NBC and Sony TV just announced series orders for Game of Silence and The Player (originally titled Endgame), and the renewal of The Night Shift. On top of that NBC is also giving The Mysteries of Laura a second season and Undateable an all-live third season.
Let’s start with The Night Shift. If you caught all of my set visit coverage, you probably know I’ve got a soft spot for the medical drama set during the San Antonio Memorial night shift. The series was created by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, and stars Eoin Macken, Jill Flint, Ken Leung, Freddy Rodriguez, Robert Bailey Jr., Jeananne Goossen and JR Lemon. Season 2 is currently underway and due to wrap up on May 18th. If you haven’t been watching and suspect you might enjoy a fun, spirited medical show with an effective balance of comedy and drama, I highly recommend catching up.
The Mysteries of Laura is officially the only NBC freshman series to score a second season. It stars Debra Messing as Laura Diamond, an NYPD homicide detective who also must take care of two kids and deal with her soon-to-be ex-husband who won’t sign the divorce papers. The Mysteries of Laura is currently in the tail end of its 22-episode first season, but according to Deadline’s sources, NBC only placed an order for 13 episodes this time around.
As for Undateable, no word on whether it’s getting a 13 or 22-episode third season, but one thing we do know is that every single one of them will be live. The comedy comes from Bill Lawrence and Adam Sztykiel and centers on a group of friends living in Detroit including Chris D’Elia’s Danny Burton and his roommate Justin Kearney played by Brent Morin. At the moment, the season 3 episodes will only be live for the East Coast, but according to Deadline, there is talk of possibly doing live episodes for West Coast viewers as well.
Now for the new pickups. First we’ve got The Player, an “action-packed Las Vegas thriller” about an ex-military operative who now works as a security expert and winds up becoming part of a game in which wealthy gamblers bet on his ability to stop crime. “Can he take them down from the inside and get revenge for the death of his wife, or is it true what they say: The house always wins.” The show stars Wesley Snipes, Philip Winchester, Charity Wakefield and Damon Gupton.
And then there’s Game of Silence, a drama from Carol Mendelsohn about an Atlanta attorney (David Lyons) whose “long-lost childhood friends unexpectedly reappear after 25 years. When a dark secret they thought they had buried resurfaces, the brotherhood bands together to right the wrongs of their shared past.” The show also stars Michael Raymond-James, Larenz Tate, Bre Blair, Conor O’Farrell, Deidrie Henry, Demetrius Grosse and Claire Van Der Boom.
