SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

NBC has pulled new comedy Connecting... from the lineup effective immediately. Only four episodes of its eight episode order have aired. Starting this Thursday, reruns of Superstore will air at 8:30pm for the next three weeks to close out November sweep. New episodes of Superstore will air at 8pm as planned. Meanwhile, Connecting... will have its remaining four episodes air online on NBC.com and on streaming service Peacock. The series was an ensemble comedy about a group of friends trying to stay close (and sane) through video chats as they share the highs and lows of these extraordinary times.

Fox has announced its new animated comedy The Great North will premiere in February on Animation Domination, while also releasing the trailer. No exact premiere date just yet, though. The Great North is a new animated comedy from Bob's Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, Wendy and Lizzie Molyneaux and Minty Lewis. The series follows the Alaskan adventures of the Tobin family, as a single dad does his best to keep his weird bunch of kids close - especially his only daughter, whose artistic dreams lead her away from the family fishing boat and into the glamorous world of the local mall. The series will feature the voices of Alanis Morissette, Aparna Nancherla, Dulcé Sloan, Jenny Slate, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Paul Rust and Will Forte. Stay tuned for an exact premiere date. A few weeks back Fox also announced their Monday (9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star) and Tuesday (The Resident and Prodigal Son) drama lineups starting in January, but no exact date was given.

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

This past week, NBC premiered the first new sitcom since the COVID-19 pandemic began: Connecting..., a sitcom shot remotely about a group of friends meeting through video chats during quarantine. If you haven't heard of it, you might not be some: the show attracted just a bit over 1 million viewers for its premiere, low numbers even in a world where broadcast ratings continue to drop. The show will likely finish out its 8-episode order, but there's no doubt that it didn't attract much interest. Which leads me to wonder: how much will viewers want to watch the pandemic reflected back at them?

It's a fair question given many shows are planning to incorporate COVID-19 into their storylines this year, from Connecting... to Superstore to black-ish, as well as dramas like Grey's Anatomy, The Good Doctor. And yet, I personally think people watch TV shows as a means of escape, which includes escaping from our anxiety-ridden reality. Will viewers think the same thing? That could be part of why they didn't connect with Connecting... (despite the show actually being pretty solid, as noted in our review). As more and more shows premiere and cover COVID-19, it will be interesting to see whether viewers embrace the real life stories or whether they prefer to forget.

Antenna TV will air 70 back-to-back episodes of The Jack Benny Program starting next Saturday, October 24 to mark the program's 70th television anniversary. The 70-episode marathon will feature the best gags, guests and glares from The Jack Benny Program. First a radio program, the show's cast regularly broke the fourth wall to interact with the audience and included running jokes such as Benny's age, forever frozen at 39. The Jack Benny Program 70th anniversary marathon starts Saturday, October 24 at 10 a.m. ET and continues through 8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, October 25.

Connecting... - Thursdays at 8:30PM ET/PT on NBC
Premieres Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 8:00PM ET/PT

by Vincent

Connecting... is a new socially distanced comedy about a group of friends staying connected through video chats, much as many groups of friends were doing (and in some cases, still are doing) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The show is unique in that it is shot entirely remotely on iPhones, reflecting the extraordinary times that we live in.

Cast Details:

Ely Henry as Rufus
Jill Knox as Michelle
Keith Powell as Garrett
Otmara Marrero as Annie
Parvesh Cheena as Pradeep
Preacher Lawson as Ben
Shakina Nayfack as Ellis

Ely Henry (Rufus) is an actor best known for his supporting roles in films such as Mean Girls and Cheaper By the Dozen 2 and in TV series such as Suburgatory and Good Luck Charlie.

Jill Knox (Michelle) is an up and coming actress. She has previously appeared in shorts. Connecting... will be her first major starring role.

Keith Powell (Garrett) is an American actor best known for his role as Toofer on 30 Rock. He has also appeared in many other TV shows as a guest star, including Superstore, NCIS: Los Angeles and Grace and Frankie.

Otmarra Marreo (Annie) is an American actress known for her role on ABC's New York Undercover and Crackle's original series Start Up. She has also appeared on shows such as Ballers and Graceland.

Parvesh Cheena (Pradeep) is an American actor best known for his roles as Gupta in NBC's Outsourced and as Sunil Odhav on The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Preacher Lawson (Ben) is an American comedian best known as a contestant on America's Got Talent. He has his own BET+ comedy special.

