SitcomsOnline.com News Blog: Back to Life

Showing posts with label Back to Life. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Fox Renews HouseBroken for Season 2; Showtime Schedules Back to Life Return

Fox has renewed the animated comedy HouseBroken for a second season. The brainchild of Veep colleagues Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden and Clea DuVall, and featuring the voices of Lisa Kudrow, Clea DuVall, Nat Faxon, Will Forte, Tony Hale, Sharon Horgan, Jason Mantzoukas and Sam Richardson, HouseBroken follows a group of neighborhood pets and stray animals as they work through their issues inside and outside their therapy group. The series airs Mondays at 9pm.

In the series, HONEY (Kudrow), a standard poodle, opens her living room for the group to come and support each other through the misery, mayhem and majesty that is being a pet. Honey also struggles with her own problems, such as her arranged (by her human) marriage with CHIEF (Faxon), a sloppy St. Bernard who enjoys eating socks and licking himself. The group includes SHEL (Will Forte), a sex-positive tortoise with intimacy issues and a knack for choosing unconventional partners; TABITHA (Executive Producer, Sharon Horgan), an aging Persian cat beauty queen, trying to adjust to life off the cat show circuit; THE GRAY ONE (Jason Mantzoukas), a street smart cat who lives with about thirty other cats and has his one eye on Tabitha; CHICO (Sam Richardson), a chonky, co-dependent and very naive cat; and the group's newest member, DIABLO (Hale), an anxious, sweater-wearing terrier whose OCD causes him to hump everything twice. Among the group's other members are ELSA (Co-creator/Executive Producer, Clea DuVall), a power hungry, know-it-all Corgi, and fake service dog, who drives Honey crazy; NIBBLES (guest voice Bresha Webb), a psychopathic hamster who is mourning the loss of her mate (whose face she ate...and everyone knows it); MAX (Hale), George Clooney's pig, a former actor and current status-obsessed a-hole; BUBBLES (guest voice Greta Lee), a horny, teenage goldfish who lives with Honey and Chief, and heckles the animals any chance she gets; TCHOTCHKE, a silent, and possibly magical, slow loris with a mysterious past, who uses a tiny cocktail umbrella to express his emotions; and JILL (guest voice Maria Bamford), Honey and Chief's human owner.

Back to Life

SHOWTIME announced that the six-part second season of the critically acclaimed comedy series Back to Life, created by and starring Daisy Haggard (Episodes, Breeders), will premiere on Monday, September 13 at 10 p.m. ET/PT with new episodes airing each week. All episodes of season two will be available on that day to stream and on demand for subscribers on SHOWTIME. From the producers of Fleabag, Back to Life follows Miri Matteson (Haggard) who, after 18 years behind bars, returns home and stumbles back into adult life in the coastal town she once knew. Miri continues to reconcile with her past while trying to assimilate and make a new life for herself post-incarceration.

Season 2 picks up three weeks after the season one finale, and six weeks after Miri leaves prison. She is optimistic about her future. Her probation officer, Janice (Jo Martin), has gotten her a trial shift at the supermarket, she and her neighbor Billy (Adeel Akhtar) have been spending more time together, and she's found her hair crimper. However, Miri's not talking to her mother Caroline (Geraldine James) after the revelation that she was having an affair with Miri's ex-boyfriend Dom (Jamie Michie), and she'll need a lot of shifts at the supermarket before she can afford to move out. She's also avoiding her best friend Mandy (Christine Bottomley) after learning that Mandy's secret affair with Lara's father, John Boback led to Lara's death all those years ago. Things are about to get a whole lot worse with the arrival in Hythe of Lara's mother, Norah. Still grieving her daughter, it's clear her presence will ensure Miri cannot escape her past.

Monday, November 04, 2019

Freeform's 25 Days of Christmas Schedule for 2019; Showtime to Debut New Comedy On-Demand Before Premiere

Coming off the incredibly strong performance of its "31 Nights of Halloween" programming, Freeform kicks the holidays into high gear with the announcement of the beloved "25 Days of Christmas" lineup beginning on Dec. 1. As the go-to network for holiday-themed original content and beloved classics, this year's festive lineup includes the premieres of Freeform original feature Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas, with The Bold Type star Aisha Dee and The Guest Book's Kimiko Glenn, airing Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 9:00 p.m. EST/PST. Good Trouble will air a two-hour holiday episode on Monday, Dec. 16, at 9:00 p.m. EST/PST, with the full cast of The Fosters guest starring. Additionally, the network will debut the timeless Christmas classics of Rankin-Bass with Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on Friday, Dec. 6, at 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. EST/PST, respectively. Adding some friendly competition to your Christmas cheer, back-to-back installments of Freeform original holiday series Wrap Battle will air on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. EST/PST, with the finale airing Monday, Dec. 9. Freeform also released its first-ever "25 Days of Christmas" jingle, featuring Freeform Santa and Good Trouble star Emma Hunton.

