HOLLYWOOD Q&A

Q: In early 2018 there was an ABC series called “For the People.” At the end of the last show I saw an announcement saying the show would return in the fall. It hasn’t returned, so what happened?

A: The ABC series, a legal drama set in “America’s most prestigious trial court” (according to the official description), will return for its second season on March 7.

Whatever news you saw saying it would be back in the fall misled you — this return comes almost exactly a year after the show’s debut in 2018. It’s possible that there was talk at one point about promoting it from a winter show to a fall show, but that would have been before the ratings were in.

That brings me back to the odds I was talking about: many expected “For the People” to be canceled after its first season due to low ratings — it averaged just 2.54 million viewers, placing it 21st out of ABC’s 26 unscripted shows, below some of the shows the network canceled.

That unlikely survival could have to do with its creator — TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes. The general wisdom around ABC’s offices has been to give a better than fair shake to everything she’s come up with since “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Q: Is it true Steve Carell’s going to star in a show about space? When’s that being released?

A: It took no time at all, in TV terms at least, for Steve Carell and his former boss on “The Office” to see the comedic potential of the Space Force that President Trump proposed last summer. They even kept the name.

Just seven months after the announcement they had a deal with Netflix for a series called “Space Force,” which will be a comedic imagining of the very work the U.S. government and military is currently undertaking to create a sixth branch of the Armed Forces that will “defend satellites from attack” and “perform other space-related tasks.”

It was a quick process to get a deal for the show, but it likely won’t be so quick getting it made. There’s been no word yet on a release date, which suggests it won’t be any time soon.

Netflix released a brief teaser describing the show that included a subtle jab at the government for not providing a very clear idea of what the Space Force program is for. It says the show is “the story of the men and women who have to figure it out.”

The network describes the show as a “workplace comedy series,” which of course puts it right in the wheelhouse of Carell and co-creator Greg Daniels, who basically became stars together thanks to their work on the American adaptation of “The Office.”