FOX announces 'winter premiere' dates for 'The Simpsons,' 'New Girl' & more

"New Girl," like most network series, will be in repeats around Christmas and New Year's before coming back in early January.

Credit: FOX

The TV cycle of life seems to be adding new stages all the time, and now all of FOX's shows will have "winter premieres," whether they're brand new, returning from a months-long hiatus, or simply coming back after the same Christmas/New Year's break that virtually every show takes.

We already knew that "American Idol" would be beginning a new season (with a revamped judging panel including Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban) on January 16 and 17, that the Kevin Bacon serial killer drama "The Following" would be debuting on January 21, and that Kiefer Sutherland and "Touch" would be back on February 8. (And that the "Fringe" series finale would air a few weeks before, on January 11.) But today, the network announced the dates that most of its other series would begin airing new episodes once the calendar ticks over into 2013:

* We'll get new episodes of "The Simpsons," "Bob's Burgers," "Family Guy" and "American Dad' on Sunday, January 6. "The Cleveland Show" will be back the following Sunday.

* Tuesday comedies "Raising Hope," "Ben and Kate," "New Girl" and "The Mindy Project" will be new again starting on Elvis's birthday, Tuesday, January 8.

* "Bones" is back with a two-hour episode on Monday, January 14, with "The Following" debuting the next week.

* After a two-hour "Idol" airs on Thursday, January 17, the show will contract back to an hour the following week for the return of "Glee."

* "Kitchen Nightmares" is back on Friday, January 25.

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com