The future of high-profile unscripted NBC series including Amy Poehler’s Making It and Kristen Bell’s Family Game Fight! is up in the air as the network has indefinitely parked them.
Making It, Family Game Fight and AGT: Extreme did not make it into NBC’s schedule and it seems that they are the latest non-scripted series to neither be canceled or renewed – in a growing trend as highlighted by Fox earlier this morning as well as ABC with series such as Supermarket Sweep and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
It comes as the network has revealed that two of its other big unscripted series The Wheel and Million Dollar Island will launch in midseason.
Making It, which is co-hosted by Parks and Recreation stars Poehler and Nick Offerman, has run for three seasons on the network. The craft competition premiered in July 2018, its second season debuted in December 2019 and the third season launched in June 2021. The series comes from Universal Television Alternative Studio, Paper Kite Productions and 3 Arts Entertainment.
Family Game Fight! is a gameshow hosted by Bell and her husband Dax Shepard. The series, which sees families take on each other in a series of challenges, is loosely based on a segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. It launched its first season in August 2021.
While America’s Got Talent will return for its 17th season at the end of this month, there are no plans to bring back AGT: Extreme, which ran from late February.
It comes after the show was suffered a pretty horrendous accident during filming, where escape artist Jonathan Goodwin was hospitalized and later paralyzed during a stunt.
NBC sources said that while Making It is not on the schedule, network chiefs are “not counting it out” and similarly while there are no plans to bring back Family Game Fight! and AGT: Extreme, they could return to future schedules.
The Wall, which has run for four seasons, is set to return.
Two shows that are on NBC’s midseason schedule are The Wheel, a remake of the BBC format hosted by British comedian Michael McIntyre, and Million Dollar Island. The Wheel features contestants aiming to win big with the help of celebrity guests playing on a giant spinning wheel, while Million Dollar Island will feature 100 contestants who attempt to forge friendships and build alliances as they plot to stay on a remote desert island for up to 50 days and compete to win their share of the ultimate $1M prize.
The latter comes from Big Brother creator John De Mol and Studio Lambert, The Circle producer run by Stephen Lambert.
Elsewhere, That’s My Jam from Jimmy Fallon returns for a second season, Dick Wolf has docuseries LA Fire and Rescue and there’s a host of new summer series including Dancing with Myself, the Fallon-produced Password reboot and the return of Who Do You Think You Are? College Bowl also returns.
Dancing with Myself, led by the likes of Shakira, Nick Jonas and Liza Koshy, is the network’s big new launch and it airs on the back of AGT. Who Do You Think You Are? returns in July, three years after it was ordered by NBC and ten years after the network ended its first run.