Shakina Nayfack (Ellis) is an American actress and comedy writer best known for her work on the Hulu original comedy Difficult People, which she both wrote for and starred in as Lola.

Pilot Plot:

"Pilot" (Airs Thursday, October at 8:00PM ET)

As the friend group gathers at the start of quarantine for their new-normal virtual hang, Annie contemplates opening up to Ben about her feelings for him. Meanwhile, everyone worries about Jazmin, who's been MIA.

Analysis:

Connecting... is the type of show that we will look back on in 20 years and be immediately taken back into this moment in time. There have always been sitcoms tied to their time, but I don't think there's ever one that will be as tied to the time it aired as Connecting... The idea of a group of friends staying together over video chat due to a global pandemic is certainly the most 2020 concept for a show you could come up with, and in a few years when this pandemic is thankfully behind us, it’s all going to feel a little odd and certainly dated. In fact, since the lockdown measures of the spring have mostly been lifted, you could argue the concept already feels just slightly dated, as Zoom happy hours aren’t quite as needed as they were back in March or April. There are also references to things that are no longer true (a sports-obsessed character laments the lack of sports, which obviously is no longer the case, and it treats New York City as the COVID epicenter it was in April but no longer is.) And that sort of lies the problem with Connecting. It's more of an 8-part “special” than a sitcom, in a lot of ways, specifically designed for this current moment. As soon as this moment ends, it’s unlikely anyone will be reaching back for the show. And yet, for this moment in time, it’s a pretty solid and likable show, for what it is.

I’m not going to argue that Connecting... is necessarily a great show, but it is oddly appealing in some ways. It reminds me a lot of the “hangout” sitcoms that were popular in the early 2010s, along the lines of something like Cougar Town or Happy Endings. It’s not nearly as funny or well-made as those shows (and I did find myself comparing it unfavorably to the virtual Happy Endings reunion episode that had a similar premise), but watching characters and likable actors express some of the struggles we’ve been going through was oddly cathartic. I also have to give a lot of props to the actors. Acting and forming a character in a video chat is something that can’t be easy, but the actors do a really good job with it. I was particularly impressed with Shakina Nayfack, who gives her all into her character and really made her character come alive. (I also really related to her line that “sports give me something to constantly think about in the background, which is very therapeutic.” I have to say I had some identical thoughts during the sports drought of the spring.) It’s also impressive that the entire show was shot remotely on iPhones - the editing and production quality is impressive considering that. Additionally, the show does a good job of making light of our odd reality while not belittling it. A main character who is a healthcare worker goes on a heartwrenching but all too real rant, showing that the show is willing to deal with the pandemic seriously. Overall, Connecting... isn’t a show that I really expect to last beyond its initial episode order just because of the novelty of its premise, nor is it a show I expect to make the “best sitcoms ever” list anytime soon. But it’s a funny and likable time capsule, and in a world where we’re short on new content, it does the trick.

Conclusion:

Connecting... isn’t a great show, but it’s a pleasant and likable one that’s actually pretty impressive in the scope of its production. The cast of mostly generally green performers is likable and they do a good job doing the difficult task of forming a sitcom character without the benefit of being able to interact in person or play off each other in any physical way. It’s not a show you’ll be itching to watch for years to come, but it’s a likable enough capsule of this moment in time.

Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):

Watchability: 3.5/5
Funniness: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

Discuss the show after you watch it on Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 8:00PM ET/PT on our message board.

Related Links:

NBC.com Official Site

epguides.com

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

Connecting... Photo Gallery

Preview:

WarnerMedia comes together to celebrate the final season of The CW and Warner Bros. Television's Supernatural with two special marathons on TNT.

On October 6-8, TNT will air the first 13 episodes of Season 15, providing fans with the opportunity to catch up on the final season.

Additionally, on November 19 from 5:00am to 8:00pm ET/PT, TNT will host a 15-hour Supernatural marathon as a countdown to the two-hour series finale event, airing later that evening on The CW. This “best of” marathon will include one episode from each season along with interstitials featuring unique behind-the-scenes clips and anecdotes from the cast.

