Nell Serrano, played by Rodriguez, is a broke and newly single disaster. Five years after leaving her life and career behind, Nell finds herself on a quest to restart both. The twist in her story comes when she lands a seemingly mundane job – writing obituaries. Little does she know that this job, which she initially considers a dead-end (pun intended), becomes the source of unexpected life advice from the most unlikely places. It is adapted by from the pages of “Confessions of a 40-something F**k Up” by Alexandra Potter

Rounding out the cast is including Hannah Simone as Sam, Lauren Ash as Lexi, Rick Glassman as Edward, Joshua Banday as Dennis, and Angela Gibbs as Cricket, adds layers of complexity and humor to the narrative. The chemistry among the cast members is palpable, contributing to the show’s undeniable appeal.

Casey Johnson and David Windsor, the creative minds steering the ship, not only serve as creators but also as executive producers. The series boasts an impressive lineup of executive producers, including Gina Rodriguez, Dean Holland, and Wonderland Sound and Vision’s McG, Mary Viola, and Corey Marsh. The series is produced by 20th Television, a part of Disney Television Studios.

Season 2 Premieres Wednesday, Feb. 7, at 8:30 p.m. EST

Follow “Not Dead Yet” (#NotDeadYet) on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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Mercedes’ character, Fay, is a recently divorced woman who is looking to start fresh in the City of Angels. Fay’s friends in Grand Crew are: Noah (Echo Kellum), a hopeless romantic too eager to settle down; Nicky (Nicole Byer), a go-getter in real estate who is adventurous in romance; Sherm (Carl Tart), a low-key genius who plays the dating odds; Anthony (Aaron Jennings), whose true love is his career; and Wyatt (Justin Cunningham), who is relieved to be married and out of the dating scene.

Mercedes is a Dominican-American actress from New York City who has relocated to Los Angeles. A former improviser and sketch comedy actor, she has appeared in the shows 9-1-1, Good Trouble, Southland, The Affair and Criminal Minds. Mercedes also recently wrapped season two of her podcast Not (Blank) Enough.

The Jan. 4 episode three of Grand Crew will air at 8:30 p.m. ahead of the final season premiere of the multiple-Emmy winning series This Is Us.

To watch the first two episodes click here.

Featured Photo: Grand Crew cast members at the show’s premiere party. From left: Dan Goor, Carl Tart, Nicole Byer, Grasie Mercedes, Justin Cunningham, Aaron Jennings, Echo Kellum, Phil Augusta Jackson at Alta Adams in Los Angeles. (Photo: Trae Patton/NBC)

Check out this video featuring the cast and their characters:

The post Grasie Mercedes Co-Stars in NBC’s New Comedy Series ‘Grand Crew’ first appeared on .

Making Fall Debuts: All Three Chicago Series of Law & Order: SVU and The Blacklist

Thursdays has Comedy with with Martin Gero’s Connecting …

Cloud 9 Opens Its Doors with a Season of Superstore

New Episodes Available on Peacock

Universal City, CA, – NBC is celebrating a November to remember as America’s most-loved dramas make their highly anticipated season debuts the week of Nov. 9-13, including a two-hour premiere of This Is Us (Nov. 10) and all three Chicago series (Nov. 11). The three Dick Wolf series include Chicago Med / Season 5, starring Nick Gehfuss, Yaya DaCosta, and Torrey DeVitto; Chicago Fire / Season 8, starring Jesse Spencer, and Taylor Kinney. As a result of COVID-19 productions were

In addition, Law & Order: SVU (Nov. 12) will return for its record-extending 22^nd season that same week, along with the eighth season of The Blacklist (Nov. 13), starring James Spader and Megan Boone. 

Executive producer Martin Gero (Blindspot) will debut his new scripted comedy Connecting. It stars Otmara Marrero, Parvesh Cheena, Ely Henry, and premieres on Thursday, Oct. 1. The series is about a group of friends trying to stay close (and sane) through video chats as they share the highs and lows of these extraordinary times.

