NBC has picked up Ryan Murphy comedy The New Normal and the J.J. Abrams/Eric Kripke drama Revolution.
Update: NBC has also picked up White House comedy 1600 Penn starring Bill Pullman to series for 13 episodes and comedy Animal Practice.
Earlier today NBC picked up comedy Save Me.
I think they will order 1 more comedy (Guys With Kids) and then be done with comedies. With the outside chance of 1 other multicam like Guys to bring it to 11
1. Animal Practice
2. 1600 Penn
3. Save Me
4. Go On
5. The New Normal
6. Guys With Kids
7. The Office
8. Community
9. Parks & Rec
10. 30 Rock
11. Other Multi-camera Comedy
10 or 11 Comedies isn’t so abnormal
2008-2009- 30 Rock,My Name is Earl, The Office, Parks & Rec, Kath & Kim + SNL Thursday (6 Total and they had a crapload of reality that year)
2009-2010- 30 Rock, The Office, Parks & Rec, SNL Thursday, Community, 100 Questions (6 Total and this was the Jay Leno year)
2010-2011- 30 Rock, The Office, Community, Parks & Rec, Friends with Benefits, Outsourced, The Paul Reiser Show, Perfect Couples (8 Total)
2011-2012- 30 Rock, The Office, Community, Parks & Rec,Chelsea, Bent, BFF, Free Agents, Up All Night, Whitney (10 Total, 11 if you count Betty White)
Happy to hear about Revolution. Hopefully I’ll enjoy the finished product.
The comedies don’t interest me, but I almost never watch comedies anyway.
And 1600 Penn finally gets picked up!
I swear, NBC must have sensed my hopeful thoughts on that front.
@SJ: Agreed about Glee. Not to mention it gives a lot of my favorite classic rock songs horrible new covers. To be honest, I can’t stand most of Ryan Murphy’s work, with the exception of American Horror Story because I love that kind of dark and deadly stuff. I don’t think I would enjoy New Normal at all. Not to mention, I was hoping it would not get picked up because Justin Bartha’s endless other projects have been delaying National Treasure 3 for years.
I’m sure they’ll come…but in lesser numbers than last year. It’s become pretty obvious that dramas are on the downturn in favor of comedies.
@Neil
Revolution sounds a bit like the cartoon Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light.
It reminds me of this really terrible book I read in college called “Dies the Fire” by SM Stirling. The author also tried to go with the whole “no electricity” thing, but he clearly hadn’t read a science textbook in quite some time, since half the things that did work also involved electrical energy.
The logline for Revolution is giving me angry flashbacks to that book.
In addition to the 10-11 comedies I mentioned…some other predictions
-All the other comedies are dead (Whitney,Chelsea,Up All Night,Bent,BFF)
-Harry’s Law is dead and so is Awake
-Betty White/Rock Center/Who Do You Think You Are? are spackle/seasonal/special
-The Sing-Off returns to its original winter schedule
-Dateline may rotate with Rock Center
-The Apprentice and The Biggest Loser will return (only as 1 hour now)
-Parenthood & SVU will be back…which leads me to…
The New Dramas
County
Do No Harm
Chicago Fire
Revolution
+1 more
None of the NBC pilots interests me except Revolution but I’d rather wait to see the ratings. I don’t want to get invested just to see it get cancelled. Kripke might be a genius but Abrams is an overrated mess.
@SJ and @Tvfreak
I agree with you Glee has some of the most stereotypical and offensive portrayal of gay characters. Ever. I like Justin Bartha but I don’t trust Murphy with gay characters anymore. If the New Normal is anything like Glee, I don’t think I’d watch it either.
@JTV
I think it’s a foregone conclusion that they’ll pick up County or Do No Harm, but I can’t imagine both. And you’re forgetting Hannibal, which already has a 13 episode order.
I think County is more like Grey’s/ER while Do No Harm is more of a Dexter type thing if that makes sense.
Pleased to see 1600 Penn picked up. It’s one of the better comedy loglines of the season. I like Save Me, and will be watching especially because of Anne Heche. Revolution sounds good. I like JJ Abrams and he has seen some recent success (Person Of Interest). Alcatraz was rather poorly rated though. Hopefully this is one of his better dramas. It does seem like the beginning of Terra Nova, with the setting being in a place without electricity. Go On sounds rather bland but can be stretched very wide. It could be good if it were executed properly. I won’t be tuning in to The New Normal though. It seems like its been done before, and not really original. I’ll stick with Modern Family, thank you. Animal Kingdom seems intriguing, and judging that i am a avid House fan and this has drawn several comparisons with it, i’ll watch the pilot to see how it goes.
according to tvmojoe(vulture) sources Sarah Silverman and Roseanne multi-cam pilots are on life support.
“As to The New Normal… It’s Ryan Murphy, so here’s how it goes… great first season. Whiny, preachy, annoying, social-engineering second season. Canceled in 3rd or 4th season, after plots become utterly preposterous. Count on it.”
FREAKING MADE MY DAY!!!! HAHAHAH Sounds Just Like how Glee Turned out…with the exception of Cancellation lol.
Should the title in the headline be Animal Kingdom and not Animal Practice? Just noticed that – I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it yet.
Abrams is very good, but (rather like Steven Speilberg– does anyone really think he had ANYTHING to do with Terra Nova) his name is slapped on too much stuff. He hasn’t stuck with a show for quite some time so it really depends on who is actually calling the shots. So hopefully they get someone good.
That said, comparing Revolution with FF/Event/LOST strikes me as a little silly. It all comes down to quality– FF and Event didn’t fail because they were shows “like” lost, they failed because they had no clear direction and featured a lot of wheel spinning. That’s not a jab– I enjoyed both shows (admittedly, I enjoyed Event more in a laugh-at-it kind of way but still) its just that they were concepts better suited for movies that had nowhere to go for 100+ hours. Just from the description alone, Revolution sounds more open for TV, less limited, but until we see a preview it’s hard to say.
Justin Kirk on network tv just made my day! 8)
The J.J. Abrams/Eric Kripke drama Revolution is The Next Event.
The Ryan Murphy comedy will have a quircky pilot but won’t last.
1600 Penn is DOA. Was rooting against a pick-up because of the name.
Have no idea what Animal Practice is but it won’t succeed — or as Richard Steven Hack puts it: it’s doomed.
Revolution
Kripke = win.
Abrams = big fail.
NBC = bigger fail.
Doesn’t Penn have Jenna Elfman in it? Also a fail.
Revolution will certainly open BIG. Hope it can maintain some momentum after the first weeks and become a real hit.
JJ Abrams is a bit of a hit or miss, he’s had four successful shows with good runs, Alias, Lost, Fringe (even though ratings are not good, it still makes it to a season 5) and POI. However shows like Undercovers and Alcatraz haven’t been so successful so it will be interesting to see what Revolution does.
Also, I have a feeling The New Normal will do quite well, even though many don’t like Murphy, you have to admit that all of his shows have been or are ratings successes, Nip/Tuck, Glee and American Horror Story.
I expect one or two of these new sitcoms will get Bent’s treatment because of poor scheduling. Just wait and see.