Small Screen: Comedy ‘Black Magic’ from Party Over Here In Development At CBS, Apple TV+, Nicholas Gonzalez in ‘La Brea’
Nicholas Gonzalez - Handout / Handout
Broadcast: A new single-camera comedy from Party Over Here is in development at CBS. The project entitled Black Magic, will be produced by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone with Schaeffer, Taccone, and Ali Bell attached as executive producers. Meredith Dawson is attached as scribe for the series and will also executive produce. Unfortunately, Black Magic was a late buy in this pilot season. As a result, it will be considered for the off-cycle of the 2022 development season. The synopsis is: “the power dynamic in a family of overachievers is upended when the youngest member discovers a new talent. The thing that will challenge them and also bring them together is her Black Girl Magic.”
NBC is releasing a new straight-to-series order, science fiction, drama called La Brea. The show will star Eion Macken, Natalie Zea, Jon Seda, and Nicholas Gonzalez, formerly known by audiences as Dr. Neil Melendez on ABC’s The Good Doctor. Other members attached are Rohan Mirchandaney, Veronica St. Claire, Chiké Okonkwo, Jack Martin, Zyra Gorecki, and Lily Santiago. Penned by David Appelbaum, the plot follows a family divided by a mysteriously massive sinkhole that plagues Los Angeles. Father and daughter, Macken and Gorecki, and Mother and son, Zea and Martin find themselves in an unorthodox primeval world accompanied by a ragtag team of strangers. They must work together in order to survive, discover the truth of where they are and hopefully find a way home.
PBS has announced a new series with writer, activist, and comedian Baratunde Thurston. Entitled America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, the six-part mini-series will document the adventures he experiences as he journeys through the vast regions of the United States. He will do a deep dive into each stop, in order to convey how those landscapes truly impacted the way American’s utilize the outdoors. America Outdoors will debut in Spring of 2022 and will begin production in the next month. Thurston remarked in an interview: "After a full year in which so many of us have been held hostage by Zoom, I can't wait to be reminded of the many ways we can connect beyond the screen, with each other and with the environment." He goes on to say: "The Indigenous communities who have been here longest have long understood that there's no real separation between us and the natural environment. I'm eager to explore that connection among the wide range of peoples who have tried to maintain that connection all over the country in different ways."
Y'lan Noel - Jim Spellman / Stringer
Cable: FX’s 1980’s drug drama Snowfall, has just been renewed by the network for the fifth season. The series has gained 41% of total viewership from its last season to bring it to 5.1 million total viewers per episode. Eric Schrier, president of FX Entertainment, said: “Snowfall has come into its own as one of the best dramas on TV, its quality and audience growth is a remarkable achievement for a show in its fourth season. Damson Idris and our entire cast continue to deliver outstanding performances every episode.” Created by John Singleton, Eric Amadio, and Dave Andron, the fifth season is set during 1985 and follows a crew of dealers led by Franklin Saint, played by Idris, who is benefiting greatly from the rising tide of addiction. However, they are starting to become aware of the damage drugs cause to the people and places they love.
Y'lan Noel, of Insecure fame, has been cast in the lead role by FX for their upcoming drama pilot The Spook Who Sat By The Door. Leigh Dana Jackson is the writer/showrunner alongside the creator, Lee Daniels. Gerard MacMurray is attached as director. The pilot is based on a 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee. It follows Dan Freeman, Noel’s character, the first Black officer in the CIA. Based in part on Greenlee's own experience at the United States Information Agency, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is set in the 1960s and follows Freeman's experience in becoming the first Black operative at the CIA. Recruited as part of an affirmative action program, Freeman goes through training in high-level combat and espionage — only to be given a job in the agency's "reprographics" (photocopying) department and "left by the door" in order to show that there was a Black employee to visitors.
The Chi and Black Monday have their premiere dates set for May 23 according to Showtime. The Chi will debut its fourth season at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The network has also announced a new 30-minute comedy titled Flatbush Misdemeanors. Black Monday’s third season will start at 10 p.m., with Flatbush Misdemeanors premiering at 10:30 p.m.
Created and executive produced by Emmy winner Lena Waithe—with Common (Selma) also on board as an EP—The Chi is a coming-of-age drama, centered on a group of residents on Chicago’s South Side who bond deeply, after connecting by coincidence. Season 4’s cast will feature Jacob Latimore (Like a Boss), Alex Hibbert (Moonlight), Yolonda Ross (Treme), Shamon Brown Jr., Michael V. Epps, and Birgundi Baker. Stars Luke James and Curtiss Cook have been upped to series regulars while returning guest stars include Kandi Burruss, La La Anthony, Tabitha Brown, and Jason Weaver.
Created by David Caspe and Jordan Cahan, Black Monday is a co-production between Showtime and Sony Pictures Television, following a set of Wall Street outsiders whose actions lead to the worst stock market crash in history. Earning star Don Cheadle two Emmy nominations and one Golden Globe nom, the comedy returning for a new set of 10 episodes also stars Andrew Rannells, Regina Hall, and Paul Scheer. Rannells and Hall serve as producers, while Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg executive produce.
Created, executive produced, written by, and starring Kevin Iso and Dan Perlman, Flatbush Misdemeanors is based on a series of award-winning shorts, also created by Iso and Perlman. The pair star in the comedy as Kevin and Dan, long-time friends who look to thrive and make new connections in their new neighborhood of Flatbush, Brooklyn. A co-production between Showtime and Avalon (Breeders, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), the series’ other EPs include director Justin Tipping and showrunner Nastaran Dibai, along with Avalon’s Richard Allen-Turner, Jon Thoday, David Martin, and Chloe Pisello.
Antoine Fuqua and Martin Scorcese will executive produce a second biographical television series about Mike Tyson. This series will star Jamie Fox as the boxer. Foxx, who has previously won an Oscar for portraying Ray Charles in the 2004 biopic Ray, will be the lead and also act as executive producer in Tyson. This will be a limited series written by Collin Preston who wrote the pilot. Tyson was first made as a feature film back in 2014 with Foxx attached to play the titular role and Terence Winter as the screenwriter. However, that changed due to scheduling conflicts and it is now set to be the limited series.
Seohyun - Han Myung-Gu
Streaming: Director Fede Alvarez, of Don’t Breathe, in partnership with Apple Tv+, has created an adaptation of Timothée Hochet’s French-language series Calls. A nine-part anthology is a group of collected, yet imagined phone calls, each dealing with some sort of struggle with the unexplained. These calls are represented in audio form, with onscreen transcripts of each side of the conversation. Those words, in turn, are set against an abstract visualizer-like background that develops with the changes in the call. Aesthetically, this show will aim to cover topics in an original way that has not yet been utilized in television. Credit should be given to the team behind the sound design because they have created something intriguing and immersive without being distracting. Though an anthology series, each episode will be connected in some ways. For example, the stylistic element of including the day and dateline in the top corner of each episode at the beginning.
Netflix has announced a new mini-series titled Moral Sense (subject to change). Seohyun from Private Lives has been cast to play Jung Ji-Woo. The character of Woo appears on the surface to be emotionless and apathetic but when you peel back the onion you realize how much she truly cares for people. U-KISS’s Jun from Please Don’t Date Him has also been cast as Jung Ji-Hoo - a popular man at work who has an unorthodox hobby that keeps him hidden from others.
