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'Nine-Nine' lives: NBC renews Andy Samberg-led cop comedy

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Author: 
Michelle Rose / TV Media
Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero star in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine"

Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero star in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine"

'Nine-Nine' lives: It's the show that won't die, and thank goodness! Because "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" is a comedic gem that's beloved by fans and evidently by its network, too.

Its seventh season has yet to air -- it will premiere Feb. 6, 2020 -- but NBC has gone ahead and renewed the cop comedy for an eighth season. So we'll be seeing a lot more of Detective Jack Peralta (Andy Samberg, "Saturday Night Live"), Officer Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero, "One Life to Live"), Capt. Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher, "The Gambler," 2014) and the whole Nine-Nine crew.

This is a big deal when you consider that Fox had canceled the show last year. The network didn't own the series and was paying a license fee of around $1.9 million per episode, and it proved to be too much for a low-rated series. But just 32 hours later, the series' creators and stars took to Twitter to announce that NBC had swooped in to resurrect the series, which is produced and distributed by sister studio Universal TV. And fans were treated to a sixth season earlier this year.

This comeback kid might not be the top performer, according to live-plus-same-day broadcast ratings, but those metrics seem archaic in this age of streaming and delayed viewing (that's why ABC recently joined Fox in switching to live-plus-three-to-seven-day viewership numbers instead).

But NBC/Hulu has a huge digital hit on its hands with "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." When you look at ratings on all platforms over a 35-day period, the series' three-plus million viewership jumps up to about 7.4 million per episode. It's a social media darling, too, with Nielsen recording a total of nine million interactions on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram last season.

So while it might not be a TV hit in the traditional sense, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" is a big hit nonetheless. And, happily, the award-winning series isn't going away anytime soon.

 

To 'Valhalla': Good news and bad news for fans of History's flagship series, "Vikings": a sequel will continue the story after the series wraps in 2020, but it will be a Netflix exclusive.

"Vikings: Valhalla" will jump ahead some 100 years after the "Vikings" series finale to focus on some of the most famous Norse explorers in history, and a famous descendent, too. It's being billed as a dramatization of the adventures of Leif Erikson, the first known European to set foot on the North American continent; of Freydís Eiríksdóttir, who, as the name implies, was Erik the Red's daughter; of Harald Harada, King of Norway, who lay claim to the Danish throne then attempted an invasion of England in 1066; and of William the Conqueror, himself a Viking descendent, who became the first Norman King of England. Clearly, it's the Viking Age at its zenith -- and its end.

Speaking of end, "Vikings" will have run for a total of 89 episodes by the time it wraps in 2020. News of its final season broke in January and it wasn't a complete shock, given the finite nature of any series based on actual historical events and figures -- like former lead character Ragnar Lothbrook (Travis Fimmel, "Dreamland," 2019), whose death in the Icelandic Sagas meant an early end in the televised saga, too.

Behind the scenes, creator Michael Hirst (he also created "The Tudors") had been in talks the whole time to keep the "Vikings" story going. And the switch to Netflix isn't a reflection of the cable channel's interest in a budding franchise; in fact, History was in the running as the home of "Vikings: Valhalla" until three streamers with deep pockets joined the fray.

Ultimately, Netflix landed the sequel by making a big (and pricey) commitment with an order of 24 episodes. "Vikings: Valhalla" should also have a similar look and feel as the original series since most of the "Vikings" team will be involved with this project, which will also film in Ireland.

 

Holly Hunter on NBC: Her memorable performance as conniving Rhea Jerrell on "Succession" is still fresh in the minds of many (including yours truly), but look for Holly Hunter to flex her comedy muscles in an upcoming project.

The award-winning actress -- she won an Oscar for 1994's "The Piano" -- is set to star opposite Ted Danson ("The Good Place") in a yet-untitled (but informally dubbed "The Mayor") NBC comedy from "30 Rock" creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock.

Danson will play the lead character, a wealthy businessman who runs for mayor of Los Angeles on a dubious platform then unexpectedly wins. As for Hunter, she'll play a do-gooder councilwoman who "makes no secret of her disdain for the newly elected Mayor Bremer, whom she considers unqualified, sexist, and too tall to be trusted." (Fun fact: At six-foot-two, Danson is a full foot taller than his newest co-star, who measures five-foot-two).

"Saturday Night Live" veteran Bobby Moynihan has also signed on to play Jayden, the newly elected mayor's interim director of communications.

This series is still a work in progress, and in a best-case scenario you might see it in NBC's 2020-21 lineup. In the meantime, Hunter's next role will be that of acting attorney general Sally Yates in the CBS Studios limited-event series, "A Higher Loyalty," which is based on former FBI director James Comey's bestselling book. In addition to Hunter and lead actor Jeff Daniels ("The Newsroom") as Comey, the series has been seemingly adding big names to its cast each week, with the latest being Peter Coyote ("Patch Adams," 1998) as Robert Mueller.