Justin Spitzer’s Superstore, where Cloud 9’s unique family of employees work together and share nearly everything about their personal lives as well, returns for its sixth season on Thursday, Oct. 22 minus America Ferrera who left on her own accord at the end of last season.

The four-time Emmy Award-winning musical competition series The Voice, with coaches Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, as well as host Carson Daly, will be back in its swiveling red chairs on Monday, Oct. 19 and return for the second night of its season debut Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Host Jane Lynch will kick off the first episode of the worldwide global phenom Weakest Link when the show debuts Monday, Sept. 28. The new version will deliver the fast-paced and quick-witted pillars of the original British format distributed by BBC Studios with a few modern twists. The hybrid game show sees contestants answer general knowledge questions to bank prize money across multiple rounds. At the end of each round, the contestants vote out who they perceive to be the Weakest Link remaining. 

Ellen’s Game of Games, one of the most fun shows on all of television, returns Tuesday, Oct. 6 for a two-hour premiere from 8-10 p.m. before shifting the following week on Oct. 13 to its normal 9-10 p.m. timeslot. A bonafide hit, Ellen’s Game of Games reached more than 47 million viewers through the September through May 2019-20 season.

Primetime’s #1 program, NBC Sunday Night Football, will kick off the season on Thursday, Sept. 10 when the Houston Texans visit the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Three days later on Sunday, Sept. 13, the action continues when the Dallas Cowboys visit the Los Angeles Rams to mark the grand opening of SoFi Stadium.

Dateline NBC, the network’s signature newsmagazine and its longest-running primetime program, will return for a new season on Friday, Sept. 25 at 10 p.m. before moving to a two-hour telecast beginning at 9 p.m. later in the fall.

Previous airdates for NBC series already announced include hit Canadian import drama Transplant (Sept. 1) and the return of celebrated athletic competition series American Ninja Warrior (Sept. 7).

Returning series set to debut after Jan. 1 include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Good Girls, Making It, Manifest, New Amsterdam and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars stellar cast remains intact with the wonderful talents of Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Fumero, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Baugher, Dirk Blocker, and Joel McKinnon Miller.

New series set to launch in 2021 include Kenan, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Mr. Mayor, That’s My Jam, Small Fortune, True Story, Who Do You Think You Are? and Young Rock. 

The premiere dates and times for the remainder of 2020 are below. All shows, with the exception of NBC Sunday Night Football and The Voice, will be available on Peacock after its broadcast air date.

SEPTEMBER
Transplant (Tuesday, 9/1, 10-11 p.m.)
American Ninja Warrior (Monday, 9/7, 8-10 p.m.)
NBC Sunday Night Football (Thursday, 9/10 and Sunday, 9/13, 5:20 p.m.)
Weakest Link (Monday, 9/28, 10-11 p.m.)
Dateline NBC (Friday, 9/25, 10-11 p.m.)

OCTOBER
Connecting … (Thursday, 10/1, 8:30-9 p.m.)
Ellen’s Game of Games (Tuesday, 10/6, 9-10 p.m.)
The Voice (Monday, 10/19, 8-10 p.m., Tuesday, 10/20, 8-10 p.m. then switches to 8-9 p.m. on 10/27)
Superstore (Thursday, 10/22, 8-8:30 p.m.)

NOVEMBER
This Is Us (Tuesday, 11/10, 9-11 p.m.; returns to 9-10 p.m. on 11/17)
Chicago Med (Wednesday, 11/11, 8-9 p.m.)
Chicago Fire (Wednesday, 11/11, 9-10 p.m.)
Chicago P.D. (Wednesday, 11/11, 10-11 p.m.)
Law & Order: SVU (Thursday, 11/12, 9-10 p.m.)
The Blacklist (Friday, 11/13, 8-9 p.m.)

