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2013 TV upfronts: NBC puts disabled at center of prime time

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NEW YORK -- Sure, “Glee” has Artie and “Friday Night Lights” had Jason Street.

But there’s been a scarcity of disabled characters in prime-time TV -- in fact, none of the major networks had more than one series regular with a disability in the past season.

But that all appeared fated to change on Monday when NBC unveiled its 2013-2014 season at its upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall: No fewer than three new shows feature a main character with a disability.

J.K. Simmons stars as a blind man in the comedy “The Family Guide”; Blair Underwood plays a hard-edged detective in a wheelchair in the reboot of the crime series “Ironside; and Michael J. Fox plays a loose version of himself in the “The Michael J. Fox Show,’ a comedy about a newscaster with Parkinson’s disease who goes back to work.

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All three are the central characters on their respective shows -- unprecedented as far as this reporter can recall on network television.

Two of the shows may cause a stir in the disabled community because those key roles are being played by actors without disabilities (“Glee” has come under criticism for this), but Fox has long suffered from Parkinson’s.

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From clips shown Monday, the show doesn’t shy away from his condition but doesn’t hunker down in it either; indeed, many of the jokes are of the more general family-sitcom variety. (Watching an on-air promotion of himself walking in slow-motion to up the seriousness quotient, Fox’s character quips: “When you’re in slow motion you’re either dead or under indictment.”)

As for “Guide,” the show comes with a texture of truth all its own: The show’s creator, D.J. Nash, based the concept on his relationship with his blind father.

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