The TeeVee Gods are doing their very best to salvage the nuclear meltdown that has been 2020 with a ’30 Rock’ reunion

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

YOU GUYS. Because things are so amazingly SHIT-TAY these days, I have been trying to start these posts with something cute or funny to make things just a little bit better if only for a moment. But there is no duck or hedgehog video that will bring me as much joy as the news that there is going to be a 30 Rock reunion next month! It is going to be part of NBC’s long-delayed Upfronts presentation and also serve to promote NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock, but MOMMA DON’T CARE. JUST GIMME. INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS ALREADY.

Related to the Upfronts, NBC and ABC have released their fall schedules and, well, let’s just say they seem optimistic that filming will begin in earnest soon.

NBC

MONDAY
7 P.M. — The Voice
9 P.M. — Manifest

TUESDAY
7 P.M. — The Voice
8 P.M. — This Is Us
9 P.M. — New Amsterdam

WEDNESDAY
7 P.M. — Chicago Med
8 P.M. — Chicago Fire
9 P.M. — Chicago P.D.

THURSDAY
7 P.M. — Superstore
7:30 — Brooklyn Nine-Nine
8 P.M. — Law & Order: SVU
9 P.M. — LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME

FRIDAY
7 P.M. – The Blacklist
8 P.M — Dateline NBC

SATURDAY
7 P.M. — Dateline Saturday Night Mystery
9 P.M. – Saturday Night Live (encores)

SUNDAY
7 P.M. — Football Night in America
7:20 P.M. — NBC Sunday Night Football

So, the only new show is this Law & Oder spinoff with Detective Stabler, which is a direct result of not having a pilot season in the spring. Three new comedies that had already been ordered, Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s Mr. Mayor, Kenan Thompson’s Kenan, and Dwayne Johnson’s Young Rock, are all being held for later in the season, or midseason.

ABC

MONDAY
7 PM — Dancing With The Stars
9 PM — The Good Doctor

TUESDAY
7 PM — The Bachelorette
9 PM — BIG SKY

WEDNESDAY
7 PM — The Goldbergs
7:30 PM — American Housewife
8 PM — The Conners
8:30 PM — CALL YOUR MOTHER
9 PM — Stumptown

THURSDAY
7 PM — Station 19
8 PM — Grey’s Anatomy
9 PM — A Million Little Things

FRIDAY
7 PM — Shark Tank
8 PM — 20/20

SATURDAY
9 PM — Saturday Night Football

SUNDAY
6 PM — America’s Funniest Home Videos
7 PM — SUPERMARKET SWEEP
8 PM — Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
9 PM — The Rookie

At ABC, we have three new series, Big Sky, which is a David E. Kelly thriller; Call Your Mother, a family comedy starring Kyra Sedgwick; and a reboot of Supermarket Sweep, hosted by one Leslie Jones. All three of these were ordered before COVID-19 swept through this country ruining everything.

Also worth noting on the schedule is that ABC is still hoping to start filming The Bachelorette soon enough to be able to air it in the fall. It will be moved to Tuesdays, so as to keep Dancing With the Stars on Mondays. Which brings me to my next question: HOW THE HELL ARE THEY GOING TO FILM DANCING WITH THE STARS? HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK? “Carefully” apparently.

But the bottom line is both schedules are, unlike The CW and Fox’s schedules, relying heavily on productions starting back up, and starting soon, as most shows begin filming in July for episodes to air in September. You’ll notice, of course, that there are no premiere dates listed, so they might be able to buy themselves a little time by pushing the fall schedule back to October, but they can’t push it off indefinitely. What this says to me is that the networks are planning for TV production will be firing back up again by this time next month. WE. WILL. SEE.

Remember how I was asking how The Bold and the Beautiful and other soaps were going to film love scenes? Um … SEX DOLLS.

“We have some life-like blow up dolls that have been sitting around here for the past 15 years, that we’ve used for various other stories — like when people were presumed dead,” the show’s head writer and executive producer Bradley Bell told Forbes. “We’re dusting off the dolls and putting new wigs and make-up on them and they’ll be featured in love scenes.”

They’re also going to use the actors’ real-life partners as body doubles, which is interesting, if potentially problematic for any number of reasons, least of which is if an actor in real life might be homosexual, but playing a heterosexual character.

Harvest of the Heart, a TV movie filmed in Oklahoma, is maybe the first live-action production to be filmed during coronavirus. They implemented safety protocols that might be commonplace very soon, and filming wrapped this week. It seemed to work out OK, but it’s also a small, self-financed production that struggled to find insurance coverage. The producers admit if it were a larger project that hadn’t filmed in a rural location, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Can’t Cancel Pride: A COVID-19 Relief Benefit for the LGBTQ+ Community will stream on June 25, and raise money for raise funds for LGTBQ+ communities impacted by COVID-19.

The U.S. Open will be played without fans.

The UEFA will return as a mini knockout tournament in August.

Jan “Jack” Turnbull, a Los Angeles acting coach, has died from COVID-19.

The Indie Spirit Awards has also moved to April 24, following the lead of the Oscars.

The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest will be held without an audience because they care about people’s health.

Our government is incompetent and dangerous, but what else is new?

But hey, at least Nancy Pelosi is going to make asshole Republican Congressmen wear GODDAMN MASKS ALREADY, because some damn fools can’t act right.

The LGTBQ drama Noah’s Arc is going to have a virtual 15-year reunion on July 5 on Patrik-Ian Polk Entertainment’s Facebook and YouTube pages. It will raise money for a number of Black LGBTQ non-profit organizations.

