Danson back in Good Place
NEW YORK — Ted Danson returns to NBC’s Thursday night lineup this fall as part of a conservative scheduling strategy announced Sunday for a network that is holding off much of its new material for other times in the year.
NBC also reached a last-minute deal with producers of the popular comedy The Carmichael Show to bring it back next season. The network released its scheduling plans ahead of today’s presentation to advertisers in New York, the first of the broadcasters that will do so this week.
Danson, the memorable barkeep in Cheers on NBC more than two decades ago, will star in
The Good Place. He plays Kristen Bell’s guide to the afterlife in a comedy produced by Michael Schur, whose credits include Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation.
“It’s basically a redemptive story about a young woman who hasn’t made the best choices in life finding herself with a chance to course correct,” said Jennifer Salke, NBC Entertainment president.
The network is doing some schedule shuffling, moving the sophomore thriller Blindspot from Monday to Wednesday, the drama Chicago Med from Tuesday to Thursday and The Blacklist back an hour to 10 p.m. on Thursday nights.
But of the 12 new series NBC plans to introduce next season, only three are on the fall schedule. Besides The Good Place, the other two are the dramas Timeless, about a criminal who steals a secret time machine with the goal of destroying America by changing its past, and This is Us, a drama-comedy starring Mangy Moore about three strangers whose lives intersect in odd ways.
Among the shows NBC plans to roll out later in the year are Chicago Justice, the fourth in Dick Wolf’s series of Chicago dramas, a spinoff of The Blacklist, a remake of the movie Taken, a Wizard of Oz reimagining, a comedy based on Marlon Wayans’ life and another comedy that will return John Lithgow to NBC’s schedule. Also returning later is Steve Harvey’s kids’ show Little Big Shots and Celebrity Apprentice with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which won’t be on the air until the electoral fate of the show’s original host, Donald Trump, is known.