How I Met Your Mother
Mondays on CBS
Premieres September 23
After eight just-tell-us-who-the-mom-is-already seasons, fed-up fans can start tuning in earnestly again: How I Met Your Mother is finally embarking on its last go-round, in which Ted Mosby’s kids finally find out how their parents met.
Cristin Milioti, a 2012 Tony nominee for her performance as the Girl in Broadway’s Once, made her first appearance as The Mother in the final seconds of last season’s finale, where she was shown in a train station carrying her signature umbrella and buying a ticket to Farhampton. Which means the show’s ninth and final season will be all about fitting the many self-referential narrative puzzle pieces together—and somehow convincing loyal HIMYM fans to accept a new character, someone outside the hallowed circle of the five chummy protagonists, as a suitable life partner for the ever-optimistic Ted.
“We’re using this season as kind of like the greatest-hits medley at the end of a rock concert,” co-creator Carter Bays told Entertainment Weekly. So expect to see Barney one-liners flying at breakneck speed, musings about destiny and The Universe kicked into high gear, and, of course, at least one more fateful appearance by a yellow umbrella.
Watch a promo here.

ABC
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Tuesdays on ABC
Premieres September 24
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. picks up where director Joss Whedon's The Avengers left off last summer, with a team of super-secret government agents, led by the not-dead-after-all Agent Phil Coulson, investigating mysteries in a strange new world of superhumans. Clark Gregg is the star, three of Whedon's favorite collaborators will run the show, and ABC is acting convinced it will be the biggest new series of the year. Little is known other than that. Comic Con goers loved the pilot—but then again, Comic Con goers are exactly who's supposed to love a show like this. Will it have The Avengers' mass appeal? Could be. Will it be worth watching when it premieres? Absolutely.
Watch a promo here.

NBC
Parenthood
Thursdays on NBC
Premieres September 26
At the end of last season, Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker made a case (or a plea, maybe) for why Parenthood, its future uncertain at the time, deserved another season. “By granting the Bravermans their often loopy eccentricities while managing to make them as all-American as the Waltons, Parenthood earns its continued place in our hearts, and on NBC’s schedule,” Tucker wrote.
And sure enough, Parenthood is back. As the show moves into its fifth year, the expansive Braverman family tree just keeps on expanding. Showrunner Jason Katims said at a Television Critics Association session that the fifth season picks up about eight or nine months after the last one left off, so second Braverman son Crosby (Dax Shepard), his wife Jasmine (Joy Bryant), and their little guy Jabbar will likely be adjusting to life with the new baby they discovered was on the way at the end of last season. And promos for the new season hint that Amber’s (Mae Whitman) Afghanistan war veteran boyfriend Ryan (Friday Night Lights’ Matt Lauria) could become part of the clan, too: A heart-to-heart between Amber and her mother Sarah (Lauren Graham) ends with an earnest “Then let’s plan your wedding.”
Watch a promo here.