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Yesterday we mentioned some NBC shows are still in the bubble. Now the fates have been revealed. First up, NBC has renewed its hit mystery thriller Manifest for a third season. After a turbulent but routine flight, the crew and passengers of Flight 828 disembarked to find the world had aged five-and-a-half years and their friends, families and colleagues had given up hope of ever seeing them again. Now, faced with the impossible, the passengers' dreams of a second chance at life evaporate as they encounter the imminent danger surrounding them, both tangible and unexplained. With the stakes higher than ever, the passengers of Flight 828 will embark on an unexpected journey into a world grounded in hope, heart and destiny. The cast includes Melissa Roxburgh, Josh Dallas, Athena Karkanis, J.R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, Jack Messina, Parveen Kaur and Matt Long. Midseason sitcom Indebted was given the pink slip, however. The series starred Adam Pally, Abby Elliott, Jessy Hodges, Steven Weber and Fran Drescher. And finally, NBC made it official on two shows that were long done: drama Bluff City Law and comedy Sunnyside, which aired remaining episodes online.

Meanwhile, ABC had two shows still left in limbo. One got renewed and one has been canceled. Powerful drama For Life will get a second season, despite low ratings, but its plot is more timelier than ever right now. However, similarly rated comedy-drama The Baker and the Beauty has gotten canceled. The latter had vibes of Ugly Betty and surprised ABC didn't give it another chance. The Baker and the Beauty takes viewers on a flavor-filled adventure between relatable everyman Daniel and international superstar Noa. Daniel Garcia is working in the family bakery and doing everything that his loving Cuban parents and siblings expect him to do. But on a wild Miami night, he meets Noa Hamilton and his life moves into the spotlight. Will this unlikely couple upend their lives to be together and pull their families into a culture clash? The series starred Victor Rasuk, Nathalie Kelley, Carlos Gómez, Dan Bucatinsky, Lisa Vidala, David Del Rio, Belissa Escobedo and Michelle Veintimilla.

In For Life, from creator Hank Steinberg and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, and inspired by the life of Isaac Wright Jr., For Life is a fictional serialized legal and family drama about an imprisoned man, Aaron Wallace, who becomes a lawyer fighting to reverse his own life sentence for a crime he didn't commit. His quest for freedom is driven by his desperate desire to get back to the family he loves—his estranged wife and daughter—and reclaim the life that was stolen from him The drama stars Nicholas Pinnock, Indira Varma, Joy Bryant, Mary Stuart Masterson, Boris McGiver, Glenn Fleshler, Dorian Missick, Tyla Harris and Timothy Busfield. 

The mid-season premieres are making for a scorching summer on truTV with your favorite hot-sauce fanatics and firefighters. First, on Tuesday, July 14, tune in to Hot Ones: The Game Show to see host Sean Evans set eager contestants' mouths on fire with the spiciest hot sauces around for a chance to win $25,000. Then join Chief Terry McConky (Kevin Heffernan) and Captain Eddie Penisi (Steve Lemme) in the firehouse for workplace antics and comradery in Tacoma FD on Thursday, July 23. Stick around to join Kevin and Steve for the return of the series after show Takoma FD, as they break down the episode and tease what's still to come this season. This lineup may be too hot to handle.

NBC is bringing more song and dance to the network with the season two renewal of its critically acclaimed and buzzworthy new series Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. The series centers on Zoey Clarke, a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco. After an unusual event, Zoey, who always preferred podcasts over pop songs, suddenly starts to hear the innermost wants, thoughts and desires of the people around her - her family, co-workers and complete strangers - through popular songs. At first, she questions her own sanity, but after getting some guidance from her musically adept neighbor, Mo, and making a breakthrough with her ailing father, Zoey soon realizes this unwanted curse may just be an incredibly wonderful gift as she connects with the world like never before. The series stars Jane Levy, Skylar Astin, Alex Newell, John Clarence Stewart, with Peter Gallagher and Mary Steenburgen. Lauren Graham is special guest star.

