X

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

Continue with Facebook Continue with email

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

NBC Picks Up Four Comedies, Renews Chuck for Fifth and Final Season

NBC has ordered four more comedies, including projects from Chelsea Handler, Hank Azaria and Amanda Peet. In addition, the network has picked up Chuck for a fifth and final season, and has canceled The Event, Law & Order: Los Angeles and Outsourced.Fall 2011 TV Scorecard: Which shows are returning? Which aren't?Based on Handler's best-selling book, Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (which TVGuide.com had spotlighted as one of its 11 Promising Pilots) centers on an outspoken, sexually aggressive young woman (Laura Prepon) who works in a bar, where she drinks away its profits, avoids her eccentric father (Lenny Clarke) and goes ...

joyce-eng.jpg
Joyce Eng

NBC has ordered four more comedies, including projects from Chelsea Handler, Hank Azaria and Amanda Peet. In addition, the network has picked up Chuck for a fifth and final season, and has canceled The Event, Law & Order: Los Angeles and Outsourced.

Fall 2011 TV Scorecard: Which shows are returning? Which aren't?

Based on Handler's best-selling book,Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (which TVGuide.com had spotlighted as one of its 11 Promising Pilots) centers on an outspoken, sexually aggressive young woman (Laura Prepon) who works in a bar, where she drinks away its profits, avoids her eccentric father (Lenny Clarke) and goes home with the clientele. Handler will executive-produce.
NBC orders Playboy, Grimm and Awake
Free Agents stars Azaria as a recent divorcé who finds love at a talent agency with Kathryn Hahn's character, who just lost her fiancé. John Enbom, Todd Holland, Karey Burke and Kenton Allen will executive-produce. Anthony Head, Natasha Leggero, Al Madrigal, Joe Lo Truglio and Mo Mandel will also star.Peet will headline Bent, a single-camera project from Scrubsproducer Tad Quill about a recently divorced single mom (Peet) who's fighting her attraction to her hunky contractor (David Walton). Joey King, Margo Harshman, Susan Park, Rick Gonzalez, Pasha Lychnikoff and Jeffrey Tambor will also star.The network also picked up BFFs (fka the Untitled Parham-St. Clair Project), from actresses Lennon Parham (Accidentally on Purpose) and Jessica St. Clair (Worst Week), about a woman and her live-in boyfriend, who take in her best friend after a divorce.

NBC picks up Prime Suspect, Christina Applegate and Debra Messing pilots

That order brings the total of NBC's pick-ups to 11: six comedies and five dramas. The network has already ordered Up All Night, starring Christina Applegate and written by Parks & Recreationwriter Emily Spivey, as well as a comedy from Whitney Cummings.  On the drama side, the network invested in Steven Spielberg's Smash; Prime Suspect, starring Maria Bello;The Playboy Club; Grimmand Awake.Pilots that did not make the cut include the buzzed-about Wonder Woman, which NBC passed on Thursday. Also in the rejects pile: the dramas A Mann's World, Reconstruction and 17th Precinct; and comedies Lovelives, Brave New World, My Life as an Experiment and the Untitled Kari Lizer Project. Meanwhile, as expected, Chuck will be back for a 13-episode fifth and final season. It joins Parenthood and Harry's Law as returning dramas.Freshmen series The Event, Law & Order: Los Angeles and Outsourced, however, have been canceled.LOLA showrunner Rene Balcer released a video shortly afterward, urging fans to call NBC to renew the series, as the season ends with a cliff-hanger.

Watch Balcer's video below: