SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

Actor and producer Will Arnett will host new unscripted competition series Lego Masters, premiering Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020 from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT on Fox. The series will feature pairs of LEGO enthusiasts facing off in unbelievable brick-building challenges. Throughout the competition, Arnett, alongside expert judges, will encourage the builders, introduce incredible challenges and put the creations to the test until one duo is crowned Lego Masters. Arnett, who voices "LEGO Batman" in The LEGO Movie franchise, will also serve as an executive producer on the series.

Based on the hit British reality-competition series of the same name, Lego Masters brings imagination, design and creativity to life when teams of LEGO enthusiasts go head-to-head, with infinite possibilities and an unlimited supply of LEGO bricks. Teams of two will compete against each other in ambitious brick-building challenges to be crowned the country's most talented amateur LEGO builders. In each episode, the competing pairs who impress the judges the most will progress to the next round, until the finale, during which the top teams will face off for a cash prize, the ultimate LEGO trophy and the grand title of Lego Masters. Originally created by Tuesday's Child, Lego Masters first launched on the U.K.'s Channel 4 in 2017, when it quickly became the network's highest-rated new series, nearly doubling its primetime average with young adults.

Comedian, actor, writer and producer Lil Rel Howery makes his HBO stand-up comedy debut with an hour-long special Lil Rel Howery: Live in Crenshaw, premiering Saturday, Nov. 23 from 10:00-11:05 p.m. ET/PT, exclusively on HBO. The special will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and partners' streaming platforms. Known for his well-crafted storytelling and hilarious impressions of the myriad characters he encounters in life, Lil Rel Howery draws on his personal experiences in his relatable, uproarious stand-up. The special was filmed before a live audience at Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High School in Los Angeles.

Howery's previous credits include Oscar-winning film Get Out, as well as the smash hit Bird Box, The Carmichael Show, and HBO's Insecure. He recently executive produced and starred in the comedy series Rel, and has starred in the films Uncle Drew and Brittany Runs a Marathon. He won Best Comedic Performance in a Movie at the MTV Movie & Television Awards, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award(R) for Best Supporting Actor and was crowned Bernie Mac Comedy King of the Year.

Comedian, actor, writer and producer Lil Rel (The Carmichael Show, Rel) will star in his first HBO stand-up comedy special, it was announced by HBO. To be taped before a live audience in Los Angeles sometime in July, the exclusive hour-long presentation will be executive produced by Lil Rel, Jerrod Carmichael, Bo Burnham, Chris Storer, Jeff Tomsic and Avi Gilbert. Lil Rel's previous credits include the Oscar(R)-winning "Get Out," the record-breaking hit "Bird Box" and HBO's "Insecure." The special will be produced for HBO by Ashley LLC; executive producers, Lil Rel, Jerrod Carmichael, Bo Burnham, Chris Storer, Jeff Tomsic and Avi Gilbert; produced by Matt Vaughn; directed by Jerrod Carmichael.

AT&T Audience Network announced it will begin production on the 3rd season of its critically acclaimed series Loudermilk in Vancouver. Returning for season 3 are Ron Livingston (A Million Little Things) as Sam Loudermilk, Will Sasso (United We Fall) as Ben and Anja Savcic (Extraterrestrial) as Claire. Still reeling from his father's death, Loudermilk finds himself the caretaker of his much, much, MUCH younger half-brother after the kid's mom drops him off on Sam's doorstep. Barely equipped to deal with his own issues, Loudermilk leans on Ben, Claire, and his Sober Friends group to be the family his little bro desperately needs. And just when it seems like Loudermilk's glass half-empty worldview couldn't get worse, he has to watch friends (and enemies) make big strides forward, while everything in his world is decidedly stuck in neutral.

Oscar-winner Peter Farrelly and Bobby Mort will continue to serve as executive producers, along with Bart Peters of Big Branch Productions, Mark Burg of Mark Burg Productions and Shane Elrod of AT&T Audience Network. Peter Farrelly will direct the first three episodes with Bobby Farrelly returning to direct the final seven episodes.

SHOWTIME has ordered the comedy series Black Monday, starring and executive produced by Emmy(R) nominated and Golden Globe(R) winning actor Don Cheadle - returning to SHOWTIME after a five-season run as star and executive producer of House of Lies - with two-time Tony Award(R) nominee and Grammy(R) winner Andrew Rannells (Girls) and Regina Hall (Girls Trip) also leading the cast. The series was created by David Caspe (Happy Endings) and Jordan Cahan (My Best Friend's Girl), who will serve as executive producers and showrunners. Emmy nominees Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (Preacher, Superbad), who will also executive produce, directed the pilot. With an 10-episode order, Black Monday, a co-production between SHOWTIME and Sony Pictures Television Studios, will premiere in 2019.