ABC is going to air Juneteenth: A Celebration of Overcoming on Friday with reporting from Galveston and Tulsa.

Netflix pulled a Mr. Show with Bob and David episode which featured a sketch that used blackface, but the situation is nuanced. According to Variety:

In the sketch, Cross plays a man named Gilvin Daughtry, who says he is part of an organization called “Citizens Against Unlawful Abuse.”

“I’m going to show you how to maintain your rights in the face of police harassment,” Cross’ character says as he films himself pulling up to a police officer played by Keegan-Michael Key.

Later in the sketch, after a string of unsuccessful attempts to provoke Key’s officer, Daughtry returns in blackface and says, “Hello, brother. How can I be of service to you today?” A message saying “every race in America has equal rights” appears at the bottom of the screen. Key’s officer then brings over a white colleague to deal with the situation, and the white cop proceeds to pepper spray Cross’ character in the face. The officer tases Daughtry and sprays him in the face a second time before the sketch ends.

So … the sketch uses blackface to demonstrate how the police harass Black people over absolutely nothing while tolerating bad behavior from white people. I’m not defending the choice to use blackface, but maybe we should consider context? The bottom line here is that racism is a tricky issue to navigate and sometimes comedy uses offensive content to make a difficult point, which is what I think happened here.

Black and Brown producers wrote an open letter to Hollywood with concrete actions the industry can take to diversify and live up to their promises to change. It’s pretty great.

Alex Kompothecras has been fired from the MTV reality series Siesta Keys for making racist social media posts.

Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin have donated $120 million to historically Black colleges and the United Negro College Fund.

The Chi with Love, a virtual concert to raise money for the Equal Justice Initiative, will stream on June 21. Showtime has donated $500,000 to the organization in the name of The Chi.

There is a lot of hand-wringing going on about cop shows right now, and what kind of stories they should be telling. It will be interesting to see how this moment translates in the fall.

A large part of the problem, according to “Watchmen” writer Cord Jefferson, is that many cop shows fail to acknowledge or deal with the history of the police force in America and the context in which it exists to this day. The recent HBO series, which touched on the 1921 Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., aimed to put things in perspective.

“We wanted to get at the fact that the police force, historically, has had a lot of white supremacists among its ranks,” Jefferson says. “We didn’t want to shy away from the fact that in many places in America, members of the police were also members of the Klan. There are absolutely many parts of America where that is still a problem today.”

And by the way, if you think Watchmen is pro-cop, you’re either very dumb or you were watching something that is definitely not Watchmen.

Looks like Lady A and what was formerly Lady Antebellum have kissed and made up. No word on what they’ll be calling themselves now.

Aunt Jemimah is joining the 21st century.

Good on Google for pulling its ad platform on sites that allow racist content and comments. Hit those assholes where it hurts.

Dear Cops: THIS REALLY AIN’T IT:

All Other TV

Oh, HBO, now was not a good time to cover up a Kobe Bryant mural, friends.

The CBS All Access rebrand won’t happen until next year.

The poor dears over at The Baker and the Beauty think someone else might buy their little show. I mean, anything’s possible, I guess.

A perfect tweet:

#MeToo:

Chris D’Elia, who played a pedophile in You, is a pedophile in real life. ~ALLEGEDLY~ Here’s how his fellow comedians are responding.

Spike Lee is super sorry for defending Woody Allen.

Chuck MacLean, the co-creator of City on a Hill, has been demoted after making “inappropriate remarks.” Or something.

Texas-based independent film producer Adam Donaghey has been accused of a pattern of terrible behavior and compared to Harvey Weinstein (which seems a bit much for a Dallas filmmaker no one has heard of but OK).

Renewals

  • The Voice was renewed for season 19.
  • Creepshow has not been renewed at AMC and Shudder officially, but three new scripts have been ordered, so it’s very likely a renewal is coming.

In Development

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

  • Warrior Nun will debut on Netflix on July 2 and it LOOKS FUN. Think Buffy, but an atheist nun.
  • Palm Springs will premiere on Hulu on July 10. Think Groundhog Day, but Andie McDowell is going through it, too.

WATCH THIS

Love, Victor: In this series sequel to Love, Simon, Victor is a new student at Creekwood High School who reaches out to Simon for help in navigating high school. Series premiere. Hulu

Mr. Iglesias: Season two. Netflix

Toy Story 3: Listen, it is perfectly understandable if you need a good cry right now. I advise you to watch this and let go. 7 p.m., ABC

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Sean Penn, Robin DiAngelo, Weezer
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Hank Azaria
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Sen. Kamala Harris, Milky Chance & Jack Johnson
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Doja Cat
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Sarah Paulson
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Watch What Happens Live: Sen. Cory Booker, Rachel Lindsay

 

WEDS. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC Toy Story 3 Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(new)
CBS Game On!
(new)		 SEAL Team
(repeat)		 S.W.A.T.
(repeat)
CW The 100
(new)		 Bulletproof
(new)		 Local
FOX MasterChef
(repeat)		 Ultimate Tag
(new)		 News/Local
NBC Chicago Med
(repeat)		 Chicago Fire
(repeat)		 Chicago P.D.
(repeat)

One thought on “The TeeVee Gods are doing their very best to salvage the nuclear meltdown that has been 2020 with a ’30 Rock’ reunion”

  1. We finally started watching Space Force. I love the digs at all of the current political players.

    Reply

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