TV Bits: 'Black Monday' Season 2, 'Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens' Gets A Second Season, 'Tosh.0' Gets Four More Seasons, And More
In this edition of TV Bits:
Homeland – a show I really enjoyed for about two seasons, stuck around with through three or four, and promptly forgot about afterward – is somehow entering its eighth season. That's an impressive run for any show, and even if the quality never surpassed season one, at least it kept Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin employed for the better part of a decade. The eighth and final season premieres on Showtime on February 9, 2020.
Comedy Central has yet to premiere the first season of Awkwafina is Nora From Queens (that will happen on January 22, 2020), but the network evidently loves what they've seen thus far, because Variety reports that a second season has already been given the greenlight. Based on Awkwafina's real life and set in her hometown of Queens, New York, the show follows her adventures as she navigates living with her grandmother (Lori Tan Chinn) and father (B.D. Wong).
I have yet to catch up with Showtime's Black Monday (too many things to watch!), but the cast is great, and I really need to make time to check it out. (Don Cheadle, Paul Scheer, Casey Wilson, Regina Hall...the list goes on.) Its second season is premiering on March 15, 2020.
Here's another show that has slipped through the cracks for me. Lena Waithe's series has experienced its fair share of behind-the-scenes drama, but this season seems to be about embracing change and rolling with the punches as they come. There's plenty of time to catch up on the first two seasons, since season 3 doesn't debut until July 5, 2020.
Corey Hawkins, who rose to fame after his excellent performance in Straight Outta Compton, is joining the talented cast of Americanah, HBO Max's upcoming adaptation of the best-selling novel. Lupita Nyong'o, Zackary Momoh, and Uzo Aduba star, while playwright/actress Danai Gurira (Black Panther, The Walking Dead) serves as writer and showrunner.
Hell or High Water and Yellowstone writer Taylor Sheridan has a new TV show coming out on the Paramount Network. It's called Mayor of Kingstown, and here's a synopsis:
Set in a small Michigan town where the only industry remaining are federal, state, and private prisons, the story follows the McClusky family, the power brokers between the police, criminals, inmates, prison guards and politicians, in a city completely dependent on prisons and the prisoners they contain. It is a stark and brutal look at the business of incarceration.
And finally, fans of Tosh.0 can rejoice because the comedian has signed a new development deal with Comedy Central that includes four more seasons of his weekly show, as well as a first-look deal for new content. This four-year deal will put Tosh.0 at a sixteen season run, and since there's no shortage of mock-worthy Internet videos out there, I suspect it'll run for even longer beyond that.