Black Monday takes us back to October 19, 1987 - aka Black Monday, the worst stock market crash in the history of Wall Street. To this day, no one knows who caused it ... until now. It's the story of how a group of outsiders took on the blue-blood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world's largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine, Don Henley's birthday party and the glass ceiling. The comedy also stars Paul Scheer (The League), Yassir Lester (Making History), Michael James Scott (Aladdin on Broadway) and Eugene Cordero (Kong: Skull Island), with recurring guest star Casey Wilson (Happy Endings) and guest stars Ken Marino (Wet Hot American Summer) and Kurt Braunohler (Bunk).

HBO has wrapped production on a special starring comedians Drew Michael and Suki Waterhouse, with Jerrod Carmichael directing. Shot in Los Angeles last month, the special will debut on the network later this year. Drew Michael has written for Saturday Night Live and guest starred on sitcom The Carmichael Show. He recorded a stand-up special for the cable series The Half Hour, as well as stand-up albums "Lovely" and "Funny to Death." Suki Waterhouse stars in the upcoming feature Assassination Nation, and was most recently seen in The Bad Batch. Jerrod Carmichael has headlined two stand-up specials on HBO; Jerrod Carmichael: Love At The Store, and Jerrod Carmichael: 8.

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 week, it was announced that NBC has cancelled The Carmichael Show, a critically acclaimed but little watched sitcom that had aired on the network (mostly during the summer) for three seasons. The Carmichael Show's cancellation wasn't entirely a surprise - the show never gained much of an audience despite its acclaim and some valiant efforts by NBC, including slotting it behind hits like Little Big Shots and America's Got Talent. But it's still pretty upsetting, nonetheless - The Carmichael Show was a genuinely great sitcom, and although it never took off in the ratings, it may be a show whose impact will be felt for years to come. That's because The Carmichael Show, in many ways, restored respectability to the multi-camera sitcom. The multi-camera sitcom never truly died (The Big Bang Theory is the biggest sitcom hit of the decade, after all) but, for many years, it was considered to be an old and outdated form. Critics ravaged multi-camera sitcoms, and many considered the form to be "dead" artistically.

However, in the past few years, there has been a boom of multi-camera sitcoms that gain the attention of critics and television fans for their ability to use the format's strengths to their advantage, shows like The Carmichael Show, Mom, and One Day at a Time. All of these shows use the multi-camera format in much of the same way the best shows of the format from years past did - to relate to their audience in a grounded way while telling stories that are fresh, relevant, and in many ways, like nothing else you could find on TV. When used correctly, the multi-camera sitcom can really make the audience feel what it's trying to get across, and create an experience that is both classic, comforting but also capable of educating and making viewers think. (Think of how Roseanne allowed viewers to experience life in the lower middle class, or the way All in the Family brought real life issues into Americans' living rooms for the first time.) The Carmichael Show realized that, and ultimately paved the way for other shows to do the same. If you haven't checked out this underrated sitcom, I really recommend it - whether you're an old-school fan or whether you prefer snappy new sitcoms, anyone can get something from this multi-camera gem.

HBO has confirmed the debut date for the second season of the comedy series Vice Principals, which will conclude its 18-episode, two-season run with nine new episodes starting Sunday, Sept. 17 at 10:30pm ET/PT. The tumultuous school year at North Jackson High continues and a new semester brings lots of changes. Gamby and Russell are about to learn that the only thing harder than gaining power is holding on to it, as the darkest comedy on television returns to finish what was started. Danny McBride (Gamby) and Walton Goggins (Russell) star in part two of HBO's hit comedy series, created by McBride and Jody Hill and directed by David Gordon Green. McBride, Hill and Green are joined as executive producers by Jonathan Watson and Stephanie Laing. Also starring in Vice Principals are Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Georgia King, Busy Phillips, Shea Whigham and Sheaun McKinney.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! This week, we're hearing about the surprising (but at the same time, not so surprising) cancellation of The Carmichael Show, news of some renewals of some animated comedies, and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Who to Follow: Eric Stonestreet (Twitter), "I play Cam on Modern Family. If you're mean to fellow followers, I'll block you. If you're a dick, I'll block you. If you correct my spelling, I'll block you."

Claim to Fame: Eric Stonestreet got his start in television on various comedies and drama series (leaning more toward dramas), and had his first recurring role on the series CSI. But his first big role, and the one that he is still best known for (and for that matter, continues to play, since the series isn't done yet) is that of Cam on the ABC sitcom Modern Family. He has been nominated for several awards on the series, and won some of them. Cam, of course, is the husband of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's character Mitchell, although Stonestreet is actually heterosexual in real life. Stonestreet also has a side project going now, as host of the ABC competition series, The Toy Box. That series was recently renewed for a second season.

