‘This is Us’: NBC Family Drama Gets a Full-Season Order

Last updated on: September 27, 2016 at 3:43 pm by Kate O'Hare

‘This is Us’: NBC Family Drama Gets a Full-Season Order 2016-09-27T15:43:06-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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One of the few bright lights this fall season — aside from Fox’s so-far-promising “The Exorcist” and NBC’s “The Good Place,” which I’ll discuss later — is NBC’s “This Is Us.”

Created by Dan Fogelman (“Galavant,” “Tangled,” “Crazy, Stupid Love”), it premiered last week and airs its second episode tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Here’s how NBC describes it:

Sometimes life will surprise you. Starring Mandy Moore (“A Walk to Remember”), Milo Ventimiglia (“Heroes,” “Gilmore Girls”) and Sterling K. Brown (“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”), this refreshingly honest and provocative series follows a unique ensemble. As their paths cross and their life stories intertwine in curious ways, we find that several of them share the same birthday and so much more than anyone would expect. From the writer and directors of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” comes a smart, modern dramedy that will challenge your everyday presumptions about the people you think you know.

Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Chris Sullivan, Susan Kelechi Watson and Ron Cephas Jones also star.

I don’t want to say too much more, in case you haven’t seen the pilot yet (which you can do here). But I will say that it’s charming, surprising, touching and warmhearted. Also, without moralizing or preaching, it’s very pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family (at least based on the pilot).

It focuses not only on parents raising children, but on thirtysomething adult siblings at crisis points in their lives, trying to find a positive way forward.

The pilot — stay with it until the very end, and pay close attention along the way — did well enough in the ratings that NBC gave the show a full-season order today, for a total of 18 episodes. This makes it the first freshman drama of the season to get a full-season pickup.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

“We are thrilled. This order for a complete first season of 18 episodes is exactly what we’d wanted and hoped for,” said executive producer Dan Fogelman. “We’d carefully mapped out an 18-chapter story for the first year of the show, and this allows us to follow through with our exact initial intent. And to get the order so early on is a tremendous show of confidence and a boost for our entire cast and crew. I’m starting to sound like a broken record but I have to thank Dana, Gary, Jonnie, Howard and my amazing partners at 20th as well as Bob and Jen and the fine folks at NBC for continuing to do absolutely everything right by me and this show. I’d gush more but I have to go back to work.”

NBC has been my least-favorite broadcast network for quite a while now — probably since it canceled “Friday Night Lights.” But if “This Is Us” lives up to the promise of its pilot, it may be a worthy successor to “Parenthood” as a drama that is realistic but not cynical, and that ultimately celebrates the messy joy of being family.

https://youtu.be/rfUiKg28r_M

Image: Courtesy NBC

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