The Middle is ending and Patricia Heaton is on the search for her next gig. The star has teamed up with her husband, David Hunt, and The Simpsons co-executive producer Ryan Koh for an NBC sitcom. Titled Winners, Deadline says the show will follow "a group of young people struggling with growing up and becoming independent. When their parents run out of options, they send them to a residential life-coaching facility that prepares them to embrace adulthood." Heaton and Hunt will produce through their FourBoys Entertainment.
Mindy Kaling has two new NBC shows in development at NBC
Today's an age where one of the writers of The Office starts her empire and continues developing television shows even as hers ends its run. The Mindy Project star/creator/writer/producer Mindy Kaling has her hands in two new shows for NBC.
Variety reports the first is untitled and comes from Kaling's Mindy Project co-worker Lang Fisher. The series is said to be about "the dedicated diplomats of a small U.S. embassy in the Caribbean who are suddenly thrown into chaos when an unqualified, ignorant and hard-living oil man is appointed as their new ambassador." Fisher, Kaling, David Miner, and Howard Klein will exective produce.
The second show -- Venice Beach Venture -- is helmed by Matt Warburton, another Mindy Kaling alum. This show is a dual workplace/romcom "set amidst the booming Southern California tech scene, where a brilliant young female engineer faces an exasperating workplace and an arrogant billionaire boss at an elite venture capital firm." Klein and Kaling will both executive produce.
Hulu saves reruns of "30 Rock" and new episodes of "There's Johnny"
Rejoice, dummies! As Netflix prepares to dump one of NBC's best shows from its service, an NBC service picks it up. 30 Rock -- the famed seven season series starring Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan and a dozen other comedians -- will now air on Hulu. Keep in mind NBC owns about a third of the streaming service alongside Fox, ABC, and minority owner Turner.
The green eyed streamer announced the deal with NBCUniversal today in a press release. Other show reruns will join Hulu as well including Parenthood, Made in Chelsea, and Face Off. But the biggest news from the announcement is the procurement of Paul Reiser's There's...Johnny. The show was set to premiere on NBC's other streaming service Seeso this fall but the operation was dismantled late this summer.
30 Rock will pop up on October 1 -- the same day it leaves Netflix. There's...Johnny has no air date yet.
Norman Lear's newest comedy series is a single camera, on NBC
Guess Who Died? No, Norman Lear isn't done living just yet (knock on wood). The big time producer, writer and comedy darling is preparing a new series for NBC. Better yet: it's a single camera comedy; not multicam. This marks about 40 years since Lear was on the network.
The Hollywood Reporter says the show -- Guess Who Died -- is also executive produced by Peter Tolan and Brent Miller. The show is set in a set in a senior living community and covers the "shared joys and challenges" that everyone feels. Except this one is about old people.
THR also says the series is loosely based on Lear's life as he's continued to learn and grow throughout the years. Lear actually held a table read for a script of Guess Who Died last year. You can watch that below.
NBC's new Thursday night lineup will hopefully make you laugh
NBC used to be the comedy king. But now the network is lucky if their shows get a few million viewers. This past television season had their biggest comedies since 2011 with both The Good Place and Great News. Superstore solidified itself as a hit and Will and Grace was brought back to life. All four shows will air on the same night.
Thursday, September 28 will see Superstore season 3 starting off the block at 8 PM; followed by the second season of The Good Place; the ninth (?) season of Will and Grace is next; and Great News season two will end the block at 9:30. Is NBC on its way back to the comedy kingdom?