Audible Gets Comedy Series with Big Stars; Fox Gets Another Guessing Music Series

Monday, February 10, 2020

Audible Gets Comedy Series with Big Stars; Fox Gets Another Guessing Music Series

Audible Inc., the world's largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks, announced a new scripted Audible Original comedy series, Escape from Virtual Island, written by John Lutz, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers and 30 Rock and produced by Broadway Video Enterprises. Golden Globe-nominated actor Paul Rudd leads an all-star ensemble cast of comedic talent including Jack McBrayer, Paula Pell, Amber Ruffin, Scott Adsit, Jane Krakowski, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, Kenan Thompson, Olivia Wilde and Henry Winkler. The audio series will debut April 2, 2020 exclusively on Audible. Escape from Virtual Island is executive produced by Broadway Video’s Britta von Schoeler and produced by Austin Breslow. Will Rogers and Ian Stearns are executive producers for Audible.

Derek Ambrose (Rudd) runs an island resort in 2038 where the wealthy come to live out their wildest fantasies in virtual reality. With the help of his assistant Beasley (McBrayer), lead computer scientist Faith (Ruffin), and head of security Ramona (Pell), the island has been running smoothly since Derek inherited it from his mother. When a high-profile guest suddenly goes missing inside a computer simulation, Derek, Faith, Beasley, and Ramona form a search party to retrieve him. Bouncing between VR environments, the team soon realizes that the computer has become self-aware and is preventing them from escaping back to the real world. Absurd adventures, including virtual visits to a British Royal Navy ship, a Wild West saloon, and a Central Park rom-com, come to life for listeners through a captivating narrative and high-caliber sound design that evokes TV for your ears.

Following the success of Heads Will Roll starring Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne, featuring Tim Gunn, Meryl Streep and Peter Dinklage, 64th Man, starring John Cena and Anna Chlumsky, and Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph's Holiday Greetings from Sugar and Booze, Escape from Virtual Island is the fourth audio-only scripted original comedy series to come from the Audible and Broadway Video collaboration. The series joins a robust slate of Audible Originals, exclusive audio entertainment created by celebrated storytellers from the worlds of theater, journalism, comedy, literature and more. Audible Originals offer powerful performances created for listeners by award-winning actors, writers and comedians, spanning every genre and length.

Ken Jeong

Fox Entertainment has ordered the all-new music guessing game unscripted series I Can See Your Voice, hosted and executive-produced by comedian, actor and The Masked Singer panelist Ken Jeong. Based on the South Korean format from CJ ENM, the series will be produced by Fox Alternative Entertainment (FAE) and will premiere later this year on Fox.

Each week on the show, one contestant will have the chance to win a cash prize if he or she can tell the difference between the good and bad singers, without ever hearing them sing a note. Helping the contestant navigate through rounds of lip sync challenges, hilarious hidden clues and true-or-false evidence will be a panel of celebrity comedians/experts and a musical superstar. In the end, the singer whom the contestant picks will reveal if they are good or bad in a duet performance with the musical superstar, resulting in an amazing musical collaboration or a totally hilarious train wreck.

Sitcoms Airing Tonight

Tuesday, January 18

Abbott Elementary - "New Tech" (ABC, 9:00PM ET/PT)
When a new computer program is introduced at Abbott, Janine is excited to finally help Barbara out with something. However, Barbara is reluctant to accept change and finds herself in a tricky situation when she decides to lie about her students’ results rather than admit defeat. Elsewhere, Melissa surprises Jacob when she offers up a friend to assist with his lesson on unions, but she ends up teaching Jacob an important lesson herself.

black-ish - "Bow-Mo" (ABC, 9:30PM ET/PT)
Dre calls into a radio show and gets humiliated in front of Diane and tries to redeem himself. Meanwhile, Bow tries to bond with a group of young female doctors and learns a hard truth.

American Auto - "Millbank, Iowa" (NBC, 8:00PM ET/PT)
The group travels to Iowa for the opening of a new factory.

Grand Crew - "Wine & Hip Hop" (NBC, 8:30PM ET/PT)
Sherm tags along as Nicky sells a house to a famous rapper; Noah and his date get into a fender bender; Anthony deals with dating while vegan.

Tyler Perry's House of Payne - "Payneful Suffering" (BET, 8:00PM ET/PT)
As the family prepares for Janine's return, everyone and everything goes awry.

Tyler Perry's Assisted Living - "Forgive and Forget" (BET, 8:30PM ET/PT)
Reginald seeks forgiveness from his estranged son.

Complete TV Listings

Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of January 17)

Tuesday, January 18

Rob Lowe (The Grinder/Parks and Recreation) - Catch Rob on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
Francia Raisa (How I Met Your Father/growni-ish) - Francia is a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
Ricky Gervais (After Life/The Office) - Ricky appears on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 11:35pm on NBC. He also talks about After Life on NBC's Today in the 10am hour.
Hilary Duff (How I Met Your Father/Younger/Lizzie McGuire) - Hilary will be on Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC. She also talks about How I Met Your Father on LIVE! with Kelly and Ryan, so check your listings.
Adam DeVine (Workaholics/Modern Family) - Adam is a guest on The Late Late Show with James Corden at 12:37am on CBS.
Valerie Bertinelli (Hot in Cleveland/Café Americain/Sydney/One Day at a Time) - Valerie talks about her new book Enough Already on NBC's Today sometime between 7-9am and in the 10am hour and on The View on ABC at 11am ET/10am CT-PT.
Ana Gasteyer (American Auto/People of Earth/Suburgatory) - Ana appears on The Talk on CBS at 2pm ET/1pm CT-PT.
Steve Harvey (The Steve Harvey Show) - Steve is a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, so check your local listings.
Kym Whitley (Young & Hungry/Animal Practice/Sparks) and Finesse Mitchell (Outmatched/A.N.T. Farm) - Kym and Finesse guest host The Wendy Williams Show, so check your local listings.
Alyssa Milano (Who's the Boss?/Romantically Challenged) - Alyssa talks about Netflix's Brazen on The Kelly Clarkson Show, so check your local listings.
Rose McIver (Ghosts/Woke) - Rose is a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show, so check your local listings.
Jason Biggs (Outmatched/Mad Love/Drexell's Class) - Jason and his wife Jenny Mollen are guests on The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg (Two and a Half Men/Jenny) - Jenny chats about The Masked Singer on a repeat of Rachael Ray, so check your local listings.
Tony Shalhoub (We Are Men/Stark Raving Mad/Wings) - Tony talks about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on NBC's Today sometime between 7-9am.