The Summer of Me... Battle of the Network Stars... Barry Williams is this nostalgic summer's tiki-wearing king! TV viewers still love some Greg Brady, and the week-long special event "The Brady Bunch – Barry's Best" starts Monday, July 10, on MeTV. Barry has selected his favorite episodes to air each weekday at 5pm ET/PT and will be sharing entertaining anecdotes from inside The Brady Bunch. Here’s the schedule:

Monday, July 10 @ 5pm ET/PT: "The Honeymoon"
Tuesday, July 11 @ 5pm ET/PT: "Adios, Johnny Bravo"
Wednesday, July 12 @ 5pm ET/PT: "Her Sister's Shadow"
Thursday, July 13 @ 5pm ET/PT: "The Subject Was Noses"
Friday, July 14 @ 5pm ET/PT: "Hawaii Bound (Part 1)"
Parts 2 and 3 of “Hawaii Bound” air the following week - Part 2 will air on Monday, July 17 @ 5pm ET/PT & Part 3 on Tuesday, July 18 @ 5pm ET/PT.

See a preview below:

GSN, the leader in game shows and competitive entertainment, announced the premiere of Snap Decision, a new comedic half-hour game show series hosted by actor and comedian David Alan Grier (The Carmichael Show). Snap Decision is produced for broadcast syndication in a joint venture with Tornante-Sinclair LLC and asks, "What can you tell about a person just by looking at them?" It will debut with four back-to-back half-hour episodes on Monday, August 7 from 9-11pm ET/PT (8-10pm CT) on GSN, and then will move into its regular Tuesdays at 9:00pm ET/PT (8pm CT) time period the following night, August 8. It will have a unique air schedule, as it can also be seen weekdays on 20 Sinclair stations nationwide beginning August 7 (check local listings for exact times and stations).

Snap Decision is a new comedy game show created by veteran producer Scott St. John (Match Game, Deal or No Deal) that puts preconceptions, first impressions, and gut instinct to the ultimate test. Studio contestants go head-to-head for a $10,000 grand prize as they are asked to make snap judgments about three strangers, recently interviewed on the street. However, looks can be deceiving, as people are often not who they may seem, leading to unexpected twists, turns, and outrageous and hilarious results.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! This is a very busy week of news, where we have about twice as many headlines as usual, and it is also like our "very special episode" week. It has, bizarrely, been a week full of controversy (oddly much of it having some connection to NBC in some way), with a mistrial in the Bill Cosby (former major NBC star, of course) criminal trial, the pulling of an episode of The Carmichael Show about a mass shooting, and an interview that NBC insists will air tomorrow night no matter what that has been nothing short of a public relations nightmare for the network. But it isn't just NBC involved in controversy this week, as a popular ABC reality series is facing a huge disaster as well. And we promise, there are a few things that aren't so controversial this week as well, though not much. Let's have a little controversy and let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Who to Follow: David Walton (Twitter), "Hurtling through space on a massive rock"

Claim to Fame: We're getting a little bit of a kick start on some of the stars of the fall sitcoms this week, even though the season doesn't start for another three months and some of these series may not even last three months (though networks have been a little more generous in recent years before hitting the cancel button). David Walton will be appearing in the CBS series 9JKL this fall, but it isn't his first starring role. He starred in the NBC drama Heist (cancelled after 5 episodes). Then, he moved on to starring in NBC comedies such as Perfect Couples (cancelled after 11 episodes), 100 Questions (cancelled after 6 episodes), Bent (cancelled after 6 episodes), and most recently About a Boy (cancelled after 27 episodes). Now, to be fair we're not suggesting that he is the next Ted McGinley (who is actually a decent actor who just had a tendency to get cast on series when they were coming to an end anyway), and perhaps now that he has moved away from NBC (which has been known for not doing particularly well on scripted series for the past decade or so anyway) and over to CBS, he'll have something that works this time. It is worth pointing out that he did have a recurring role on the Fox series New Girl, and that role actually worked out just fine for him, so we're inclined to believe that he will succeed if cast in a quality series.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! This week, we're hearing about a possible strike of the Writers Guild of America (we're hopeful it can be averted before it happens), a lawsuit about a series that ended two decades ago that will seemingly never end, and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Who to Follow: David Faustino (Twitter), "Actor/DJ. (#LegendOfKorra #DragonsRaceToTheEdge #MarriedWithChildren etc) #MusicFiend Host of #OldScratchRadio on Dash Radio."

Claim to Fame: David Faustino has been acting for virtually his entire life, and got his start in guest starring roles on series such as Little House on the Prairie and Family Ties. His big break came, of course, in 1987, with Married... with Children. Since then, he has been doing a lot of voice work and is also a radio DJ on Dash Radio. He has also continued to make some guest appearances on TV, most recently on Modern Family and Bones.