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

It's been a long time since we had an actual new sitcom episode on television that wasn't filmed remotely (or before the pandemic like United We Fall), but this month we will have two veteran sitcoms returning: black-ish and Superstore. It's going to be really interesting to see these two shows return, especially given both shows are known for tackling current issues. So will the shows address the crazy dumpster fire that has been 2020? The promos for both shows suggest they will be - in fact, black-ish's return episode is technically an "election special," so it will surely tackle the issues of 2020, and Superstore's promos remind everyone that its characters are essential workers. It'll be interesting to see these shows tackle modern issues, especially since they generally do a great job doing so. (black-ish returns with the Election special this Sunday at 10pm ET and season premiere on Wed. Oct 21 at 9:30pm on ABC, while Superstore returns Thursday, Oct. 29 at 8 on NBC.)

Additionally, South Park aired a "pandemic special" this past week, which tackled the pandemic in a very humorous and typically South Park way. It's taken a while, but we are finally getting our first taste of scripted shows genuinely dealing with the pandemic. NBC's new series Connecting will also do so next week (premieres Oct. 8, look for our review in the coming days), covering the pandemic concept of "Zoom hangouts." It'll be really interesting to see just how all of these shows tackle these complex issues.

Bounce, the first and only multi-platform entertainment network focusing on African Americans, announced the addition of two popular series, Greenleaf and Everybody Hates Chris. Bounce will air Greenleaf, the multiple NAACP Image Award-winning drama, Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. (ET) starting October 4. Everybody Hates Chris, the hit sitcom loosely based on the life of comedian Chris Rock, will be seen weeknights at 7:00 p.m. beginning Monday, October 5.

Executive produced and narrated by Chris Rock, Everybody Hate Chris chronicles the misadventures of teenage Chris as he grows up in 1980s Brooklyn. Starring The Walking Dead's Tyler James Williams as Chris, the ensemble also includes Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Terry Crews and The Neighborhood's Tichina Arnold as Chris' parents Julius and Rochelle.

Bounce has licensed the rights to all five seasons of Greenleaf, which recently completed a very successful run on OWN. Executive produced by Oprah Winfrey, the series follows the unscrupulous world of the Greenleaf family with scandalous secrets and lies, and their sprawling Memphis megachurch. Keith David (The Princess And The Frog, The Bible) and Lynn Whitfield (Madea's Family Reunion, How To Get Away With Murder) lead the ensemble as the charismatic Bishop James and "First Lady" Daisy Mae Greenleaf, whose lives are rocked upon the return of their eldest child Grace (The Night Shift's Merle Dandridge) following a 20-year estrangement. Bounce also announced] today that Greenleaf co-star Gregory Alan Williams (The Righteous Gemstones, Chicago Med) is joining the cast of the network's hit drama Saints & Sinners for its fifth season, premiering in 2021.

NBC has shifted a few premiere dates. The fifth season of NBC's drama This Is Us is now set to premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 27 from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT. It was slated to premiere November 10 originally. NBC will preempt the series however on November 3 for Presidential Election coverage. The series stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Chris Sullivan and Susan Kelechi Watson. NBC has also delayed the premiere of the new comedy Connecting... Originally slated to premiere next Thursday (Oct. 1) at 8:30pm, as NBC has slated The Wall in the hour instead. On October 8, NBC will air a live special. Seth Meyers, one of the most influential voices of late night and a respected thought leader on the political landscape, is moving to primetime leading up to the election with Closer Look Thursday. The half-hour special will air Oct. 8 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT, live from Studio 8G in midtown Manhattan's iconic Rockefeller Center. As the monumental election gets down to the wire, Meyers and Closer Look Thursday will dissect the events of the day, up-to-the-minute breaking news and other important facts as America begins to cast its vote. Connecting... will now instead bow on Oct. 8 at 8pm, before moving to 8:30pm a few weeks later following the season premiere of Superstore on Oct. 29. Details are still to come on the 2-part special Sketchy Times with Lilly Singh, with fellow late night host Lilly Singh as well.

Fox has renewed Bob's Burgers for the 12th and 13th broadcast seasons of the Emmy Award-winning animated series, and renewed Family Guy for its 19th and 20th broadcast seasons, carrying both series through 2023. This Sunday, Sept. 27 (9:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) on Fox, Bob's Burgers returns for an 11th season. The series follows Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) and his ever-quirky family who together run the restaurant Bob's Burgers. Including its 2020 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Program, the series has been nominated for the past seven consecutive years and won twice, in 2014 and 2017. The series also was nominated for a Critics' Choice Award and an Annie Award this year. Bento Box Entertainment serves as the animation studio on Bob's Burgers.

