to appear in a recurring role) and CBS' midseason "Rush Hour."

Comic-book update: Marvel has "Agents of SHIELD" and "Agent Carter" (and Netflix's "Daredevil"). DC Comics has Fox's "Gotham," the CW's "Arrow," "The Flash" and "iZombie," and is adding CBS' "Supergirl" (which will air opposite "Gotham"), Fox's "Lucifer" and the CW's "DC's Legends of Tomorrow."

More Rob Lowe than you can shake a DirecTV remote at: Those creepy ads may have been pulled, but Lowe's plenty busy. He'll star this fall in Fox's "The Grinder" as an actor who, after playing a TV lawyer for years, thinks he's qualified to join his lawyer brother (Fred Savage) in court. Later in the season, he'll star in the NBC dramedy "You, Me and the End of the World."

Anthologies: They're not just for HBO and FX anymore. ABC's "American Crime" will return with a new story (but some of the same actors), and Fox has "Scream Queens," a "comedy-horror anthology" from Ryan Murphy ("Glee," "American Horror Story") whose first season focuses on a college sorority.

Live, live, live: The newest weapon against time-shifting is right out of the early age of TV. NBC, home to "Saturday Night Live" and live TV musicals - next up, "The Wiz Live!" - has a live variety show, "Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris," and announced that the entire season of its sitcom "Undateable" would air live.

Fox has its own musical, "Grease: Live," on Jan. 31, and hopes to make some noise with the final season of "American Idol," while ABC, which already airs the Oscars and other ratings-rich live events, added a live 60th-anniversary celebration for Disneyland.

CBS? Super Bowl 50. Bringing eight former Super Bowl MVPs onto the stage of Carnegie Hall to dazzle advertisers, the network promised "the most historic broadcast event of all time."

If only Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had thought to toss a football on the moon.

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