The post NBC Kickstarts Season With Lots of Fave Series And A Few Newbees first appeared on .

Actor Jon Huertas seems to have a knack for making himself at home on long-running television series. For eight seasons he portrayed homicide detective Javier Esposito on ABC’s Castle.  Now, he is in season four of NBC’s This is Us, portraying Miguel Rivas on the large-ensemble comedy-drama. The series has recently received the announcement that it has been extended two more seasons. 

“Miguel is a different kind of personality than I portrayed in Castle, where I played a police detective who had a loose, comedic rapport with my detective partner.  We shot the show like a kind of detective noire series, infused with romantic comedy. It was fun, but it was much different than a family show like This is Us, which covers so many different kinds of issues, from body image to racial identity, inter-rational relationships, adoption, people with special needs.  It is a much different type of show. You have to play your characters a little more grounded and real.” 

The series chronicles the Pearson family across the decades, following Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) as young parents in the 1980s, to the present day lives of their 37-year-old children, Kevin (Justin Hartley), Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown), searching for love and fulfillment. 

Huertas’ Miguel began as a recurring character in Season One, a blue-collar salesman, who became friends with Jack. In season two, he became a series regular. “Now in season four, I know that my character, in the minds of the audience, is becoming more welcome, more integrated into the Pearson family, helping out the family and eventually becoming part of the family. In terms of the series timeline, Miguel has grown from someone who was a salesman to someone who owns his own construction company by the time he retires. He came from almost nothing, migrating from Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania, not being able to speak English, to becoming prominent in his field, the construction industry. As the series moves on, we are going to see little bit more of his personal arc.” 

Huertas own personal arc is also interesting.  “I was raised in New York until I was 13, but I was actually born in a hospital in Virginia,” he says. “I wanted to be an actor since I was in the second grade, but I didn’t come from a family with money. I didn’t have an opportunity to go to college. So, I forged my own path as an adult.  I enlisted in the Air Force, which paid for my education, 75 percent of my tuition, which I did while still in the service. The universities from all over the country allow you to do correspondence. I enrolled at TCU in Texas. Of course, I got deployed to many places and I just earned my credits wherever I was.”

Huertas Served as an aircraft nuclear/conventional weapons specialist, participated in Operaton Just Cause in Panama and Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. “That’s why it takes military students a long time to earn the usual four-year Bachelor’s Degree,” he chuckled. “I was in the Air Force for eight years. As soon as I was discharged I moved to Los Angeles to launch an acting career. What I took from the military a sense of discipline and initiative that helped me not get discouraged, to just stay with it and keep moving forward.”  

Indeed. Huerta got his first break in the ‘90s doing an ABC movie of the week, Spring Fling. “During the filming I met a guy who introduced me to his mother,” he recalls. “She became my first agent.” In 1998, Huertas was featured in the romantic drama, Why Do Fools Fall In Love? opposite Halle Berry and Ben Vereen. The next year he appeared in two films, the horror movie, Cold Hearts and the action movie, Stealth Fighter. From 1999 to 2000, he played Brad, a witch hunter, in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. In the 2000s, his career took off, appearing in many films, but his biggest role was in 2008 as Sergeant Espera in HBO’s miniseries, Generation Kill. Then in 2009, Huertas began his eight-season series regular stint in Castle. 

As Huerta says, he wants to keep moving forward, which has included directing. “I’ve been doing that for a while,” he reveals. “I just directed something last week. I also directed a Christmas special for ABC for the Home for the Holidays series. I produced my first film in 1999. It is very important for me as a Latino, having 25 years experience in this industry, to use that experience behind the camera. 

“We don’t have a lot of Latinos who are directors. In all my experience acting in Hollywood, I’ve been directed just once by a Latino, someone I could identify with who had some of the same life experiences that I’ve had.  So, I have felt a huge responsibility to step into those shoes. I want to assist in making that transition for Latinos as directors, writers and producers during the next few years. This is important and long overdue.”

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