Entering its 18th season this Sunday (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT), Family Guy premieres with its milestone 350th episode. The series continues to entertain its die-hard fan base with razor-sharp humor, spot-on parodies, spectacular animation and orchestra-backed original music. Since its debut in 1999, the series has reached cult status among fans, and its breakout star, a talking baby, has become one of the greatest TV characters of all time. Family Guy has racked up numerous awards, including an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, only the second animated series in television history to be honored with such a distinction. Most recently, series creator and lead voice actor Seth MacFarlane (voices of "Peter Griffin," "Stewie Griffin," "Brian Griffin" and "Quagmire") won the 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Cast member Alex Borstein (voice of "Lois Griffin") won the 2018 Emmy Award in the category. MacFarlane also was nominated that year. He won the 2017 and 2016 Emmy Award in the category, and was nominated from 2013 to 2015. 

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

Last week ABC, CBS and NBC announced their fall schedules and return dates, which differed significantly from the fall schedules they announced in the spring. As scripted television has only now begun to slowly ramp up production, there will be few scripted shows returning this month, with most scripted premieres held for October or November - or later. As of now, the only sitcoms scheduled to premiere on network TV this fall are: Superstore (which will return in October and will be the first returning broadcast sitcom to resume airing new episodes post-COVID shutdown), Connecting... (a new "socially distanced" sitcom airing on NBC and taking the spot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which has yet to resume production and is now being held for 2021), One Day at a Time (which will make its broadcast TV debut airing episodes previously aired on Pop TV this past spring - it has not yet resumed production of new episodes) and Fox's Sunday animation block (which was unaffected by COVID shutdowns.) All other sitcoms on broadcast TV are being held until further notice - that includes Brooklyn Nine-Nine as well as ABC and CBS's entire sitcom slates, although some have resumed production and may be able to return before the end of 2020 (including The Goldbergs and black-ish, the latter will air two Election themed episodes on Oct. 4).

It is certainly going to be a bare fall for sitcoms on network TV. However, it also provides a unique opportunity for those shows that will be returning. TV ratings have overall been higher since the pandemic hit (given there's simply less to do now, although the return of sports is likely to dent those ratings a bit), so perhaps more eyeballs will get to see a show like One Day at a Time, which has had a long journey from its Netflix cancellation to ultimately airing on broadcast TV. Perhaps the future of the show, if enough broadcast viewers flock to it, could be on CBS, where it sort of feels like it was meant to be anyway with the way the show uses traditional sitcom storytelling to tell fresh and original stories. If you haven't checked it (or Superstore) out, now's your chance to catch up on one of the best sitcoms currently on TV.

As we already announced, Laff, the country's first-ever, over-the-air broadcast television network devoted to comedy around-the-clock, has announced the addition of the one of the most-popular sitcoms of all time, licensing the television rights to all nine seasons and 208 episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Now we know the timeslots! Laff will premiere the multiple Emmy Award winning series with a two-day marathon Sunday, Sept. 6 and Monday, Sept. 7 running from 8:00 a.m. – 12 Midnight (ET) both days. How I Met Your Mother will then be seen on Laff every night from 9:00 p.m. to Midnight (ET) starting Tuesday, Sept. 8.

How I Met Your Mother follows Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor, as he looks back and tells his children the story of how he met their mom, as told through memories of his friends Marshall (Jason Segel), Lily (Alyson Hannigan) Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris), narrated by Bob Saget as the older Ted. How I Met Your Mother was a staple of the CBS lineup 2005-2014, earning multiple EMMY, Golden Globe and People's Choice nominations and wins across its nine-year run. How I Met Your Mother joins Laff's sitcom hall-of-fame line-up that includes Home Improvement, That '70s Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, According To Jim, Night Court and more. Laff airs on the broadcast signals of local television stations and corresponding cable carriage and features a programming mix of contemporary off-network sitcoms and popular movies geared toward an audience of adults 18-49. Laff is part of The E.W. Scripps Company.

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

Since it's a slow time for new sitcoms (both because of the summer and because of the pandemic causing a shortage of new sitcom content), I thought I'd look back at another sitcom of the past that I'm rewatching and finding holds up extremely well. That sitcom is Cheers, one of the biggest sitcoms of the 20th century and also one of the most acclaimed. Cheers is a show I haven't watched in some time, so rewatching the series has really reminded me just how nearly every sitcom made after it can trace its lineage back to the bar where everyone knows your name. Not necessarily in terms of joke structure (Cheers is a very funny show, but it's more rooted in the humor of the '80s and '90s and not the more modern sitcom type humor that was developed in the '00s) but in terms of its character development. Cheers has some of the best and most subtle character development I've ever seen in a sitcom. Character development in sitcoms is trickier than dramas, because the comfort of a sitcom means everything has to (seemingly) remain the same. The humor comes from the familiar situation of the show's situation. And yet, for a sitcom to remain fresh, the best ones do try to push their characters forward, but have to do so gradually.

