“We’re thrilled to be making more Hollywood Game Night,” said Paul Telegdy, President of Alternative and Late Night Programming, NBC Entertainment. “Jane is an amazing host and ringmaster. Let the games begin!”

Hosted by Emmy winner Jane Lynch (Glee), Hollywood Game Night pits two teams comprised of two celebrities and one contestant against one another in a series of games, with the maximum prize being $25,000 for contestants and $10,000 for the charities the celebrities are playing for. Last season, the series averaged a 1.5 in the 18-49 demo and five million total viewers while airing on Mondays in place of The Voice and Thursdays in place of low-rated comedies.

There’s no word yet on when Hollywood Game Night will premiere, but considering how flexible it’s been for NBC and how cost effective an option it is for them, it could conceivably air anywhere on the schedule NBC believes needs a little help. Right now, that could be Mondays in between cycles of The Voice; Wednesdays at 8:00, should The Mysteries of Laura begin dropping; Thursdays at 8:00 once The Biggest Loser finishes its season; and post-football Sundays, where NBC has struggled for years.

Will you be watching the third season of Hollywood Game Night? Which celebrities do you hope to see during the upcoming season? Should the show add any news games to its repertoire for season three?

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The Sing-Off pits a cappella singing groups against one another in a variety of themed episodes, with last season including nights of party anthems, number-one hits, and movie soundtracks. The most prominent winner from the competition is arguably Pentatonix, a Texas-based group that will release its second studio album later this year. To date, Pentatonix has four top-2o EPs and a top-20 hit with their cover of “Little Drummer Boy”, which you can listen to below.

Casting for the fifth season of The Sing-Off is currently underway. The series joins the live production of Peter Pan! on NBC’s winter schedule, with other event programming to be announced in the coming months.

Will you be watching The Sing-Off this year? Do you like the show as a holiday event or would you prefer it as a regular series? Should the show shake up its judging panel for its upcoming fifth season?

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Created by Chad Kultgen (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone), Bad Judge follows Rebecca Wright (Kate Walsh), a judge serving on the Los Angeles Circuit Court. While she’s not in the courtroom dispensing justice, Wright leads a wild lifestyle of partying and recklessness – that is, until she encounters a little boy whose parents she put behind bars. In addition to Walsh, the series stars Ryan Hansen (Party Down), John Ducey (Jonas), Tone Bell (Whitney), and Miguel Sandoval (Medium).

In addition to her work on the former NBC comedy, Thomas has produced the likes of My Boys and Guys with Kids.

Bad Judge is slated to premiere Thursday, October 2nd at 9:00 on NBC. You can check out the trailer for the series below.

Will you be watching Bad Judge? Do you think the showrunner change is a positive sign, signifying a better understanding of its creative focus, or a negative sign, signifying uncertainty about what the show is, for Bad Judge? With The Blacklist set to assume the Thursdays at 9:00 mantle come February, how long do you think Bad Judge has to prove itself?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF3vxmJsDIk

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The finale will also see Jennifer Hudson sing alongside child vocalist Quintavious Johnson; Lenny Kravitz share the stage with Miguel Dakota; and Train perform with Sons of Serendip. Mat Franco, meanwhile, will have a special celebrity guest appear to help him with an illusion.

The winner of America’s Got Talent, which will be returning next summer, will America’s Got Talent Live at The AXIS Powered by Monster at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The season finale of America’s Got Talent is set to premiere Wednesday, September 17th at 8:00 on NBC. The Mysteries of Laura will have a sneak preview air at 10:00 before moving into the 8:00 slot the following week.

Who do you think will win this season of America’s Got Talent? Who would you like to see appear for a special illusion with Mat Franco? Are there any changes that you’d like to see implemented to America’s Got Talent for its upcoming tenth season?

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Interestingly enough, NBC recently gave a series order to fellow anthology drama Manhunt, though that series, from writers Whit Brayton and Zack Rice, will have a season-long arc rather than stand-alone episodes. Anthological dramas have become quite prevalent over the last couple of years, with American Horror Story, True Detective, and Fargo all reaping the critical and commercial benefits of luring big-name talent to the small screen and getting to tell more complex stories given the anthology structure. However, anthologies haven’t been hot on broadcast in quite some time and even a network with as much momentum as NBC has might not be able to turn it around at this point.

Should this anthology get a series order, it’ll be the third new drama of 2015 for NBC following Manhunt and Jennifer Lopez cop drama Shades of Blue.

Would you be interested in broadcast attempting a horror anthology series? How would airing on a broadcast network impact the show’s content? Will we ever see an anthology series succeed on broadcast television again?

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Hudson, Train, and Kravitz will be releasing their third, seventh, and tenth studio albums later this month, respectively, while Pitbull’s album is set for release this fall and Sheeran’s second album came out earlier this year. Hudson will be performing “It’s Your World,” the third single from her upcoming album; Kravitz will be performing his album’s first single “The Chamber”; Sheeran will be performing top-30 hit “Don’t,” the second single from his latest album; and Pitbull will be performing “Fireball,” the latest release from upcoming album Globalization, in a performance that features the Rockettes and Train.

Remaining in the competition are acrobat troupe AcroArmy; singer Emily West; close-up magician Mat Franco; singer/guitarist Miguel Dakota; seven-year-old singer Quintavious Johnson; and band Sons of Serendip.