NBC has announced the rollout of an ambitious summer schedule that includes the premiere of new dance competition series World of Dance with judges Jennifer Lopez, Derek Hough, NE-YO and host/mentor Jenna Dewan Tatum; the return of the #1 show of summer, America's Got Talent, with new host Tyra Banks; and the network's obstacle course sensation, American Ninja Warrior. Also joining NBC's alternative summer slate is the new series Little Big Shots: Forever Young, from the producers of the hit series Little Big Shots; the recently launched success The Wall, back on a new night; and a second season of Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge. Making their debuts on the scripted side are drama Midnight, Texas based on the New York Times best-selling book series by Charlaine Harris (author of the novels that inspired "True Blood"), and Marlon, a family sitcom loosely inspired by the real life of star Marlon Wayans. Returning for their third and fourth seasons, respectively, are critical fave sitcom The Carmichael Show and edge-of-your-seat medical drama The Night Shift. Full schedule below:

MONDAYS
Monday, May 8
10:00pm WORLD OF DANCE (through 5/22)

Monday, June 12
8:00pm – 10:00pm AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR (through 9/18)
10:00pm SPARTAN: ULTIMATE TEAM CHALLENGE (through 7/31)

Monday, August 7
10:00pm HOLLYWOOD GAME NIGHT) (through 9/18)

TUESDAYS
Tuesday, May 30
8:00pm – 10:00pm AMERICA'S GOT TALENT (through 9/19)
10:00pm WORLD OF DANCE (through 7/18)

Tuesday, July 25
10:00pm MIDNIGHT, TEXAS (through 9/19)

WEDNESDAYS
Wednesday, May 24
8:00pm LITTLE BIG SHOTS (through 6/14)
Wednesday, May 31
9:00pm THE CARMICHAEL SHOW (through 8/9)
9:30pm THE CARMICHAEL SHOW

Wednesday, June 21
8:00pm LITTLE BIG SHOTS: FOREVER YOUNG (through 8/2)

Wednesday, August 9
8:00pm AMERICA'S GOT TALENT (through 9/20)

Wednesday, August 16
9:00pm MARLON (through 9/13)
9:30pm MARLON (through 9/13)

THURSDAYS
Thursday, June 22
8:00pm THE WALL (through 8/31, except 8/3)
9:00pm THE NIGHT SHIFT (through 7/27)

Thursday, August 10
10:00pm THE NIGHT SHIFT (through 8/31)

FRIDAYS
Friday, June 2
8:00pm – 10:00pm AMERICA'S GOT TALENT (Repeat) (through 9/22)
10:00pm DATELINE NBC (through 9/22)

SATURDAYS
Saturday, May 27
8:00pm LITTLE BIG SHOTS (Repeat) (through 9/23, except 7/1, 8/19 and 9/9)
9:00pm – 11:00pm DATELINE SATURDAY NIGHT MYSTERY (through 9/23, except 7/1, 8/19 and 9/9)

SUNDAYS
Sunday, June 4
7:00pm DATELINE NBC (through 8/13)

Sunday, June 18
8:00pm THE WALL(Repeat) (through 8/13)
9:00pm – 11:00pm AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR (Repeat) (through 8/20)

Music icon Method Man and supermodel Hailey Baldwin are ready to pick up the mic as the hosts of TBS's Drop the Mic, the new comedic music series from executive producers James Corden, Ben Winston and Jensen Karp. The pair have been tapped to emcee the celebrity battle rap competition based on the enormously popular segment from the Emmy®-winning series The Late Late Show with James Corden. Drop the Mic, which is also co-executive-produced by Ed Thomas, will launch on Turner's TBS on Tuesday, May 2, at 10 p.m. (ET/PT). The series is produced for TBS by CBS Television Studios and Fulwell 73. Drop the Mic will pit four stars from the worlds of entertainment, music, sports and pop culture against each other in a rap battle royale packed with "I can't believe they just said that" moments. At the end of each head-to-head battle, the studio audience will vote to pick the winner.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! We've got a busy news week this week as everybody is preparing for pilot season (including Amazon), we're hearing about summer plans from NBC, and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Who to Follow: John Larroquette (Twitter), "An actor by trade. A clown by vocation."

Claim to Fame: John Larroquette has had an extensive sitcom career, and this week, it was announced that he is part of a CBS pilot that may be airing in the fall if the network chooses to pick it up. His first role was on the series Black Sheep Squadron, but he really shined in his second series, Night Court, where he played district attorney Dan Fielding. Following that series, he starred in the somewhat less remembered (though it did air for four seasons) sitcom The John Larroquette Show. His next role came on the not-so-successful sitcom Happy Family. In the late 2000s, he moved away from sitcoms to appear in several episodes of Boston Legal, and currently he can be seen on The Librarians.