I think any fan of Cheers would agree the characters in Season 11 were not quite the same people as the characters at the start - they had grown and changed, but they were still recognizably their archetypes. That's because Cheers very slowly evolved its characters over the course of its run. There weren't any real shocking plot twists or huge events happening, but the day-to-day doldrums of life and evolution of their relationships gradually pushed their characters to new places. And I would argue nearly every great sitcom after it - be it Friends or The Office or Parks and Recreation or Community - evolved their characters in similar ways. Prior to Cheers, there were far less sitcoms that had their eye on the gradual character development, but it's become an important part of sitcoms going forward. And as I'm watching Cheers, I'm reminded of just how character development in a sitcom can be done right.

Yesterday we had some changes for CBS and Fox, now we have some changes for Fall 2020 for ABC and NBC. ABC unveiled its fall unscripted premiere dates. Details for the network's scripted series premiere dates will be shared at a later time and will likely have October/November premieres for many of its series. ABC has slotted five nights of programming for September/October, joining the previously announced Dancing with the Stars, which will launch Monday, Sept. 14 from 8-10pm. Game show favorites Celebrity Family Feud, Press Your Luck and Match Game return with the back half of their seasons, with the first half having aired on Sundays earlier this summer. They will move to Thursdays and resume on Thursday, Sept. 24 from 8-11pm until TGIT dramas are ready later this fall. A dramatic new season of The Bachelorette debuts Tuesday, October 13 from 8-10pm. An all-new season of Shark Tank kicks off on Friday, October 16 at 8pm. And finally, Sundays will be more Fun & Games with new series Supermarket Sweep hosted by Leslie Jones joining the Sunday lineup at 8pm, right after an all-new season of AFV. At 9pm, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with Jimmy Kimmel returns for a second season followed by the second season of Card Sharks with Joel McHale at 10pm - all premiering Sunday, October 18 from 7-11pm. No date yet for $100,000 Pyramid with Michael Strahan, which also started production this week. Stay tuned for the scripted premiere dates.

NBC is celebrating a November to remember as America's most-loved dramas make their highly anticipated season debuts the week of Nov. 9-13, including a two-hour premiere of This Is Us (Nov. 10, 9-11pm) and all three Chicago series (Nov. 11, 8-11pm). In addition, Law & Order: SVU (Nov. 12, 9pm) will return for its record-extending 22nd season that same week, along with the eighth season of The Blacklist (Nov. 13, 8pm), starring James Spader and Megan Boone. But comedy will launch first! For scripted comedy, executive producer Martin Gero will debut his new scripted comedy Connecting ... on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 8:30pm. The series is about a group of friends trying to stay close (and sane) through video chats as they share the highs and lows of these extraordinary times. Superstore, where Cloud 9's unique family of employees work together and share nearly everything about their personal lives as well, returns for its sixth season on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 8pm. On to reality, the four-time Emmy Award-winning musical competition series The Voice, with coaches Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, as well as host Carson Daly, will be back in its swiveling red chairs on Monday, Oct. 19 8-10pm and return for the second night of its season debut on Tuesday, Oct. 20 (8-10pm premiere, then 8-9pm). Host Jane Lynch will kick off the first episode of the worldwide global phenom Weakest Link when the show debuts Monday, Sept. 28 at 10pm. Ellen's Game of Games, one of the most fun shows on all of television, returns Tuesday, Oct. 6 for a two-hour premiere from 8-10 p.m. before shifting the following week on Oct. 13 to its normal 9-10 p.m. timeslot for a few weeks.

The Wall and American Ninja Warrior will air for three weeks starting Wednesday, Oct. 21, before the Chicago series return. Ninja will start off on Mondays, as previously announced, before moving to Wednesdays when The Voice returns. Returning series set to debut after Jan. 1 include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Good Girls, Making It, Manifest, New Amsterdam and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. New series set to launch in 2021 include Kenan, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Mr. Mayor, That's My Jam, Small Fortune, True Story, Who Do You Think You Are? and Young Rock.