TV News Wrap-Up: ‘Stranger Things’ Casting News, ‘Black Lightning’ Fades Out, ‘The Walking Dead’ has a Return Date

As COVID-19 cases rise nationwide and stricter regulations loom once again, the TV industry is adapting the age-old phrase “the show must go on” until someone shuts down production. 

We have casting news, spring schedules, and pilot pickups to report. But there are also cancellations to relay. 

Check out this week’s TV news wrap-up to learn everything we know about what to expect from the small screen in the near future. 

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ABC and NBC reveal midseason schedules.

• ABC and NBC revealed midseason schedules this week, and as expected, COVID-19 is still causing some irregularities. 
• Per TVLine, The Rookie will return on Sunday, January 3 in its previous timeslot of 10/9c. 
• black-ish and mixed-ish will premiere new seasons on Tuesday, January 26.
• The new sitcom Call Your Mother will air Wednesdays after The Conners starting January 13. 
• ABC’s Thursday lineup featuring Station 19, Grey’s Anatomy, and A Million Little Things will take a midseason break beginning December 17 and return for the second half of their seasons on March 4. 
• NBC’s midseason schedule features the musical dramedy Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist premiering January 5 at 8 p.m., per TVLine.
• Ted Danson’s sitcom Mr. Mayor will premiere on January 7. 
• Still missing from NBC’s lineup are New Amsterdam, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Good Girls, Manifest, and Christopher Meloni’s Law & Order: Organized Crime. 

Stranger Things welcomes eight new cast members 

• ’80s icon Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger) has joined the cast of Netflix’s Stranger Things to play “a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s,” TVLine reported. 
• He joins seven other new cast members in Season 4 including Tom Wlaschiha, Mason Dye, and Nikola Djuricko.
• Production is now underway after an eight-month delay related to COVID-19. 

The CW cancels Black Lightning 

• The CW announced that Season 4 of Black Lightning will be its last, TVLine reported.
• Executive producer Salim Akil said in a statement: “When we first started the Black Lightning journey, I knew that Jefferson Pierce and his family of powerful Black Women would be a unique addition to the superhero genre. The love that Blerds and all comic book fans around the globe have shown this series over the past three seasons proved what we imagined, Black People Want To See Themselves in all their complexities.”
• Jordan Calloway’s spinoff series based on The Painkiller will move forward. 

You adds pivotal characters to its Season 3 cast 

• You has cast 12 characters in Season 3, Deadline reported. New cast members include Dylan Arnold (Nashville), Tati Gabrielle (Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina), Mackenzie Astin (Homeland), and Bryan Safi (9-1-1) among others. 
• TV Line detailed Season 3 characters, including Michaela McManus’s (One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries) Natalie, who will play Joe’s (Penn Badgley) neighbor and new love interest. 

Charmed adds a transgender character 

• Transgender actor J.J. Hawkins will play the first transgender character on Season 3 of The CW’s Charmed, Deadline reported.
• He’ll play a college student named Kevin who encourages one of the charmed three to battle a formidable opponent. 

Veronica Mars showrunner Rob Thomas gets put-pilot deal with NBC 

• Veronica Mars showrunner Rob Thomas has landed a put-pilot deal with the post-pandemic wedding band drama Get Lucky, Deadline reported.
• The titular band will have a new gig to play and experience a new love story every week. Every member of the band is also single and looking for love, so they’ll learn what that looks like in a post-pandemic world. 

HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant available to stream for free 

• You can stream the pilot episode of Kaley Cuoco’s dark comedy The Flight Attendant for free right now on HBO Max ahead of its November 26 premiere, per Deadline. 
• Cuoco plays a flight attendant who wakes up in the wrong bed next to a dead man with no idea how she got there. 
• The first three episodes premiere on HBO Max on Thanksgiving day. 

Alexandra Billings to recur on The Conners 

• Alexandra Billings (Transparent) will join The Conners for a multi-episode arc in the current season, Deadline reported.
• The actress (who is transgender) will play Robin, a transgender woman who works as a supervisor in a Lanford factory and will mentor Darlene. 

Colin Kaepernick’s parents cast for Netflix series

• Mary Louise Parker and Nick Offerman have been cast as Colin Kaepernick’s parents in the Netflix series Colin In Black & White, per TVLine. 
• Jaden Michael will play a young Kaepernick in the 6-episode drama series that seeks to  “provide an introspective look at Kaepernick’s adolescent years as a Black teen growing up with a white adopted family. It will follow his journey to becoming a great quarterback while defining his identity and lending meaningful insight into the acts and experiences that led him to become the activist he is today.”
• Kaepernick himself will narrate the series. 

Woke renewed at Hulu 

• Hulu’s hybrid live-action/animated series Woke is getting an 8-episode second season, Deadline reported. 
• The series takes an “absurdist look at identity and culture” through Keef (Lamorne Morris) a Black cartoonist who is experiencing mainstream success when he has an accident. 

The CW is developing a Latinx superhero series 

• The CW is developing a Wonder Girl TV drama series with Greg Berlanti and Queen of the South co-showrunner Dailyn Rodriguez, Deadline reported. It’s based on DC characters Joëlle Jones created. 
• Yara Flor is the title character in the script, written by Rodriguez. She’s a “Latina Dreamer who was born of an Amazonian Warrior and a Brazilian River God, learns that she is Wonder Girl. With her newfound power must fight the evil forces that would seek to destroy the world.”
• Yara would be the first Latinx superhero in the DC Universe. 

The Obamas team up with Adam Ruins Everything host for comedy series 

• Creator and host of truTV’s Adam Ruins Everything Adam Conover and the Obamas have joined forces for The G Word with Adam Conover, which will go inside the government to introduce viewers to the civil servants that make it work, Deadline reported. 
• Netflix ordered the series, which will combine comedy and documentary elements and go into production in early 2021. 

The CW releases a teaser of Javicia Leslie as Batwoman for Season 2 

• You can catch your first glimpse of Javicia Leslie as Batwoman in The CW’s teaser here. 
• Leslie takes over for Ruby Rose as the title character on Season 2, which premieres on January 17. 

The Walking Dead to return in 2021 

• The Walking Dead will premiere six bonus episodes of Season 10 beginning February 28 at 9/8c on AMC, per TVLine. 
• Art will imitate life as Hilarie Burton will join her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan on the episodes to play his character Negan’s wife. 

ABC orders Waiting To Exhale adaptation scripts 

• The 1995 movie Waiting To Exhale may get reincarnated on the small screen soon. Deadline reported that ABC has given a script commitment to the project from Lee Daniels. 
• The scripts are written by Attica Locke and Tembi Locke (When They See Us and Never Have I Ever, respectively) 
• The show will take a look at the next generation of women after the film, their complicated friendships and love lives. 

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