Hit comedy The Mick, starring Kaitlin Olson, has been renewed for a second season. On last night's all-new episode of The Mick, "The Baggage," Mickey's (Kaitlin Olson) unwanted suitors team up to thwart her new romance. Meanwhile, Sabrina (Sofia Black-D'Elia) and Alba (Carla Jimenez) teach Ben (Jack Stanton) a lesson in responsibility. Delivering an average Multi-Platform audience of eight million viewers, The Mick is a comedy about an unapologetic degenerate (Kaitlin Olson) who suddenly finds herself stuck raising her spoiled niece (Sofia Black-D'Elia) and nephews (Thomas Barbusca, newcomer Jack Stanton) in affluent Greenwich, CT. It's pretty much everything she never wanted. Regardless, she's determined to rise to the occasion and transform these little monsters into honest, hard-working, decent members of society - something she knows absolutely nothing about. The series also stars Carla Jimenez and newcomer Scott MacArthur.

Jerrod Carmichael returns to HBO for his second standup special on the network when Jerrod Carmichael: 8 debuts Saturday, March 11 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT). Taped in December before a live audience at historic Masonic Hall in New York City, the show features his subversive, thought-provoking take on cultural norms. The special will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and affiliate portals. Performing in the round and engaging audience members during his act, Carmichael addresses a wide range of subjects, including Trump's victory, climate change, supporting the troops, animal rights, being a good boyfriend and his top four fears, as well as exploring larger themes like race, politics, love and family.

Jerrod Carmichael made his HBO debut in 2014 with the solo special Jerrod Carmichael: Love at the Store. He currently stars in the broadcast network comedy series The Carmichael Show, which begins its third season this year on NBC. Carmichael's feature-film credits include Neighbors, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, The Meddler and the upcoming Transformers: The Last Knight.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! We've got sort of a busy news week this week, with some news literally coming out as we were working on this week's version, including new streaming media deals for Hulu, the cancellation of a Disney Channel series, and more DVDs of a classic favorite. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Who to Follow: Amber Stevens West (Twitter), "The Carmichael Show! If the world is your oyster and you can't find your pearl, you can always have lunch!"

Claim to Fame: Amber Stevens West is the daughter of radio personality Shadoe Stevens, who is probably best known for being the replacement for Casey Kasem on American Top 40 for most of the 90s (the period in which Kasem left the series to start his own competing radio program, but then of course Kasem came back to the show in the mid 90s). got her start in small appearances as characters without names in series such as Complete Savages and The Hills, but her first claim to fame came from the ABC Family series Greek. Currently, she plays her most important sitcom role, in the role of Maxine on NBC's The Carmichael Show.

NBC's second season sitcom The Carmichael Show is returning with a special preview airing on Wednesday, March 9, before moving to its regular night and time on Sunday, March 13, but before that... BET will be airing a marathon of the first season. The season one marathon will air on Friday, March 11 from 7pm-10pm. The sitcom will be sandwiched in between blocks of sitcoms House of Payne (4-7pm) and Martin (10pm-12am). In this sitcom, inspired by the life of comedian Jerrod Carmichael, the series follows Jerrod and his opinionated North Carolina family as they navigate topics that all families face today in America. Nothing is too uncomfortable to explore, including police protests, guns and religion. Jerrod often finds himself debating such issues with his old-school father, Joe (David Alan Grier), his devoutly religious mother, Cynthia (Loretta Devine), his progressive live-in girlfriend, Maxine (Amber Stevens West), his recently separated brother, Bobby (Rel Howery), and Bobby's estranged and outspoken wife, Nekeisha (Tiffany Haddish). And somewhere in the middle of all of their disagreeing is the heart of this family.

Bones, the long-running comedic procedural beloved by millions of fans around the world, will return for a final farewell 12th season on Fox in 2016-17. The 12-episode run will celebrate the inventive series and bring the storylines of Brennan (Emily Deschanel), Booth (David Boreanaz) and the Jeffersonian-FBI team to a close, allowing the show's loyal fans to say goodbye to these indelible characters. When Bones ends its run, the series will have completed 246 original episodes, making it one of the longest running Fox series ever. Bones returns for its spring premiere on Thursday, April 14 at 8:00PM ET/PT on Fox. Picking up after the explosive fall finale, the all-new episode, "The Death in the Defense," finds Hodgins (TJ Thyne) eight weeks into his rehabilitation and forced to navigate life in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, Brennan and Booth investigate the death of a public defender who had multiple defendants from previous cases with motives to kill her.

