NBC sets a Joan Rivers tribute special / MTV VMAs to air on CBS for first time / Gunsmoke debuts on Nielsen streaming charts
PLUS: ABC renews Grey's Anatomy, 9-1-1, The Rookie, Will Trent and Shifting Gears — Doctor Odyssey is still on the bubble.
NBC sets a star-studded Joan Rivers primetime tribute special
Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute airs May 13 with an extended, uncensored version landing on Peacock the next day. The one-hour special will feature musical bits, standup performances and, of course, roasting. Famous female standups Nikki Glaser, Chelsea Handler and Tiffany Haddish will honor Rivers. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Rachel Brosnahan and Hacks' Jean Smart, who have won Emmys playing female standups with shades of Rivers, will also be part of the tribute. Margaret Cho, Neil Patrick Harris, Bill Maher, Howie Mandel, Joel McHale, Tracy Morgan, Patton Oswalt, Aubrey Plaza, Sarah Silverman and Rita Wilson will also appear, alongside Rivers' daughter Melissa Rivers. “Given that I’m dead, I assume someone will finally decide to honor me. Well, it’s about time,” Joan Rivers, who died in September 2014, said in a letter she left for her daughter, who executive produced the special. Watch the teaser.
ABC renews Grey's Anatomy, 9-1-1, The Rookie, Will Trent and Shifting Gears — Doctor Odyssey is still on the bubble
Grey's has been renewed for Season 22, 9-1-1 for Season 9, The Rookie for Season 8, Will Trent for Season 4 and Shifting Gears for Season 2. Shifting Gears, the rookie sitcom starring Tim Allen and Kat Dennings, was one of two ABC shows on the bubble. Now, Doctor Odyssey is the only ABC show with an undetermined fate. "In the end," says Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, "the potent series average numbers, including a multi-platform 18-49 rating that ranks Shifting Gears #5 among ABC’s scripted series this season, coupled with the network’s faith in the sitcom prowess of stars Allen and Dennings and Allen’s longstanding relationship with Disney across movies, linear TV and streaming, tipped the scale in the show’s favor."
MTV's VMAs will air on CBS for the first time
CBS will be the primary broadcaster for the Sept. 7 Video Music Awards ceremony from New York’s UBS Arena, with a "simulcast" on MTV. Paramount+ will also show the VMAs live. A one-hour pre-show will air live across Paramount Media Networks.
Gunsmoke debuts on Nielsen streaming charts
The 20-season 1955-1975 classic CBS Western series had 646 million viewing minutes for the week of March 3-9, which was good enough for No. 8 on Nielsen's list of Top 10 acquired series. Gunsmoke currently streams on Paramount+ and Peacock. "A long-running TV show with a huge library of episodes making Nielsen’s streaming charts is nothing unusual. It happens multiple times each week, in fact," says The Hollywood Reporter's Rick Porter. "But a show making the streaming top 10 almost half a century after it last aired? That is a horse of a different color — or black and white, as the case may be." Porter adds: " While this is Gunsmoke’s first top 10 appearance, the series has been a solid streaming draw for some time. It had more than 10 billion viewing minutes in 2024." ALSO: Reacher tops Nielsen streaming charts for a second week as Netflix’s Zero Day drops off the streaming charts completely.
Conan O'Brien weighed not attending his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony after Trump's Kennedy Center takeover, but "I felt like it was important to show up"
“There was obviously for the last couple of months with the new administration, there’s been some controversial stuff going on with the Kennedy Center, and there was the question of should I go, should I not go? And I felt like it was important to show up,” Conan said on his Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, per The Wrap. “First of all, we were brought in under the old regime, and the people who brought me in are no longer there, but I thought we should honor their decision.” Conan added: “The young people that have been working at the Kennedy Center for years were delighted that we came. They don’t know what their future is. I got to talk to a lot of them. I had a great deal of empathy for what’s happening there.”
Doctor Who sets a documentary special on the 20th anniversary of its revival era
March 26 marked the 20th anniversary of Russell T Davies and the BBC relaunching Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion Rose Tyler. Yet Davies, who is currently Doctor Who's showrunner, only realized recently that a documentary should be done to mark the anniversary. “It’s coming out late, because I was the one saying ‘let’s not do anything!’,” Davies laughed an interview with iO9. “And then quite late in the day I changed my mind! ‘Everyone’s talking about it, let’s do something!’. So we are.” Davies added: “There are some people watching this to who Ncuti is the Doctor—the number one, their Doctor, and so you’ve got to bear that in mind. That’s always been the case, for many years, to look for that new audience. So I actually thought it’d be a bit backward, be a bit heavy handed to (acknowledge)… and now we’re here and I’m kind of slightly kicking myself, because everyone seems to be full of joy about it!” Davies says the documentary will come out on BBC iPlayer in the UK and worldwide on Doctor Who‘s YouTube channel in the coming months as a lengthy episode of Doctor Who Unleashed.
Sarah Silverman sets her second Netflix standup special, focusing on the loss of her parents
Titled Postmortem, the May 20 special filmed at New York City's Beacon Theater will see Silverman finding humor in grieving her parents. This will be Silverman's second Netflix special, after 2017's Speck of Dust.
Kansas City Chiefs are reportedly pushing to become a fixture on Christmas Day
The Athletic reports that the Chiefs, which have played on the past two Christmas Days, want to become a Dec. 25 staple — like the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day.
Nine Perfect Strangers visits the Austrian alps in the first look at Season 2, premiering in May
Nicole Kidman returns as the enigmatic Masha Dmitrichenko in the second season of her Hulu series, joined by Henry Golding, Lena Olin, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Lucas Englander, King Princess, Murray Bartlett, Dolly de Leon, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Mark Strong and Aras Aydin. Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2 premieres May 21.
Fubar Season 2 gets a first look and premiere date
Arnold Schwarzenegger will be joined by newcomer Carrie-Ann Moss on his Netflix action-comedy series, which returns June 12.
Britain's Channel 4 mocks Trump's tariffs
"As retaliation for the Tariffs we will now be showing any American made TV show without the last five minutes," Channel 4 posted on social media. "Good luck finding out how Frasier got out of that one."
Nathan Fielder tries to get to the bottom of recent air disasters in The Rehearsal Season 2 trailer
Watch Fielder try to bring “role-playing exercises” to Federal Aviation Administration training. “I’ve been studying commercial-aviation disasters as a hobby, and I started to notice a disturbing pattern in the causes of these crashes,” says Fielder. The Rehearsal Season 2 premieres April 20 on HBO.
Phineas and Ferb revival gets a Disney premiere date and trailer
The animated series will return for a 10-episode new season on June 5 on Disney Channel and Disney XD. Two episodes will be released the first week, followed by a weekly release.
Apple TV+'s Jane unveils its final season trailer
The Dr. Jane Goodall-inspired educational series returns for its third and final season on April 18.