NBC revealed their schedule for the upcoming season, and it features eight new shows. There are four dramas and four comedies. Here are the highlights . . .
For starters, there’s yet another legal drama . . . because we can NEVER have enough legal dramas. This one is called “Bluff City Law“, and it features former “L.A. Law” star Jimmy Smits.
There’s a drama called “Council of Dads”, which is about a father who asks his friends to serve as “back-up dads” for his kids after he’s diagnosed with cancer. It’ll have a sentimental vibe, kind of like “This Is Us”.
There’s a comedy called “Indebted” about a young married couple who has their parents move in with them after running into money problems. You can’t get much more cliché than that . . . but it’s worth mentioning because the parents are Fran Drescher from “The Nanny” and Steven Weber from “Wings”.
There’s a comedy starring Kenan Thompson from “Saturday Night Live” called “The Kenan Show”. He plays a recently widowed father with two young girls, and Andy Garcia plays his mostly unhelpful father-in-law.
By the way, Kenan WILL stay on “SNL” and pull double-duty. And to help him balance the two, this show won’t debut until after the New Year.
There’s a drama called “Lincoln”, which is based on the same novel as the Angelina Jolie / Denzel Washington movie “The Bone Collector”, which came out 20 years ago. Of course, Angelina and Denzel are NOT on the show.
Bradley Whitford from “The West Wing” stars in a comedy called “Perfect Harmony“. He’s a former Princeton music professor who stumbles into a small-town church choir practice, and winds up staying to work with them.
Kal Penn stars in a comedy called “Sunnyside“ about a disgraced New York politician who gets an opportunity to rebuild his life when he is hired by a group of immigrants who hope to become American citizens.
Finally, there’s a musical drama called “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”, which sounds . . . interesting. Here’s the description: “Zoey Clarke is a whip-smart, San Francisco-based computer coder. After an unusual event, she starts to HEAR the innermost wants and desires of the people around her . . . through SONGS.”
Is it a curse? Is it a gift? Well, that depends on how good the songs are, I guess. It stars Jane Levy from “Suburgatory”, plus Mary Steenburgen and Peter Gallagher. There’s no trailer yet . . . but it sounds like it’ll either be awesome or terrible.
And here are some other odds and ends from NBC’s announcement . . .
There’ll be a new Ellen DeGeneres holiday special called “Ellen’s Greatest Night of Giveaways”.
“Dateline” is expanding to two hours on Friday nights.
The kids talent competition “Little Big Shots” will have a new host next season when Melissa McCarthy takes over for Steve Harvey.
And if you missed it, NBC is bringing back their old genealogy reality show “Who Do You Think You Are?”. It’s been airing on TLC since 2013.
