The continuing saga of “One Day at a Time” has been good news, bad news, good news, bad news. Legendary sitcom producer Norman Lear shopped the reboot of his 1975-84 sitcom for years before Netflix bit (good news!) and started airing it in 2017.
Focusing on a Cuban American family this time, it started good and got better.
But (bad news!) Netflix canceled it after three seasons. And then (good news!) POP TV ordered a fourth season. But now (bad news!) POP has canceled it.
The decision appears to have more to do with the channel than with the show. POP is getting out of the scripted TV business. And that appears to be the result of POP’s parent company, CBS, re-merging with Viacom, and decisions made by the new ViacomCBS management.
POP ordered a 13-episode Season 4, but only six live-action episodes (and one animated episode) were completed before the pandemic hit. And there won’t be more, unless ...
Reportedly, Sony (which produces “One Day”) is once again looking for a new outlet for the show. So … fingers crossed.
Good news
The announcement that “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah will host the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards on Jan. 31 is really good news — he’s smart, quick on his feet and hilarious. If you’ve never seen him do standup, you’ve missed out.
BTW, this makes corporate sense. The Grammys will air on CBS (and stream on CBS All Access) and “The Daily Show” airs on Comedy Central — and they’re all part of the big, dysfunctional ViacomCBS family.
Bad news
When I first glanced at the announcement that CW Seed will stream a “90210” reunion, I was sort of interested. (Don’t mock me. I liked the early years of the 1990-2000 Fox series.) But this reunion is with the cast of the 2008-13 sequel that aired on The CW, and I barely remember any of the actors’ names.
(Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios) Steven Strait stars as James Holden in “The Expanse.”
Mostly good news
Amazon has announced that “The Expanse” will return for a sixth and final season. (Season 5 starts streaming on Dec. 16.) Which means we’ll get an end to the story, but not THE end of the story.
The series is based on a series of novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (writing under the pen name James S.A. Corey), who are also writers/producers on the show. And, while the series has diverged in significant ways from the novels, it’s basically followed them. Season 5 is based on the fifth book, “Nemesis Games,” so, presumably, Season 6 will be based on the sixth book, “Babylon’s Ashes.”
Which means we’ll never get to the seventh, eighth and (yet-to-be-published) ninth books. Although I have to admit I was wondering how they’d pull that off, given that there’s a 30-year time jump between the sixth and seventh books.
Ah, well, Syfy canceled “The Expanse” after Season 3, and Amazon is giving us Seasons 4-6. So … pretty good news.
Bad news — or maybe good news?
If you were looking forward to Joss Whedon returning to TV with a show that sounds sort of like his “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” this is bad news. He’s pulled out of HBO’s upcoming series “The Nevers,” which he was set to write, direct and executive produce.
The show, which HBO says will still premiere in the summer of 2021, will be an “epic science-fiction drama about a gang of Victorian women who find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies, and a mission that might change the world.”
HBO’s brief statement just says that it “parted ways” with Whedon. Whedon issued a statement that he withdrew because he is “genuinely exhausted” because “the physical challenges of making such a huge show during a global pandemic, is more than I can handle without the work beginning to suffer.”
Actor Ray Fisher claimed on Twitter that Whedon’s departure was “undoubtedly a result” of an investigation into his claims that Whedon was “abusive” and “unprofessional” on the set of the 2017 film “Justice League,” but neither HBO nor Whedon have commented.
(HBO is a corporate sibling of DC Films and Warner Bros. Pictures, which produced and distributed “Justice League.”)
If the allegations are true — and, at this point, we just don’t know — then maybe this is good news. Whatever the truth is, Whedon won’t be running “The Nevers.”
(Photo courtesy of Eric McCandless/ABC) Nev Schulman and Jenna Johnson perform on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Dumb news
Some viewers are absolutely irate that Kaitlyn Bristow (“The Bachelorette”) won the Mirrorball Trophy on “Dancing with the Stars” and not Nev Schulman (“Catfish”). Which is beyond dumb.
I understand there are viewers who really get caught up in the show. But how is it possible that after 29 seasons over the past 15½ years that anyone can still think that “DWTS” is a genuine competition? It’s a popularity contest, and weird voting blocs develop among viewers.
“So You Think You Can Dance” is more honest — its winner is “America’s favorite dancer,” not America’s best dancer.
I mean, I would’ve liked to see Nev win just because I like him and his show. He once introduced himself to me, explaining who he was — which was sort of humble and charming. He was skeptical when I told him I watch “Catfish,” but then I made a couple of specific comments about the episode that had just aired.
Well, it’s not like I’m in the demo that usually watches his MTV show.
So, yeah, I like Schulman’s show. I like him. But, no, I’m not incensed about his “Dancing with the Stars” loss.
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