With NBC and Fox already announcing their schedules for the Fall, ABC is next up. The network made its announcements this morning at its upfront presentation.

Some of the highlights include Tim Allen returning to the network to launch a new comedy block on Tuesday nights with his show Last Man Standing. In addition, ABC will launch six of its 13 new scripted series in the fall, including Charlie’s Angels, which will be the anchor show for Thursday nights.

The network also renewed modest performer Happy Endings, giving it the slot after Modern Family. New ABC series for the 2011-12 season are Apartment 23, Charlie’s Angels, Good Christian Belles, Last Man Standing, Man Up, Missing, Once Upon a Time, Pan Am, Revenge, The River, Scandal, Suburgatory and Work It.

America’s Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Body of Proof, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Happy Endings, Secret Millionaire, Shark Tank and 20/20 join previously announced returning series Castle, Cougar Town, Grey’s Anatomy, The Middle, Modern Family and Private Practice.

All new fall series have received 13-episode orders, while the size of the orders for most midseason shows have not been announced. Good to see Castle coming back, especially after Monday’s amazing season finale. Of the others, we’re probably most interested in Missing (mostly because of Ashley Judd), Pan Am, Once Upon a Time and maybe Charlie’s Angeles, but mostly to see how bad it probably is.

ABC’s fall primetime schedule is as follows, followed by descriptions of all the new shows:

MONDAY

8:00 p.m. “Dancing with the Stars”
10:00 p.m. “Castle”

TUESDAY

8:00 p.m. “Last Man Standing”
8:30 p.m. “Man Up”
9:00 p.m. “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show”
10:00 p.m. “Body of Proof”

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Like NBC and Fox yesterday, today ABC joins the group in announcing its schedule for the Fall. The network has kept several shows including V, Castle, Modern Family, Cougar Town and more plus has made room for seven new shows.

These new shows include superhero comedy No Ordinary Family, Detroit 187, The Whole Truth, Body of Proof, My Generation and Better Together. On Sundays, the network expects to use Desperate Housewives to launch Shonda Rhimes’ new medical drama Off the Map in midseason, just as they did with Grey’s Anatomy.

Also waiting until midseason are comedies Mr. Sunshine starring Matthew Perry and Happy Endings, as well as recently renewed returning drama V. It’s too bad we have to wait until November for more V but at least it made it back, which is a good thing.

Below is ABC’s fall schedule:

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Comedy is king, at least at ABC, as the network has renewed three of its freshmen comedies, giving them the much-coveted second season pickup. The announcement came Tuesday and was given by ABC’s Steve McPherson who said he had given early second-season orders to Wednesday night comedies Modern Family, Cougar Town and The Middle. The network also gave the green light to another comedy pilot called Mr. Sunshine, starring Friends alum Matthew Perry.

ABC also announced the pickup of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, which follows the celeb U.K. chef as he travels to Huntington, W.Va., in order to launch a new healthy cooking initiative. The show, from Ryan Seacrest Prods. and Fresh One Prods., will air Fridays at 9 p.m. starting March 26.

And McPherson confirmed the network is at work on a spinoff for The Bachelor. The new show, Bachelor Pad, will run in late summer as a bridge between The Bachelorette and the fall schedule. The show, hosted by Chris Harrison, features former Bachelor contestants keeping it sexy in a house. ABC’s other big reality franchise, Dancing With the Stars, is back Monday, March 22. McPherson said the show would include fewer contestants this season.

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With 2009 and the ‘aughts’ portion of the new millennium coming to a close, Chris and Matt decided to forgo the usual news and commentary for this special episode of The Flickcast and instead, focus on some of the great movies, tv, comics, games and all things geek that were the best of 2009. In addition, the boys also made some picks of one or two of the highlights of the entire ‘aughts’ decade.

Some of the topics discussed include Chris and Matt’s favorite movies of 2009 such as Star Trek, Inglourious Basterds, Zombieland and Drag Me to Hell as well as some of their favorite 2009 tv shows including Community, Cougar Town and continuing series such as Fringe and The Big Bang Theory. The boys also made some picks of their favorite comics and games of the year including Blackest Night, Old Man Logan, Modern Warfare 2 and Ultimate Alliance 2.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

The last few years of television have shown us that the ratings darlings were either reality/competition shows, vast plots and casts where a suspension of belief were necessary, or the use of a microscope was employed… every week. Don’t call it a comeback, but times are a-changin’.

According to Variety, ABC has given full-season orders to Modern Family and Cougar Town, both sitcoms – “situation comedies” in case you’ve forgotten – revolving around normal, every-day characters and families dipped in abnormal circumstances. Even The Middle has scored enough viewership to convince the network to re-up and fortify its Wednesday comedy block, which has so far outperformed the same time slot from last year when the now-canceled Pushing Daisies and relocated Private Practice used to reside.

Is this a sign that sitcoms will once again return to prominence and dominate the airwaves? Possibly, however a case can be made for established television stars going back to the well and finding success with a new vehicle. Both Cougar Town and The Middle have comedic veterans as their centerpiece – Courteney Cox Arquette and Patricia Heaton, respectively – while Modern Family provides a good mixture of new talent with familiar faces that has been agreeable with viewers. As with anything television-related, stay tuned.

This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt have to go it alone again. They take on a bunch of new, and returning, topics including Fantastic Fest in Austin, new television shows including Cougar Town, Community, FlashForward and returning shows like The Big Bang Theory, Lost, Fringe and Dollhouse.

In addition, they discuss Ryan Reynolds confirmation of his appearance in Green Lantern and Deadpool, the career of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Billy Crystal’s recent projects, Megan Fox on Saturday Night Live, Transformers 3, the A-Team reboot, and much more.

Plus, Chris and Matt make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the indie comic The Stuff of Legend and Chris’ pick of Scott Sigler’s sci-fi/horror novel Infected.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

The new kids on the television block are going to be just fine, if the early return numbers are any indication. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debuts of new shows this fall have bucked the last two years’ trend of low premiere numbers. NBC’s The Jay Leno Show, Fox’s Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show, CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles and ABC’s three-headed monster of Cougar Town, Modern Family and FlashForward have all benefited from large turnouts.

Even with the oncoming onslaught of new and “fan-favorite” programs, the CW’s Vampire Diaries continued to show promise. But not all shows are sitting pretty as the law of averages always seems to have an opinion on, well, everything. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy – formally a ratings juggernaut – has shown signs of slipping, and you can include genre staples NBC’s Heroes and CW’s Smallville into that mix as well.

For whom the bell tolls? Fox’s Fringe and ABC’s Desperate Housewives have dropped to the point that their respective networks are beginning to sweat a bit, and the departure of William Petersen from CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigations has had a similar effect on that show’s ratings. If returns don’t improve, these shows could end up like CW’s TBL: DOA.