The season finale of America’s Got Talent airs Wednesday, September 17th at 8:00, with a special preview of The Mysteries of Laura to air at 10:00. The latter moves into its regular 8:00 time slot the following week.

Will you be watching the America’s Got Talent finale? Which of the contestants do you think stands the best shot at taking home the victory? Whose finale performance are you most looking forward to?

The post Ed Sheeran, Pitbull to Perform on America’s Got Talent Finale appeared first on TVHackr.

To be written by Whit Brayton and Zack Rice, Manhunt will be directed by Tsotsi helmer Gavin Hood, with each season centering on an entire city dealing with the hunt for an escaped fugitive. Among the executive producers for the project are Michael Sugar (The Knick) and Nicole Romano (The Keeping Room).

Anthology dramas have had much success recently, albeit on cable; the likes of American Horror Story, True Detective, and Fargo have garnered critical praise, solid ratings, and notice from awards bodies, as each series won at least one Emmy this past August. However, the format has yet to break through on broadcast, meaning that Manhunt, should it make it to series, could be a litmus test to see just how conducive broadcast television is to the format.

Straight to series orders have become quite in vogue with the broadcast networks, thanks to their ability to negate pilot season worries about casting and the time crunch of script production once a show gets picked up. However, there have already been two cancellations this season – Hieroglyph and Emerald City, both of whom were ordered straight to series. Time will only tell whether Manhunt can do its part to halt this disappointing trend; if it doesn’t completely make it to series, it might cause the broadcast networks to reevaluate the abundance of straight to series orders and whether they’re really doing any god in the grander scheme of things.

Assuming the project passes the script and cast requirements set by NBC, will you be watching Manhunt? Are you surprised that broadcast has yet to embrace anthological dramas in the same way that cable has? Do you think this is a project that can work well within the anthology framework?

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Created by Matthew Arnold (Siberia), Emerald City was said to be a dark reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, with a headstrong 20-year-old Dorothy Gale at the center of a bloody battle for control of Oz. It’s the second straight-to-series project to be abandoned this season following the cancellation of Egyptian drama Hieroglyph, while it’s the latest NBC series to find itself cancelled before airing a single episode. Most recently, NBC pulled the plug on Dane Cook comedy Next Caller, about polar opposite satellite radio jockeys forced to co-anchor the same show, with four of its six planned episodes having been produced.

One could argue that in the broadcast networks’ rush to distance themselves from pilot season, they’ve created PR headaches for themselves in ordering sweeping event series only to cancel them a short time later. Had NBC and FOX simply kept projects like Hieroglyph and Emerald City in development and worked through script issues as opposed to producing promotional material and touting them during upfronts, they could have avoided having the first two cancellations of the season – before the season even began.

Are you disappointed that NBC pulled the plug on Emerald City? Do you think the show could have found an audience on broadcast television? Who could have been a good choice for Dorothy, had the project made it to casting?

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The first sitcom collaboration between a U.S. and Canadian broadcaster, Working the Engels is the second cancellation of NBC’s very strong summer, which has seen renewals for freshmen series The Night Shift, Undateable, and Welcome to Sweden. Though that type of momentum can only help NBC going into the fall, the network still has to make a decision on drama Taxi Brooklyn and if that, too, gets cancelled, it’ll be interesting to see how the network’s fall ratings look. Could a stumble at the end of the summer possibly cause NBC to be slow out of the gate come fall?

Created by Jamie and Katie Ford (Miss Congeniality), Working the Engels told the story of Jenna Engel (Kacey Rohl), who returns home after learning of her father’s passing and who begins working at his law firm in order to support the rest of her family. The series, which has also been pulled and cancelled in Canada, also starred Andrea Martin (SCTV), Azure Skye (Red Dragon), and Benjamin Arthur (Less Than Kind).

Will you miss Working the Engels? Do you think the show’s (relative) failure will hurt NBC’s momentum heading into the fall? What type of comedy should NBC pursue for the summer of 2015?

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Created by and starring comedian Greg Poehler, Welcome to Sweden tells the story of Bruce, a New York accountant who moves to Sweden to be with his girlfriend Emma (Josephine Bornebusch) and experiences a culture shock when he encounters her wild family and maneuvers his way through their community. It’s the third scripted renewal that NBC has made this season, though The Night Shift and Undateable were specifically developed for NBC and thought to be primed for in-season debuts before their delay into the summer. That type of momentum could very well extend into the fall and keep NBC at number one for a second consecutive season, as the other broadcast networks have had varyingly rough summers and thus don’t have the type of promotional muscle that NBC will have for its new series.

In addition to Poehler and Bornebusch, Welcome to Sweden stars Lena Olin (Alias) as Emma’s mother Viveka and Claes Mansson (Lorry) as Emma’s father Birger.

Welcome to Sweden airs Thursdays at 9:00 on NBC. Thus far, there’s no word about the fate of Welcome to Sweden lead-out Working the Engels, an imported Canadian sitcom about a widow stepping in to help run her late husband’s law firm.

Have you been watching Welcome to Sweden? Do you think that NBC will import other comedies to join Welcome to Sweden next summer? Will NBC’s summer momentum extend into the fall and keep them at number one for another season?

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