What this country needs is another great comedy set in a TV newsroom. Maybe NBC's Great News is it. At least "great" is in the title.
The tradition of newsrooms on TV goes way back -- with varying degrees of verisimilitude. The good stuff ranges from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown, to Sports Night.
Other shows include Back to You starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton, Good Morning, Miami with Mark Feuerstein and Ashley Williams, and the much more serious (many say too serious) The Newsroom from Aaron Sorkin.
You want bad shows? Fox cancelled Anchorwoman in 2007 after two back-to-back episodes. Courteney Cox (Friends) lasted less than two seasons on FX's Dirt in 2007. And who remembers Rebecca Romijn as a TV reporter in The WB's Pepper Dennis?
I'm not saying that NBC has the next Murphy Brown on its hands with Great News, but at least we're giving the setting one more shot. I found the show amusing, thanks in large part to a savvy, veteran ensemble and the fact that Tina Fey is one of the executive producers.
See for yourself when Great News premieres at 8 p.m. today immediately following the live Top 12 eliminations on The Voice.
The sitcom revolves around the hectic career of Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan, Ground Floor, Undateable), a bright, attractive and ambitious news producer for a national cable news program called The Breakdown that shoots in Secaucus, N.J.
Katie survived being raised by one of those meddling, overbearing, but loving mothers who believed her daughter was destined for big things. But Katie is 30 now and beginning to feel she's in a rut.
Veteran comic actress Andrea Martin (SCTV, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) plays Katie's mom, Carol, who is also looking to make some life changes after years as a stay-at-home mom.
Being her daughter's biggest cheerleader, Carol goes behind Katie's back and wrangles a job as an intern on her daughter's show. Hilarity ensues.
The rest of The Breakdown crew includes narcissistic, tyrannical co-anchor Chuck Pierce (John Michael Higgins, Pitch Perfect, Best in Show). Think Ted Baxter with a nasty attitude. Higgins, by the way, steals every scene he's in.
Nicole Richie (The Simple Life) portrays Portia, Chuck's young, hip co-host and his polar opposite. Adam Campbell (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) is Greg, Katie's boss and the executive producer in charge of controlling Chuck and Portia. Horatio Sanz (Saturday Night Live) is Katie's best office friend, Justin. He's the video editor and frequently offers zen-like advice.
Finally, there's Tracey Wigfield as the rather atypical meteorologist Beth. Creepy is a good word to describe Beth. Comedy writer Wigfield (30 Rock) created the series based on her relationship with her mother, Kathy.
Great News is rated TV-PG for dialogue.
• Genius premieres at 8 p.m. today on National Geographic. This intriguing historical drama (not a documentary) is National Geographic's first scripted series. Its 10 episodes will encompass the entire life of Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and focus on his (very) human side.
Fair warning: Be prepared. There's less science and more sensationalism here. The series opens with a murder and a sex scene. Einstein apparently had a complicated and creative love life.
And that includes his second wife, Elsa Einstein Lowenthal, who was his first and second cousin. How's that? Elsa's and Albert's mothers were sisters, and their fathers were first cousins.
The first episode, creatively titled "Einstein: Chapter One," shows how "Einstein's tumultuous life reveals the man behind the mind."
The series, executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard and based on Walter Isaacson's book Einstein: His Life and Universe, stars Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Flynn as the older and younger Einstein, respectively. The series frequently jumps back and forth in time between the two.
• 48 Hours: NCIS premieres at 9 p.m. today on CBS. It's a sort of mash-up of two of the network's more popular series in that it has 48 Hours looking at real cases handled by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
In the series, agents who have participated in investigations with the agency reveal the steps they took to track killers, break fraud cases and hunt terrorists. The series should be right at home among all the crime shows on CBS.
NCIS star Rocky Carroll narrates.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 04/25/2017