TV

8 stars heading to television this fall

Network executives have surprised us by not casting the same 12 people who always get cast in fall series — Katherine Heigl and Debra Messing notwithstanding. Here are some of the folks we’re most excited to see.

Greta Gerwig, ‘How I Met Your Dad’

Gerwig nabbed a role in the “How I Met Your Mother” spinoff, “How I Met Your Dad.”Getty Images

Gerwig (“Frances Ha”) will play Sally, a female Peter Pan who has no idea where she’s going in life and is drifting away from her husband. She relies on the advice of her friends to get her through it.

Hayley Atwell, ‘Marvel’s Agent Carter’

Atwell will reprise her as Peggy Carter in “Marvel’s Agent Carter.”ABC (left); Getty Images (right)

The year is 1946. The war is over, the men are coming home and Agent Peggy Carter, whose boyfriend, Steve Rogers, is frozen in ice, feels marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad.

Working for the covert SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), she must fit in secret missions for Howard Stark while doing filing and stenography.

Viola Davis, ‘How to Get Away With Murder’

Davis will star in ABC’s new legal thriller, “How to Get Away with Murder.”ABC (left); WireImage (right)

Before her breakout performance in “The Help,” Viola Davis had clocked many hours in episodic television. Finally, she gets her own show, a legal thriller, where she will play professor Annalise Keating, a brilliant and mysterious criminal defense professor who becomes entangled in a murder plot, created by hit-maker Shonda Rhimes (“Scandal”).

Cristin Milioti, ‘A to Z’

Milioti will star in the rom-com “A to Z.”ABC (left); WireImage (right)

The Broadway actress had a small but pivotal role last year as the Mom on “How I Met Your Mother.” The suits in LA were so enchanted that they offered Milioti her own romantic comedy about the history of a relationship that begins online, opposite Ben Feldman (“Mad Men”).

Joshua Sasse, ‘Galavant’

Sasse will play a knight in shining arming in ABC’s “Galavant.”ABC (left); Startraks Photos (right)

The British actor has the title role of the dashing hero Galavant in the musical fairy tale from the team behind Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” “Galavant” is a story of lost love and revenge.

What happened to his happily ever after? Lots to sing about.

Ioan Gruffudd, ‘Forever’

The former “Fantastic Four” star heads to the small screen in “Forever.”ABC (left); Getty Images (right)

The Welsh actor has co-starred in “The Fantastic Four” and done many episodic TV appearances. Heading up his own ABC series, he plays Henry Morgan, a New York City medical examiner who studies the dead for a reason — he’s immortal and keeping it a secret. With the help of Detective Jo Martinez (Alana de la Garza), he begins to uncover his past.

It’s “Elementary” meets “Dracula.”

Karen Gillan, ‘Selfie’

Gillan stars in the social media-inspired comedy “Selfie.”ABC (left); WireImage (right)

Call it “Pygmalion” for the millennials. Eliza Dooley (Karen Gillan of “Doctor Who”) has 263,000 followers who hang on to her every tweet. Then one day it hits her: She has no friends.

She hires Henry (John Cho), a marketing guru, to help her “rebrand” herself as a person and teach her how to connect with people in the real world.

Analeigh Tipton, ‘Manhattan Love Story’

Tiptons stars in the upcoming “Manhattan Love Story.”ABC (left); Startraks Photos (right)

This romantic comedy exposes the differences between men and women through the unfiltered thoughts, and often contradictory actions, of a new couple who have just begun dating.