In the series, Brennan, a highly skilled forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and writes novels on the side, and her FBI partner, Booth, have taken on cases other law enforcement can't solve and proven to be a formidable partnership, both at work and at home. Over the course of the series, Brennan has devoted herself to her career, to Booth, with whom she's had two children, and to her team at the Jeffersonian. They include best friend Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin), an artist who specializes in reconstructing facial features and crime scenes; Angela's husband, Hodgins, a conspiracy theorist and expert on insects, spores and minerals, who is affectionately known as "the slime and bug guy"; Dr. Camille "Cam" Saroyan (Tamara Taylor), the street-smart and centered coroner; and Booth's most recent colleague at the FBI, Special Agent James Aubrey (John Boyd), a young, intrepid FBI agent with a voracious appetite for solving crime, junk food and career advancement.

Utilizing a wide swathe of skills, and using human remains as their roadmap, this exceptional team has cracked some of the toughest cases to cross their lab tables and, in the process,escaped near-death experiences on multiple occasions. Inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and novelist Kathy Reichs, the series also has explored more ways for human remains to have been discovered than ever thought imaginable. With Brennan leading the way as the top professional in the field of forensic anthropology, Bones has inspired young girls around the world to consider a career in science. At the same time, having stacked up more episodes than the number of bones in the human body (206!), the series has helped viewers distinguish between the patella (kneecap) and the phalanges (bones in human fingers).

NBC has changed the special preview date for the second season of sitcom The Carmichael Show. The special preview was slated for Tuesday, March 8 at 10:30pm, will now be moved a day later to Wednesday, March 9 at 10pm, followed by a repeat episode at 10:30pm. In the season premiere, when Cynthia (Loretta Devine) sees her Reverend with someone who is not his wife, the family comes together to discuss cheating and consequences. Jerrod (Jerrod Carmichael) is shocked when this family discussion reveals that Maxine (Amber Stevens West) is no stranger to infidelity. The series will still move to its Sundays at 9pm timeslot beginning Sunday, March 13. There will be two back-to-back episodes for that night before sharing the hour with new sitcom Crowded beginning March 20.

To celebrate the milestone of reaching 200 episodes, the City of Pasadena has declared that Thursday, February 25 will officially be proclaimed The Big Bang Theory Day, within Pasadena city limits. The hit comedy series has been fictionally set in the Southern California city for its entire nine-season run. Celebrating the 200th episode landmark at an event on Saturday evening, Pasadena Councilmember Andy Wilson, on behalf of Mayor Terry Tornek, joined series stars and producers - including Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch, Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady and Steven Molaro - to issue the proclamation. The entire proclamation, presented by Pasadena Councilmember Andy Wilson, reads as follows:

PROCLAMATION

Whereas Warner Bros. Television's The Big Bang Theory premiered on the CBS Television Network on September 24, 2007, and during its subsequent 200 episodes has featured its main characters living in Pasadena, working as Caltech scientists and even popularizing the "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock" game; and

Whereas the series, now airing in its ninth season, is currently the number one comedy on television, thereby drawing national, international (and even perhaps intergalactic) attention to the City of Pasadena; and

Whereas the talented cast, producers and crew of The Big Bang Theory - including co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, showrunner Steven Molaro, and series stars Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch - have portrayed the City of Pasadena as not only a city of advanced education and pop culture sophistication but also home to the occasional unexpected "Bazinga!" to countless viewers worldwide;

Now, Therefore I, Terry Tornek, Mayor of Pasadena, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby congratulate and commend the cast, producers and crew of The Big Bang Theory, and proclaim February 25, 2016, in the City of Pasadena as The Big Bang Theory Day.

The Big Bang Theory airs its 200th episode on Thursday, February 25 (8/7c on CBS). In the episode "The Celebration Experimentation," the gang finally celebrates Sheldon's birthday with a few special guests, including Christine Baranski, Sara Gilbert, Wil Wheaton and Batman's Adam West. Holy 200 episodes, Batman!

NBC has announced the premiere dates of three new midseason scripted series, plus the anticipated return of its summer hit comedy, The Carmichael Show. The launch strategy includes previews in proximity to The Voice for The Carmichael Show, Crowded, Heartbeat and Little Big Shots, the previously announced reality series about extraordinary kids hosted by Steve Harvey, who executive produces with Ellen DeGeneres. First up, sitcom The Carmichael Show, will have a preview episode Tuesday, March 8, 10:30pm before making its regular night & time premiere on Sunday, March 13, at 9pm with back-to-back episodes for week one. The March 8 preview episode of The Carmichael Show at 10:30pm will immediately follow a half-hour preview of Little Big Shots, which will be preceded by a two-hour episode of The Voice. The Steve Harvey series will air Sundays at 8pm into The Carmichael Show beginning March 13. The Carmichael Show will also have a Bill Cosby-themed episode this season that will likely be talked about everywhere after it airs.

