TV News Wrap-Up: ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Scraps Episodes Written for Season 8, White Voice Actors Step Down from Voicing Characters of Color, NBC Commits to Five Pilots, and More
It’s been over three months since Hollywood shut down production, and a lot has changed since then.
This year, series have reevaluated racist tropes they’ve used in the past, white voice actors are stepping down from voicing characters of colors, series are getting pilot commitments from networks, and a few renewals have been announced.
Check out the highlights from this past week in our TV news wrap-up!
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Lucifer has been renewed for a sixth and final season by Netflix.
- The news came one day after the first episodes of Lucifer Season 5 were announced.
- Netflix was clear that this would be the “FINAL final season” of the show.
- Read more about this announcement right here.
Multiple white voice actors are stepping away from their roles as characters of color.
- Family Guy actor Mike Henry announced he was stepping down as the voice of Cleveland Brown saying, ““It’s been an honor to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”
- Henry has voiced Cleveland Brown since the show’s inception in 1999.
- Deadline reported that Jenny Slate will also be stepping down as the voice of Missy, a mixed-race character on Big Mouth.
- Big Mouth co-creator Nick Kroll said of the decision, “We made a mistake, took our privilege for granted, and we are working hard to do better moving forward. We are proud of the representation that Missy has offered cerebral, sensitive women of color, and we plan to continue that representation and further grow Missy’s character as we recast a new Black actor to play her.
- Kristen Bell stepped down fromApple TV+’s Central Park. A TV Line report states that she will be replaced by a Black actress.
- Deadline also reported that The Simpsons announced that they will no longer have white actors voice non-white character.
Multiple shows have also pulled episodes from their archives that feature blackface.
- Both Netflix and Hulu pulled the Community episode “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,” for a scene where Ben Chang played by Ken Jeong, shows up to a Dungeons & Dragons game wearing black makeup and a white wig.
- Sony Pictures Television, Community‘s studio, released a statement in support of both streamers saying, ““We support the decision to remove the episode.”
- Deadline also reported that Greg Daniels cut a scene from a 2012 episode of The Office calling the racist trope “unacceptable.”
- TV Line reported that Scrubs executive producer Bill Lawrence requested three episodes featuring the trope be removed from Hulu.
- CNN reported that Tina Fey also requested that several episodes of 30 Rock be pulled.
- “Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness,” Fey said. “I thank NBCUniversal for honoring this request.”
NBC has canceled Council of Dads after one season.
- Deadline confirmed the cancellation on Thursday evening.
- Council of Dads premiered on March 24th following the premiere of This Is Us, and is the second show in the vein of This Is Us that NBC has opted not to renew after the first season. (The first attempt being 2019’s The Village.)
- It joins fellow canceled freshman series Bluff City Law, Lincoln Rhyme, Perfect Harmony, Indebted and Sunnyside.
The BBC has committed to spending $124 million on diverse shows over the next three years.
- Deadline reports that the BBC is describing this commitment as “the biggest financial investment in diverse programming in the UK television industry.”
- The BBC went on to describe its initiative “…as part of the financial pledge, it is committing to creating content across all genres with two of three priorities: Diverse stories and portrayal on-screen; diverse production teams and talent; diverse-led production companies.”
- This intiative also includes a commitment that from April 2021, 20% of the BBC show’s talent will come from a black, Asian, or minority ethnic background.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine announced that it will scrap all episodes written for Season 8.
- TV Line reported that the writers had four episodes of the new season ready to go, but have scrapped them all in light of the recent protests against police brutality.
- Castmember Terry Crews told TV Line that the cast has been talking about ways to address systemic racism and police brutality in the upcoming season.
- “We’ve had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations, and we hope through this, we’re going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year. We have an opportunity, and we plan to use it in the best way possible,” said Crews.
NBC has committed to filming five pilots this year.
- NBC started with 12 pilots, now, according to Deadline, they have committed to shooting five as soon as production can safely begin.
- The five pilots they’re committed to producing include Langdon, Night School, Ordinary Joe, Grand Crew, and American Auto.
- The network rolled two dramas, At That Age and Echo, and three comedies Crazy For You, Jefferies, and Someone Out There to 2021.
- Sci-fi dramas Debris and La Brea are being considered for series orders.
- Later in the week it was announced that La Brea has released it’s entire cast from their contracts with the exception of two cast members.
- The other rolled pilots have also released their actors from their contracts, but can invite them back should they go into production next spring.
- Cast options were set to expire on June 30th.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.