Meanwhile, NBC has officially canceled comedy Perfect Harmony and called it quits on crime drama Lincoln Rhyme. No word yet on freshman sitcom Indebted and second year drama Manifest, but the latter is expected to be picked up for a third season. NBC and ABC still have not announced a formal fall schedule, but ABC has announced pickups and renewals. NBC previously announced straight to series orders for Young Rock and Mr. Mayor, along with Canadian drama import Transplant. 

Indebted - Thursdays at 9:30PM ET/PT on NBC
Premieres Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 9:30PM ET/PT

by Todd

Young parents Dave and Rebecca are ready to reclaim their life after years of diapers and sleepless nights. However, things take an unexpected turn when Dave’s parents show up unannounced and broke, leaving Dave with no choice but to open the door to the two people who gave him everything. But these boomerang parents aren't great with boundaries and the question of who's parenting who quickly becomes blurred.

Cast Details:

Fran Drescher as Debbie
Abby Elliott as Rebecca
Adam Pally as Dave
Jessy Hodges as Joanna
Steven Weber as Stew

Fran Drescher (Debbie) is best known for her role as Fran Fine in The Nanny. She received two Emmy and two Golden Globe Award nominations for the role. She created, executive produced and starred on the TV Land sitcom Happily Divorced, which was inspired by her real-life relationship with her gay ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson. Her other sitcom starring roles include Living with Fran and Princesses.

Abby Elliott (Rebecca) is best known for being a cast member on Saturday Night Live for four seasons from 2008 to 2012. She starred as Brooke Von-Weber in the Bravo sitcom Odd Mom Out. She appeared as Jeanette Peterson in five episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Adam Pally (Dave) is known for his roles as Max Blum in Happy Endings and as Dr. Peter Prentice in The Mindy Project. His other sitcom roles include Champaign ILL and Making History.

Jessy Hodges (Joanna) is best known as the role of Sophie Parker in the web series Anyone But Me. Some of her sitcom credits include Enlisted, Mike & Molly and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Steven Weber (Stew) is best known for his long-running role as Brian Hackett in NBC's Wings. He starred as Jack Nagle in Cursed (aka The Weber Show). Some of his sitcom guest appearances include Mom, Ballers, 2 Broke Girls and Will & Grace.

Pilot Plot:

"Everybody's Talking About the Pilot" (Airs Thursday, February 6 at 9:30PM ET)

Young parents Dave and Rebecca end up having to take care of Dave's parents who have mishandled their finances and need help to pay down a sizable debt.
Guest Stars: Asif Ali as Ravi, Anders Garrett as Asher, Margaux Heck as Hazel, Amanda Summer

Analysis:

Indebted is a multi-camera sitcom. It's a co-production between by Sony Pictures Television and Universal Television in association with Doug Robinson Productions. Dan Levy, who created the show, will write and executive produce. Doug Robinson and David Guarascio will executive produce. Adam Pally will co-executive produce.

This is an entertaining and enjoyable pilot episode. There's a lot of rapid fire type humor and funny situations. The premise is a bit of a twist on a typical sitcom formula. It's usually the younger couple moving in with their parents. This time it's the broke parents moving in with their son and his family. Fran Drescher has one of the funniest and most memorable quotes when she says: "We're here. We're broke. Get used to it." Another memorable scene is when Debbie and Stew make a fundraising video for Facebook. They unknowingly record a video with Rebecca undressing in the background. The video later becomes a viral hit. Adam Pally and Abby Elliott are a funny couple as well. She has some funny bleeped out profanity lines in the first few episodes. She is the daughter of the always funny Chris Elliott, so she has some good comedy genes. She reminds me of Kaley Cuoco (Penny) from The Big Bang Theory. The trailer and promos have done a good job and highlighting some of the funniest moments.

