This is good news for fans of ‘ This Is Us’
Heartwarming hit earns a renewal for 2 more seasons
Highlights from the Television Critics Association’s winter preview of upcoming shows.
When This Is Us was announced as the season’s only new broadcast family drama, many hoped the show would simply be able to survive in a schedule filled with crime, law and medical series.
Instead of just surviving, it has become one of the new season’s biggest hits. In fact, it’s so successful, NBC surprised the cast and television critics with the news that it was renewing the show for two more seasons and a minimum of 36 episodes.
That shocker may be fitting, because This is a show built on surprises — starting with the twist in the pilot that we were watching the characters at two different spots in time. “Our theme,” says creator Dan Fogelman, “something we play with on the show, is that life will surprise you.”
And he knows, he says, when he’s going to shock you, as with Toby’s heart attack. “We have a plan,” Fogelman says. “We know where this series is going, and we’re going to keep you on your toes.”
That plan, by the way, is about to become a bit clearer. “Next week is a big episode,” Fogelman hints. And that’s the only hint you’re getting — the rest is, yes, a surprise.
AFTER 11 YEARS, ‘ WILL’ IS BACK
There will be more Will & Grace.
Sparked by the response to show’s viral pre- election reunion, NBC has announced it will bring the series back for a 10- episode limited run in the 2017- 18 season. And this groundbreaking sitcom is coming back with all four original stars — Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally — along with original series creators and showrunners Max Mutchnick and David Kohan and director/ producer James Burrows.
“We’re thrilled that one of the smartest, funniest and most defining comedies in NBC history is coming back,” NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt said in a statement. “This groundbreaking series for everything from gay rights to social and political commentary — all disguised as a highspeed train of witty pop culture — is coming back where it belongs.”
Will ran on NBC from 1998 to 2006. It won 16 Emmys, including at least one for each of the show’s stars.
LITHGOW’S ‘ TRIAL & ERROR’
John Lithgow, who was most recently seen in Netflix’s The Crown in his muchacclaimed role as Winston Churchill, is returning to the sitcom genre and the broadcast network that gave him one of his biggest hits, 3rd Rock From the Sun. Starting in March, he’ll star in NBC’s
Trial & Error, a parody of real- crime documentaries that casts him as a smalltown Southern professor accused of kill- ing his wife.
You’d be hard- pressed to find two more different characters than Error’s Larry and The Crown’s Churchill. And that’s one of the things that drew Lithgow to the show.
“I loved the whole idea,” Lithgow told TV critics. “It was so completely original. ... We were completely teed up for a great satire, a great parody. ... And I loved the challenge of playing a character who at any moment could have plausibly committed or not committed this crime.”
As Larry, Lithgow has to keep you guessing on whether he’s guilty. So it helps, Lithgow says, that he has played so many different characters, from 3rd Rock to Dexter to The World According
to Garp. “People just don’t know where I’m going to go.”
Though he’s clearly the biggest name, Lithgow loves that the show, which also stars Nicholas D’Agosto, Sherri Shepherd, Steven Boyer, Krysta Rodriquez and Jayma Mays, isn’t just focused on him. Lithgow says his favorite work always has been in great ensembles, for “the community spirit of it,” and this one, he says, is “a fantastic ensemble. ... We became a group almost instantly, and a very loving group.”
“This is an all- star cast,” producer Jeff Astrof says. “I’ve never worked with a cast like this.”
‘ JUSTICE’ IN CHICAGO
Coming March 5, Chicago Justice will be the fourth show in Dick Wolf’s NBC Chicago empire. Why the switch to Chicago, after all those years in New York for Law & Order? Because, Wolf says, the governor and the mayor there “have made it a very, very hospitable location for filming.”
Justice stars Carl Weathers, Philip Winchester, Monica Barbaro, Justified’s Joelle Carter and Jon Seda — who switches to Justice from Chicago P. D. “I thought he was the most logical to move over,” Wolf says.
Justice stars action series actor Winchester ( The Player, Strike Back) as D. A. Peter Stone, son of Ben Stone — the character played by Michael Moriarty in the original Law & Order.