ABC on Thursday solidified its 2020-21 season schedule with renewals for the bulk of its scripted and unscripted lineup while also cutting three comedies and a rookie drama.
Returning for additional seasons are the comedies American Housewife (season five), Black-ish (season seven), Mixed-ish (season two), The Conners (season three) and The Goldbergs (season eight), plus the dramas A Million Little Things (season three), The Rookie (season three) and freshman Stumptown. The sophomore comedies Bless This Mess, Single Parents and The Goldbergs spinoff Schooled, as well as the first-year drama Emergence, have all been canceled.
Remaining on the bubble are the rookies The Baker and the Beauty and For Life, both of which recently launched, and United We Fall, which is awaiting a premiere date.
Additionally, the network confirmed its series order for David E. Kelley’s The Big Sky, the PI drama starring Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick which had a series penalty attached. Joining the 20th TV and A+E Studios project on the Karey Burke-led network’s slate is Kari Lizer’s multicamera comedy Call Your Mother (formerly My Village), which stars Kyra Sedgwick as an empty-nester mom. The remainder of ABC’s drama and comedy pilots remain in contention. It’s unclear if ABC could pick up additional pilots to series for the 2020-21 season considering the current landscape. It’s fair to expect many of this year’s pilots to be rolled to next season as the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the status quo for broadcast networks. As things currently sit for ABC, the network’s scripted volume is at about half of what it had on its schedule for the 2019-20 season. Big Sky and Call Your Mother were unable to shoot pilots before the industry-wide production shutdown and both technically were picked up straight to series based on the strength of additional script orders the network handed out in the past couple months.
On the unscripted side, The Bachelor (season 25), Dancing With the Stars (season 29), Shark Tank (season 12), the updated Who Wants to be a Millionaire (season two) and the newsmagazine 20/20 (season 43) will all return. ABC’s update on Kids Say the Darndest Things has been canceled.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter
ABC Renews 8 Scripted Series, Cancels 4 Others