Then two preview episodes of new sitcom Crowded will air Tuesday, March 15 from 10-11pm following The Voice, before moving to its regular night and time on Sunday, March 20 at 9:30pm following The Carmichael Show. From the executive producers of Hot in Cleveland and Grimm comes this very timely comedy that proves life is crazy with a full house, especially the second time around. After 20 years of parenting, empty nesters Mike (Patrick Warburton, Seinfeld) and Martina (Carrie Preston, True Blood) are finally reclaiming their wild side. But when both of their two grown daughters (Miranda Cosgrove, iCarly and Mia Serafino, Shameless) unexpectedly move back in and Mike's parents (Stacy Keach, NCIS: New Orleans and Carlease Burke, Switched at Birth) scratch their plans to spend their golden years in Florida, their roost is full again.

Next up, new drama Heartbeat will have a preview episode on Tuesday, March 22 at 9pm following The Voice, before moving to its regular night and time starting the next night on Wednesday, March 23 at 8pm. The drama is a character-driven medical series that follows the professional and personal life of world-renowned heart transplant surgeon Dr. Alex Panttiere (Melissa George, The Slap). There is nothing conventional about Dr. Panttiere, who is as cutting edge and unorthodox in the OR as she is with the two men in her life. Her approach to medicine is without boundaries, as is her approach to everything else in her world. Between Dr. Panttiere's hectic hospital life where she is caught between two brilliant but stubborn surgeons (Dave Annable and Don Hany) and her household of two kids and a gay rock star ex-husband (Joshua Leonard), Alex is constantly striving to overcome numerous daily obstacles and be the best mother and doctor possible. Jamie Kennedy, D.L. Hughley, Shelley Con, Maya Erskine, Joshua Leonard and JLouis Mills also star.

And finally, new drama Game of Silence will launch on Thursday, April 7 at 10pm following The Blacklist after the season of Shades of Blue ends. Jackson Brooks (David Lyons, Revolution) is a successful attorney who seems to have it all. He's engaged to a wonderful woman who happens to be his boss, Marina (Claire Van Der Boom, Hawaii Five-O), and he's on the fast track to becoming partner at his firm, but his world is turned upside down when his long-lost childhood friends unexpectedly reappear after 25 years. Jackson, Gil Harris (Michael Raymond James, True Blood) and Shawn Cook (Larenz Tate, Rush) always stuck together, like brothers. They spent their boyhood summers in the small town of Brennan, Texas, swimming in the quarry, shooting bottle rockets and doing everything they could to mine the fun out of small-town life. But their idyllic world turned chaotic one fateful summer afternoon when a well-intentioned and heroic attempt to save their friend Jessie (Bre Blair, Last Vegas) from her alcoholic mother ultimately cost the 13-year-old boys nine months at Quitman Youth Detention Facility where their lives were changed forever.

AMC announced that David Schwimmer (American Crime Story, Band of Brothers, Friends) and Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe, Cloud Atlas) will star in the network's upcoming original series Feed the Beast. A co-production between AMC Studios and Lionsgate, based on the Danish series Bankerot, the series will be adapted by writer/showrunner Clyde Phillips (Dexter, Nurse Jackie), who also serves as executive producer. Feed the Beast is a drama about two best friends, Tommy Moran (Schwimmer), and Dion Patras (Sturgess) who take one last shot at their dream of opening a restaurant. Production will begin in New York City in February 2016 and the 10 one-hour episodes are set to premiere in May 2016. The drama tells the story of Tommy (Schwimmer) and Dion (Sturgess) who are like brothers. With all the love - and all the complications - that comes with it. Dion can't stay out of trouble. Tommy can't move past it. For two friends on the brink of losing everything, a dusty pipe dream of opening up an upscale restaurant in their hometown of the Bronx is all they have left to turn their lives around. They push each other to follow through on their dreams, welcome love into their lives, and overcome their demons. They also betray, backstab, manipulate and coerce each other into the most dangerous situations imaginable. For Tommy, a successful haute Hellenic restaurant is his means to give his son a life he never had. For Dion, this venture is a perfect opportunity to secretly repay his debt to the Mob. Together, they take on the insanity of the New York restaurant world, and navigate its underbelly of petty criminals, corrupt officials and violent mobsters. With the vig running, there's more than food, wine and fresh starts on the line. One wrong move and people get chopped.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! If you're completely snowed in this weekend, it might be a good time to catch up on some of your favorite series or binge watch some old classics that you may have missed before. Nonetheless, this week, we have news about pilot season, the return of a series that was a bit of a surprising summer success for NBC, several daytime program renewals, and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

TUESDAY (JANUARY 26) HOME MEDIA RELEASES

• The Facts of Life - Season Eight (DVD, $29.99): Another release for those who skipped on the previous complete series release, this set brings all of the eighth season episodes together in one set.

