Everybody says network TV is dying. Nobody told network TV.

In 2014, it felt safe to say that broadcast network television was slowly dissipating and those presiding over it were guiding its decline. Then, in early 2015, "Empire" hit -- on the last-place network and changed the equation. It didn't behave like a network TV show was supposed to behave anymore. It debuted huge, but then its ratings kept increasing. It had the kind of impact that nowadays is usually reserved for cable shows like The Walking Dead, and it was right there on good old, reliable Fox. Network television wasn't just salvageable; it could maybe still thrive. And yet "Empire" hit so late in the traditional development cycle that no one could copy it in upcoming pilots. As such, the new fall shows -- at least based on their trailers -- feel like they were made for that world where the business model was dying, where networks had to squeeze blood from a stone.

Television is an industry in which time passes quickly, where what's hot and new becomes outdated in a second. And now the networks are headed into the fall of 2015 with a bunch of shows constructed for the fall of 2014, for a pre-"Empire" world. But what we don't look at, as we pretend everything is just normal, is the fact that all of this is speeding toward something else, and nobody quite knows what that will be. So we smile and imagine that network TV, buoyed by this one new, massive hit, is going to be just fine. It has to be.