They have put together a nice cast with sitcom veterans. The cast has some developed some good chemistry in the first few episodes. Fran Drescher and Steven Weber play the parents, Debbie and Stew. Their son, Dave (Adam Pally), is married to Rebecca (Abby Elliott). They have a son, Asher (Anders Garrett) and a daughter named Hazel (Margaux Heck). They have pretty minor roles in the Pilot, but the Asher character has a more prominent role in an upcoming episode that involves him being in a gifted program. Dave's sister is Joanna. She works at a pet grooming business and is looking for a relationship with another woman. Another character stopping by bringing some good laughs is Ravi (Asif Ali), a friend and co-worker of Dave. They work in the home renovation business.

Conclusion:

Fran Drescher makes a welcome return to primetime broadcast network television. It doesn't seem like it's been over 20 years since The Nanny ended. The studio audience gives her a warm welcome when she first appears on screen. She has aged gracefully and still has her recognizable nasal voice and laugh, but her accent is somewhat different. It's also nice to see Steven Weber back on NBC. He's been a steady presence on television in recent years, but this is his first sitcom starring role in a while. He looks a lot like Billy Crystal with his beard. The rest of the cast is solid with some comedy veterans and relative newcomers. The series has all of the ingredients to become a success. They have assembled a talented, funny and likable cast. The writing is funny and fresh with many topical, pop culture, movie and TV references. It will be interesting to see how the characters are developed in upcoming episodes.

NBC will have some holes to fill on their schedule in the fall with the The Good Place and Will & Grace ending. It's always nice to see another traditional multi-camera sitcom on the air. They seem to have made a comeback in recent seasons. Indebted is more of an adult oriented comedy with some of the bleeped out profanity and other adult situations, so I think they made a good decision to put it in a later timeslot. There's some good potential for it to become a dependable hit. Meet NBC's newest family on Thursday nights at 9:30pm ET/8:30pm CT.

Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):

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

Discuss the show after you watch it on Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 9:30PM ET/PT on our message board.

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Written and produced by Vicky Jones, HBO's new half-hour comedy series Run, debuting Sunday, April 12 at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT, follows a woman whose humdrum life is thrown upside down when she receives a text from her college sweetheart inviting her to drop everything and meet him in New York to fulfill the pact they made 17 years earlier. The series will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and partners' streaming platforms.

Starring Emmy(R) winner Merritt Wever (Godless, Nurse Jackie) and Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Ex Machina), Run is a romantic comedic thriller about a woman, Ruby Richardson (Wever) who walks away from her ordinary life in the suburbs to revisit her past with her college boyfriend, Billy Johnson (Gleeson), with whom she made a pact 17 years prior that if either one of them texted the word "RUN" and the other replied with the same, they would drop everything and meet in Grand Central Station and travel across America together.

Recurring guest stars for season one include Emmy(R), Golden Globe and SAG winner, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Solo: A Star Wars Story) as Laurel, a woman who Ruby and Billy meet on their journey; Rich Sommer (Mad Men) as Laurence, Ruby's husband; Tamara Podemski (Coroner) as police detective Babe Cloud and Archie Panjabi (HBO's upcoming I Know This Much Is True, The Good Wife) as Fiona, Billy's former PA.

With more new shows launching in 2020 than the fall, NBC's winter and spring slate fuels a long-term strategy and features a completely reimagined Little Big Shots as well as three new dramas and one new multi-camera comedy. January kicks off with the return of last season's breakout hit Manifest. Its midseason launch enables fans of the serialized drama to enjoy an interrupted run of Season 2's 13-episodes. Midseason will see the debut of a trio of dramas, beginning on Friday nights in January with crime thriller Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector at 8 p.m., based on the best-selling novel The Bone Collector. The series follows former NYPD detective and forensic genius Lincoln Rhyme (Grimm's Russell Hornsby) and his new partner, Amelia Sachs (Arielle Kebbel, Midnight Texas) in a cat-and-mouse game as they join forces to bring down a notorious serial killer.

