TV news roundup for Week 3 of 2019

Welcome to the weekly TV news round-up, where we go into the latest TV news regarding renewals, cancellations, and pick-ups. This week we have news involving your Netflix bill and trailers for Happy! and Game of Thrones.

Renewed

Netflix has renewed The Kominsky Method for a second season. The comedy about two elderly actors, starring Alan Arkin (Argo) and Michael Douglas (Ant-Man), recently won two Golden Globes, Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. No release date is currently known.

Netflix also renewed its other comedy series starring two elderly actors. Grace and Franky, about two divorced wives whose exes are no married, is getting a sixth season. The fifth season starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin has just been released.

Cancelled

Syfy has cancelled horror anthology series Channel Zero after four seasons. Each season a storyline of a popular creepypasta was adapted. The first was based on Kris Straub’s Candle Cove, the second on Brian Russell’s The No-End House, the third on Kerry Hammond’s Search and Rescue Woods, and the fourth on Charlotte Bywater’s Hidden Door.

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Mockumentary law comedy Trail & Error has been officially cancelled after two seasons. NBC already passed on a third season, but production studio Warner Bros. TV had been shopping the series around since. Now it has become clear that two seasons will be it for the series.

Picked up

CBS All Access is really becoming the Star Trek streaming service. In the US, at least. A Star Trek: Discovery Section 31 spin-off series starring Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) is officially in development, and surely to comes to CBS All Access. Yeoh character of Philippa Georgiou will start working for Starfleet’s black ops division in Star Trek: Discovery Season 2. Next to this series, a Jean-Luc Picard series starring a returning Patrick Stewart is expected for the second half of 2019. There will also be two more Star Trek: Short Treks animated episodes after Star Trek: Discovery concludes its second season. And in production is the animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks, which might very well be joined with another animated series, if Star Trek head honcho Alex Kurtzman is to be believed. It’s unknown if Netflix will carry all these new series internationally. They did not pick up Star Trek: Short Treks.

Netflix has announced Space Force, a workplace comedy based on the US government’s announced sixth major division of the United States Armed Forces, who have to defend satellites and other space stuff. The series is created by Greg Daniels and Steve Carell (The Office (US)), the latter of which will also star. No release date is known.

Other developments

Netflix has announced an increase in their monthly price. While currently only the United States has to pay more, the last price increase in 2017 also started there with the rest of the world soon following. In the US you monthly pay $9 from $8 for the Basic Plan, $13 from $11 for HD Standard, and $16 from $14 for the 4K Premium Plan. You will also get an e-mail from Netflix when changes like these are announced.

More news from the world of streaming services. NBCUniversal will start their own streaming service in the US in 2020. The service will be ad-supported and free for those who already have cable. An ad-free version of the service will also be available for an additional fee. It is to be expected that the service will have a library consisting of TV shows from NBC and its cable sister channels, like Syfy, USA, and Bravo. It’s also possible programmes from Sky will be viewable, as NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast recently has bought 60 per cent of its shares, besting 21st Century Fox offer.

Julia Roberts will not return for a second season of Amazon Prime Video’s Homecoming. Roberts was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as caseworker Heidi Bergman. She will stay on as executive producer, and showrunner Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot) has not ruled out any possible guest appearances. The psychological thriller series following a former caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center who finds out not all is as it may have seemed there, is based on a podcast of the same name.

According to Deadline, US premium cable channel Showtime’s Penny Dreadful: City of Angels has found its lead in Daniel Zovatto (It Follows, Don’t Breath). The spin-off from Penny Dreadful takes place in 1938’s Los Angeles and will take inspiration from Mexican folklore and the social tension of that time. Meanwhile, Titan Comics is continuing the original series in their Penny Dreadful comic series, of which can read more here.

According to Deadline, US streaming service CBS All Access has cast Peter Sarsgaard (The Looming Tower, Green Lantern) as the lead in true-crime drama Interrogation. Sarsgaard will play the detective on the case who will perform the interrogations, which are taken from the real police case files. CBS All Access is going to be experimental with this series, releasing nine episodes at once which can be watched independently and then releasing the final episode with the conclusion a number of weeks later.

Even more casting news from Deadline. US broadcaster ABC’s proposed NYPD Blue sequel series has cast its lead in the pilot episode. Fabien Frankel (the upcoming Last Christmas) will play Andy Sipowicz’s (Dennis Franz) son, who is going to find out who killed his father.

US broadcaster NBC has ordered a pilot episode for Lincoln. A TV series based on Jeffery Deaver’s series of Lincoln Rhyme crime novels, of which there are currently 14. The stories follow a quadriplegic forensic criminalist who still solves cases. The first novel of the series, The Bone Collector, was adapted into film with the same name in 1999. It starred Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme and Angelina Jolie, and you can watch the trailer below. If picked up the series will air in the 2019-2020 broadcast TV season in the US.

US cable channel USA has been working on a spin-off for their popular legal drama Suits. It is now known that it will be called Pearson, based on the name of Gina Torres’s character, former lawyer Jessica Pearson, who leads the spin-off. No premiere date for the series is currently known.

Trailers

Netflix has released a trailer for the second half of the fourth and final season of comedy series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The end of Kimmy’s adventures of life after living in a bunker can be seen on Friday, January 25.

It’s already out on Netflix, but we don’t want to keep you from this latest trailer for the second season of Marvel’s The Punisher.

US cable channel Syfy has released a trailer for Happy! Season 2 and has given us a premiere date for it! The Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Man of Steel) and Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille) starring adaption of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson’s comic of the same name returns on Wednesday, March 27.

HBO has released a first proper teaser trailer for the eight and final season of Game of Thrones. They also finally revealed that the final season will start on Sunday, April 14.

That’s it for this week, but join us next time when we round-up the TV news of that week.