Among the other notable movies/specials airing: The Santa Clause trilogy, The Simpsons, all five Home Alone films, Holiday in Handcuffs, Snowglobe, and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. View the full 25 Days of Christmas lineup.

Back to Life - Daisy Haggard

Showtime will release all six episodes of the new series Back to Life to its subscribers at midnight on Sunday, November 10 prior to its on-air debut that night at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The episodes will be available for on-demand streaming or download on the Showtime and Showtime Anytime(R) apps, as well as for viewing via Showtime On Demand. Back to Life will debut on air with back to back episodes and continue with two new episodes every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

From Fleabag producers Harry and Jack Williams, Back to Life is created and written by Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon, with Haggard starring. Haggard plays Miri Matteson, who after 18 years behind bars, returns home and stumbles back into adult life in the coastal town she once knew, while the mystery of her past looms large. Miri's first few weeks out of prison see her trying (and frequently failing) to lead a normal life in her picturesque but claustrophobic seaside hometown. Miri attempts to rekindle old relationships, make new ones, look for work and readjust to life outside, while desperately waiting for the world to forget about what happened that fateful night. Guiding Miri as she tries to adapt are a cast of offbeat and intriguing characters with secrets of their own, including her sexually frustrated mother, Caroline (Geraldine James), her obsessive environmentalist father, Oscar (Richard Durden), and her parole officer with no filter, Janice (Jo Martin). We'll also meet first love Dom (Jamie Michie), ex-best friend Mandy (Christine Bottomley), next-door neighbor Billy (Adeel Akhtar) and fish and chips shop owner and new boss Nathan (Liam Williams).

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Returns with "Modern" Twist; Showtime Is Back to Life For New Comedy

Jesse Tyler Ferguson - Extreme Makeoer: Home Edition - Credit: Luke Fontana

Move that bus! HGTV's spin on 10 new episodes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will come with a "modern" twist: Jesse Tyler Ferguson, known for his Emmy®-nominated role on the ABC sitcom Modern Family, has signed on as host and will take over the bullhorn to mobilize community volunteers and inspire the build/design teams for each mind-blowing renovation. Jesse, a four-time Screen Actors Guild Award® winner who has a cameo in Taylor Swift's newest music video "You Need to Calm Down," will bring his signature optimism, humor, energy and giving spirit to surprise families with whole-home renovations. Produced by Endemol Shine North America, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition -- television's highest-rated home renovation series of all time -- will air on HGTV in 2020.

Each episode of the series spotlights local heroes and those who give back to their communities despite personal challenges. The home overhauls will include interior, exterior and landscaping—all completed within seven days while the family is sent away for the week. The series will showcase builders, designers and landscapers who race against the clock to completely renovate each home before the family returns from their time away. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition originally aired on ABC for nine successful seasons from 2003-2012. At its peak during the 2004/05 season, the series averaged nearly 16 million viewers on Sunday nights. The HGTV episodes will be available on demand across all platforms and on the HGTV app. The new episodes will be produced by Endemol Shine North America with Sharon Levy, DJ Nurre, Michael Heyerman and Brady Connell serving as executive producers. The company also produced the original version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for ABC.

Back to Life - Daisy Haggard

Showtime has ordered the critically acclaimed six episode comedy series Back to Life, from Fleabag producers Harry and Jack Williams and Daisy Haggard (Episodes). Haggard plays Miri Matteson, who, after 18 years behind bars, returns home and stumbles back into adult life in the coastal town she once knew, while the mystery of her past looms large. Created by Haggard and written by Haggard and Laura Solon, the series will premiere on Showtime on Sunday, October 6 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT.

The series, which aired earlier this year on the BBC, follows Miri's first few weeks out of prison navigating her way in a new world, trying (and frequently failing) to lead a normal life in her picturesque but claustrophobic seaside hometown. Miri attempts to rekindle old relationships, make new ones, look for work and readjust to life outside, while desperately waiting for the world to forget about what happened that fateful night. Guiding Miri as she tries to adapt are a cast of offbeat and intriguing characters with secrets of their own, including her sexually frustrated mother Caroline (Geraldine James), her obsessive environmentalist father Oscar (Richard Durden) and her parole officer with no filter, Janice (Jo Martin). We'll also meet first love Dom (Jamie Michie), ex-best friend Mandy (Christine Bottomley), next-door neighbor Billy (Adeel Akhtar) and fish and chips shop owner and new boss Nathan (Liam Williams).