Also in January, after tuning in Tuesday, Jan. 7 for a special two-hour Season 3 premiere of Ellen's Game of Games at 8 p.m., audiences will get a sneak peek at the premiere episode of new high-concept drama Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. The series premiere will be available to stream on the NBC App and Hulu following its on-air premiere preview. Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist stars Jane Levy (Suburgatory) as a whip-smart computer coder who, following an unusual event, starts to hear the innermost thoughts of the people around her through songs, including her boss played by Lauren Graham (Parenthood) and her mom, played by Mary Steenburgen (The Last Man on Earth). On Sunday, Feb. 16 at 9 p.m., Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist makes its regular timeslot debut (with a re-airing of the pilot at 8 p.m.). Beginning in March, it will air between the all-new Little Big Shots with Melissa McCarthy and fan-favorite Good Girls, starring Christina Hendricks, Mae Whitman and Retta, making Sundays nights appointment television with a lineup of true leading ladies.

Rounding out the new midseason dramas is Council of Dads, centered on three men who step in to guide their best friend's family through all of life's triumphs and challenges. The new series will follow This Is Us on Tuesdays for two weeks before taking over its 9 p.m. timeslot when the show concludes its fourth season in March. On the comedy front, January marks the conclusion of hit series The Good Place, which will go out with a forkin' good time on Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8:30 p.m. The series finale gives fans an extra-long 90-minute block dedicated to the award-winning show, which includes an extended episode as well as a post-show special featuring the full cast and hosted by Seth Meyers. The series finale makes way for NBC's new Thursday night comedy line-up, including the debut of new family comedy Indebted on Feb. 6 at 9:30 p.m. The multi-camera comedy, which will have the iconic final season of Will & Grace as its lead in, stars Adam Pally (Happy Endings) and Abby Elliot (SNL) as a young couple whose lives get turned upside down by their boomerang parents, played by Fran Drescher (The Nanny) and Steven Weber (Wings).

Feb. 6 also brings the celebratory return of Brooklyn Nine-Nine with a one-hour season premiere at 8 p.m., pre-empting Superstore before airing in its regularly scheduled 8:30 p.m. time slot beginning Feb. 13. NBC's unmatched lineup of alternative hits continue to help power midseason, led by last season's #1 most-watched alternative series, America's Got Talent: The Champions, as well the breakout competition series Ellen's Game of Games, both returning to their winning timeslots on Monday Jan. 6 at 8 p.m. and Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m., respectively. Families can also add a new favorite to their lineup: Melissa McCarthy joins as the host of Little Big Shots with a totally reimagined season from executive producer Ellen DeGeneres. The teaming of two of the funniest minds in Hollywood will celebrate the unique kids who inspire us all. The Voice returns to Mondays on Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. for Cycle 18, adding multi-platinum and award-winning recording artist, actor and songwriter Nick Jonas to the coaching lineup along with fan favorites Kelly Clarkson, John Legend and Blake Shelton. The Voice lands on the schedule once a week in midseason, making way for hit show Ellen's Game of Games to keep its prime spot on the schedule for a few extra months before The Voice moves back to twice weekly for the always-anticipated live shows over the cycle's final three weeks in May.

The CW Network announced dates for the debut of its new series Katy Keene, plus the returns of DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Roswell, New Mexico. A spinoff of the hit Riverdale, The CW's new midseason series Katy Keene, starring Lucy Hale, Ashleigh Murray, Jonny Beauchamp and Julia Chan, debuts Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 8:00pm ET/PT, followed by an original episode of Legacies at 9:00pm ET/PT. DC's Legends of Tomorrow officially kicks-off its fifth season on Tuesday, January 21 at 9:00pm ET/PT, following an original episode of Arrow at 8:00pm ET/PT. Arrow will conclude its eighth season with a two-hour event on Tuesday, January 28, beginning with a finale preview at 8:00-9:00pm ET/PT followed by the Arrow series finale at 9:00pm ET/PT.

Supernatural will move to Monday nights, making its new time period premiere on March 16 at 8:00pm ET/PT, paired with the second season return of Roswell, New Mexico at 9:00pm ET/PT. The week before, on Monday March 9, All American (8:00pm ET/PT) and Black Lightning (9:00pm ET/PT) will have their back-to-back season finales. Supernatural will wrap its historic 15-season journey on Monday, May 18. The premieres of the second season of In the Dark and the final season of The 100 will be announced at a later date.