Who to Follow: Beth Broderick (Twitter)

Claim to Fame: We had one aunt from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch last week (Caroline Rhea) and this week we've got the other one. Beth Broderick started out her career in some lesser known films, but by the late 80s and early 90s, she became busy with TV guest roles, on series including Matlock, Hooperman, Married... with Children, and more. She had a regular role on the short-lived Glory Days and appeared in series Hearts Afire. In 1994, she starred in The 5 Mrs. Buchanans, which only lasted for a season. She was cast in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch in 1996, and appeared on that series until 2003. Today, she still makes appearances in TV series on occasion, but does much more community theater and devotes herself to several great causes.

NBC has renewed its critically acclaimed and hit summer comedy The Carmichael Show for a second season. Starring Jerrod Carmichael, David Alan Grier, Loretta Devine, Amber Stevens West and Lil Rel Howery, The Carmichael Show is inspired by Jerrod's relationship with his say-anything contrarian father, his therapist-in-training girlfriend, his ever-hustling brother and his mother who is always, always, always right with Jesus. The series hit its stride by focusing on hot-button issues that are part of the current national dialogue, including religion, gun control and race relations. The 9 p.m. ET edition of The Carmichael Show was the most-watched summer comedy on the Big 4 networks in eight years and tied for the #1 summer comedy over that span in adult 18-49 rating, averaging a 1.1 rating, 4 share in 18-49 and 4.7 million viewers overall in "live plus same day" averages from Nielsen Media Research. In total viewers, the 9 p.m. Carmichael was the top summer comedy on ABC, CBS, NBC since 2007.

Actress Teri Hatcher is set to guest star on CBS's The Odd Couple in a multiple-episode arc during its upcoming second season. She will play Charlotte, a smart, successful single mother who lives in Oscar Madison's (Matthew Perry) building. They meet when Oscar starts dating her nanny, but he soon realizes he's really interested in Charlotte. Hatcher has delivered memorable performances in film and television since 1990, including her portrayal of Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives, which earned Hatcher a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and as Lois Lane on the series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Her film credits include The Big Picture, Soapdish, Spy Kids, Tomorrow Never Dies and Coraline.

Happy (early) Labor Day, and to SitcomsOnline Digest! The three day weekend signals the unofficial end of summer, which means that fall (and the new fall season) is just around the corner... but we're not there quite yet! In the meantime, we're here with news of premiere dates for all of the new season of (just about) everything, a new Hulu commercial-free option, and some rumors and speculations about a Family Guy DVD release planned for September 15 that has seemingly vanished into thin air. And, to top it all off, it looks like a reboot that seemed to be a sure thing has now been killed... at least when it comes to NBC airing it. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

HOME MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

• Sometimes, DVD releases tend to fall off of the schedule for unexplained reasons, and we've recently discovered one that may possibly be raising some questions, particularly since it was perhaps THE series to first demonstrate the (now fading) power and dominance of TV-on-DVD (in fact, it weren't for the popularity of the DVDs, the series probably would have ended when it was canceled in 2002): Family Guy - Season Thirteen. It was scheduled for release on September 15, and pre-orders were being taken at one point in time on amazon.com, but they no longer are. While we don't know exactly what happened here, it appears that the date may have been moved to December 8, if we are to believe a pre-order listing from Target (which appears to be the only website currently accepting pre-orders). We aren't completely sure what is going on here, but our best guess is that Fox wanted something to replace the void being left with the lack of Simpsons releases (which invariable came out every December). We'll update when we know more!
• Olive Films promised fans of King of the Hill that they would complete the series by the end of this year, and they weren't kidding. The studio now has King of the Hill - The Complete 13th Season scheduled for October 20, but that isn't all, they will also be releasing it on Blu-ray.
• VEI announced several big releases earlier this year, and they seem to be diving head first into complete series (and attempting to get them all out by the end of this year). This week, they gave some details on their complete series release of Barnaby Jones, due to arrive in November.
• Hotel - The Complete Series will also be arriving from VEI on October 20.

Who to Follow: Loretta Devine (Twitter), "actress,singer,poet,creator ,lover,step mom.just Me"

Claim to Fame: Loretta Devine's first claim to fame was in a Broadway musical in 1978, which was literally called A Broadway Musical, which was such a flop that it ended after only one performance. It was a bad way to start a career, for sure, but in all fairness, Jackée Harry also got her start in that very same musical. She had some minor movie roles after that, and she also appeared on A Different World and even starred in her own sitcom for a brief period of time. In the late 90s, she found movie success in a pair of major Whitney Houston blockbuster films, Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher's Wife. But she returned to TV, where she finally found more success, in 2000 in her role as Marla Hendricks, a very unstable (but caring and effective) teacher on Boston Public. In fact, she was one of the few cast members to actually appear in the entire series. Currently, she appears in the NBC series The Carmichael Show, which will air the last two episodes of the season (and perhaps the series, since we don't know the fate of the series yet) on Wednesday.