The network on Monday night handed out a third-season to bubble drama Manifest as it also canceled three rookie series: Bluff City Law and comedies Sunnyside and Indebted.
Manifest, a co-production between Warner Bros. TV and Universal TV and from creator Jeff Rake, averaged a 1.5 rating among the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demo and 7.7 million total viewers with seven days of delayed viewing. The sophomore plane crash drama starring Melissa Roxburgh and Josh Dallas also improved NBC’s Monday at 10 p.m. slot 88 percent in the demo vs. a year ago.
Meanwhile, rookie drama Bluff City Law, starring Jimmy Smits, ended after its 10-episode order despite an order for additional scripts ahead of its premiere. The Universal TV drama was created by Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar. Georgaris now carries the misfortune of having not one but two shows canceled in the same day as ABC’s ax fell on rookie drama The Baker and the Beauty earlier Monday.
Single-camera comedy Sunnyside, starring Kal Penn and from exec producer Mike Schur (The Good Place), had the distinction of being the lowest-rated first-year show of the 2019-20 season and was quickly pulled from its linear home as NBC upped its initial order from 10 to 11 episodes. The series finished its run on Hulu and NBC’s digital platforms. Despite being pulled from its linear slot, sources maintained that the show’s future would be evaluated based on its digital performance. (NBC also canceled comedy A.P. Bio before its streaming counterpart, Peacock, renewed the series based on the show’s digital performance.)
Indebted, meanwhile, was NBC’s lone multicamera comedy order last season. The Sony TV-produced family comedy series starred Adam Pally, Abby Elliott and Fran Drescher was dead on arrival when it launched in February. It’s April finale drew a scant 1.5 million live-same-day viewers. The comedy was created by Dan Levy (The Goldbergs).
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollwood Reporter