Wendi McLendon-Covey stars as Beverly Goldberg, aka the ultimate smother, in ABC’s hit comedy series The Goldbergs. The actress is no stranger to comedy and certainly never fails to leave audiences laughing episode after episode. The series is currently on season 8 with new episodes airing Wednesdays at 8 PM ET.
Continue reading “NOC Interview: Wendi McLendon-Covey on All Things ‘The Goldbergs’”
The official trailer and show art for Girls5eva is finally here! The show will premiere on Thursday, May 6 with all eight episodes available at once on Peacock. Music superstar Sara Bareilles, Hamilton’s Renée Elise Goldsberry, comedian Paula Pell, and sitcom royalty Busy Philipps star in the new original, promising an incredible show!
Continue reading “Get Ready for the New Peacock Original Comedy, ‘Girls5eva’”
Being a Middle Eastern kid in an American high school can be an awkward experience. You may struggle to fit in and have an unclear sense of your identity, making friends and relationships as a result. With the new show Chad on TBS, in which she plays the titular 14-year old character, Nasim Pedrad seeks to encompass that experience through reveling in the awkwardness that being an insecure MENA teenager can often entail. And it works for the most part, though the humor sometimes falls flat, especially when it leans too much into the awkwardness.
Continue reading “NOC Review: ‘Chad’ is Good, but Revels in Cringe”
NBC’s newest sitcom, Young Rock, focuses on different chapters of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s life. From growing up in a strong and resilient family, to being surrounded by the wild characters of his professional wrestling family, to playing football at the University of Miami, the show explores the many life experiences that have helped shape Dwayne into the man he is today.
Continue reading “Joseph Lee Anderson, Uli Latukefu and Bradley Constant Talk NBC’s ‘Young Rock’”
The new and highly-anticipated Punky Brewster series will premiere on Peacock on Thursday, February 25, with all ten episodes dropping at once. Punky Brewster is the continuation of the iconic ’80s sitcom about a bright young girl raised by a foster dad. Punky is now a single mother of three trying to get her life back on track when she meets Izzy, a young girl in the foster system who reminds Punky a lot of her younger self.
Continue reading “NOC Interview: ‘Punky Brewster’ Star Cherie Johnson Talks Iconic Sitcom Coming to Peacock”
By Laura Sirikul and Mike Manalo
By now, if you’re anything like us, you’ve already seen the first three episodes of WandaVision. If not — how dare you call yourself an MCU fan (just kidding, we love you!). Having said that, it’s no spoiler to say the show presents an intriguing slow burn mystery that keeps us guessing from the first frame to the very last frame of the third episode. And boy do we love the hell out of it! But, do we have any idea what’s going on, and why, or how it all leads into Marvel Studios’ first horror film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Not a clue. And I’m sure you all are saying the same things. So being that we’re all MCU fans here at The Nerds of Color, we want to commiserate with you, our faithful fandom family, and see if we can put together our detective hats and paranoid “Charlie Day” conspiracy theory boards to present a few potential theories about where the series is going, and what the underlying story is behind WandaVision. If we’re wrong, please don’t hate us, but if we’re right, Marvel Studios owes us $2 billion dollars for cracking the case (Update: We’ve reached out to them and they said no to this so… just bragging rights)!
**Please note, we absolutely cannot express strongly enough that we will dive into spoiler territory for the first three episodes. So if you have not seen them yet, we very much encourage you to please watch before you read the rest of this article.**
Continue reading “UPDATED NOC Theories: The “Whos,” “Whats,” and “Whys” of ‘WandaVision’”
By Laura Sirikul and Mike Manalo
When WandaVision was first announced by Marvel in 2018 as a series centered around Wanda and Vision’s love story, fans were excited to watch their journey since their relationship was introduced in Captain America: Civil War. Prior to the debut of Infinity War, there was hope that Wanda and Vision would make it out alive since they were getting their own show on Disney+. Unfortunately, after Vision’s inevitable death at the hand of Thanos, many of us were confused at just how WandaVision would play out. What would be the premise of the series if Vision is dead? How could Vision come back? Why are they stuck in a series of sitcoms? Why sitcoms?
Continue reading “NOC Review: Weird and Wacky ‘WandaVision’ Wows the MCU”
As previously and frequently alluded to in my recap of the Marvel Studios Phase 4 announcements from the Disney Investor Day last December, we MCU fans have been in utter withdrawal since last we stepped foot into the marvelous universe of magic, science, and super powers (July 2019 with the release of Spider-Man Far From Home). Given Marvel Studios’ proclivity to leave us wanting more, fans have been clamoring to see how Phase 4 will indeed kick off following the conclusion of the Infinity Saga in Avengers: Endgame. Thankfully, this coming Friday, a new era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will at long last begin, with the debut of something completely different – their first episodic streaming show!
Continue reading “En-‘Vision’-ing a ‘Wanda’-ful Future at the ‘WandaVision’ Press Conference”
NBC’s new over-the-top streaming service is set to make waves in 2021 with the release of a massive slate of new movies, shows and more in January. After announcing the release of its new streaming service back in April, over 22 million users had been dialed in by October this year. Peacock is promising subscribers access to the highest quality shows and more, especially after sharing the news that the hit series The Office is set to be exclusively streamed on the service starting January 2021.
Continue reading “Peacock Set to Release Massive Slate of Shows, Movies, and More in 2021”
Preacher Lawson is best known for his appearance on the 2017 season of NBC’s hit series America’s Got Talent where he made it to the final round. Based off his stellar performance, he was invited to compete two years later on both America’s Got Talent: The Champions and Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions where he advanced to the finale.
