Previous NBC pick-ups are here and here.
If Las Vegas took futures bets on TV shows the way it does on football teams, you could have cashed a nice ticket today on the proposition that when all was said and done, COMMUNITY would be (but for Parks & Recreation) the last NBC sitcom standing. It’s not that Community‘s ratings were good–they were just less atrocious than all the others. So Greendale’s denizens are one step closer to “6 Seasons and a Movie,” and as for Dan Harmon… well, he still has his back-end to keep him warm.
One of the reasons Community survived is that it’s been on the air long enough to have a post-network sale in hand for its episodes, which made the net cost cheaper than for a newer bubble show like Go On or The New Normal. In fact, the Community renewal was rolled into a larger NBC/Sony Pictures Television deal that included pick-ups of 3 additional Sony pilots:
THE BLACKLIST was the most heavily touted of NBC’s drama pilots. It stars James Spader as public enemy #1, who’ll turn himself in and give up all his associates–if he can work with a particular FBI Agent, for reasons that will no doubt take many episodes to uncover. It’s written by Jon Bodenkamp, whose movie scripts include this year’s The Call.
THE NIGHT SHIFT is a medical soap about Army doctors who work, you guessed it, late hours. The cast includes Brigid Brannagh of Army Wives and Ken Leong, and it’s written by the experienced team of Gabe Sachs & Jeff Judah, who most recently were on the 90210 reboot.
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY sounds a little much like the recent Rob for comfort (an Anglo family and a Latino family have to get to know each other when their kids fall in love), but it stars the terrifically appealing Mike O’Malley and Mary McCormick. The writer is Mike Sikowitz, another TV veteran (Rules of Engagement).
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