Lawson was the host of the Facebook Watch series World’s Most Amazing Dogs in 2019 with George Lopez and Lisa Vanderpump and has built a following on YouTube of more than 500,000 subscribers. He just shot his first stand-up special last year, which premiered on BET+, and continues to perform at sold-out venues around the country.
At some point within the Jeremy Bearimy, I eventually lost count of how many people I told about The Good Place after the first season aired. I caught it over the hiatus before season two and couldn’t stop telling people about it. That season one twist and (subsequent) cliffhanger were my bread and butter. Just three years later, one of the best shows on TV is coming to a speedy end (reveling in brevity like Deirdre and Margaret but with fewer years and far more episodes).
Continue reading “William Jackson Harper is Taking ‘The Good Place’ With Him”
Last week, The Nerds of Color was invited to join other journalists for a special intimate lunch with William Jackson Harper, one of the stars of the hit NBC comedy The Good Place. Now in its fourth and final season, Harper — who plays Chidi Anagonye, the ethical and moral center of Team Cockroach, aka The Soul Squad — took time out to reflect on the opportunity to be part of a special show and the differences between making television and film.
Continue reading “Lunch with William Jackson Harper of ‘The Good Place’”
It looks like the a new season of One Day at a Time will be getting the ‘POP’ treatment. After getting cancelled by Netflix in March, One Day at a Time has been saved and given a new fourth season … Continue reading ‘One Day At A Time’ Saved By Pop TV!
This week on Hard NOC Life, Keith is joined by Dan Hernandez, one-half of the screenwriting duo behind Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: ‘Detective Pikachu’ Writer Dan Hernandez”
Jake Choi is heating up our television screens as the lovable single dad on ABC’s Single Parents and will be steaming up on the big screen in this week’s release of The Sun is Also a Star.
When the new ABC’s hit series Single Parents was picked up for a full season last year, actor Jake Choi could only think of one word to describe it: surreal.
Continue reading “Jake Choi Proves that He’s the Ultimate ‘Bae’”
It a Hard NOC crossover as Desi Geek Girls’ co-host (and YA author) Preeti Chhibber joins in on Hard NOC Life to talk about South Asian representation and more!
Move over, Fresh Off the Boat! There’s going to be a new show in town that will diminish all the progressive work you’ve done for Asians.
Deadline announced recently that NBC has picked up a half-hour sitcom called Mail Order Family, a comedy about a widowed single father who orders a mail order bride from the Philippines to help raise his two preteen daughters.
Continue reading “New NBC Series Makes Light of Human Trafficking and Asian Stereotypes”
Grace Nkenge Edwards is a writer, actor, and producer who has both written for and performed on MTV’s Decoded, Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, and is currently a writer on MTV’s Untitled Nicole Byer Project. She co-writes and performs in a monthly show with her sketch team The Heavenly Creatures. She has an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University, a BFA in Acting from the University of Michigan, and has taught television writing at NYU.
I had the pleasure of meeting Grace at Columbia where I was acting in her screenwriting class taught by one of my favorite playwrights, Israel Horowitz. Since then, Grace has created a TV writing career that many creatives only dream about. How did she do it? With perseverance, preparation, and well… grace. Check out my interview with her below.
Continue reading “How to Break Into TV Comedy Writing with Grace Nkenge Edwards”
On last night’s episode of the ABC comedy show black-ish, the sitcom took a big chance and dedicated an entire episode on police brutality, racism, and the effectiveness of the American justice system. Although I only catch an episode of this show every now and then, I was made very well aware of this particular episode for some time because of its decision to center this episode on such heavy topics. And boy, it did not disappoint.
Continue reading “Let’s Talk About Police Brutality: A Black-ish Recap”
If you were one of the 14 million people that caught either of Wednesday night’s Fresh Off the Boat debut episodes, you know that the show — loosely based on the Eddie Huang memoir of the same name — has gotten off to a promising start. Let’s hope the other networks take notice and start truly broadcasting in color!
Now the show is finally out there for the world to see, we wrap up our special week-long tribute to Fresh Off the Boat with this piece of star Hudson Yang as Eddie by PC Weenies creator and SIUniverse alum Krishna Sadasivam. Speaking of Hudson, be sure to read this heartfelt piece by his dad — and friend of the blog — Jeff Yang in the L.A. Times.
Continue reading “Fresh Off the Boat by Artist Krishna Sadasivam”
Our second Fresh Off the Boat-inspired illustration today comes from the collective known as Point and Question, a.k.a. Jef Castro and SooJ Lee. Don’t forget to catch the premiere of the life and times of young Eddie Huang tonight on ABC at 8:30pm (sandwiching a new episode of Modern Family).
Tonight’s the night! The first two episodes of Fresh Off the Boat — the sitcom loosely based on the Eddie Huang memoir of the same name — debut on ABC at 8:30pm (sandwiching a new episode of Modern Family). Since ABC is giving you double the FOTB, we’re also going to be doubling up our artistic tributes to the show. Come back later in the day for a piece by SIUniverse alum Jef Castro. But right now, dig this dope piece from Boston-based illustrator Quan.
As we continue the countdown to the premiere of Fresh Off the Boat — which chronicles the early life of Eddie Huang — we’ve been asking some of our favorite artists to help us celebrate the first Asian American family comedy on network television in 20 years. Next up is the homie Earl Yi.
