NBC Renews A.P. Bio & Loads Up on New Comedies

Well, it looks like we're in for a second helping of Mr. Griffin's non-learning learning of biology.

It was announced Tuesday by TVLine that NBC has renewed A.P. Bio for a second season. The Howerton (It's Always Sunny i Philadelphia) stars as sweater-loving philosoph professor Jacck Griffin, who's reduced to teaching a high school biology after losing out on his dream job. It also co-stars Patton Oswalt as weak-willed principal Ralph Durbib, along with Lric Lewis Mary Sohn and Jean Villepique as Jack's fellow teachers.

Created and executive produced by Mike O'Brien (SNL) and executive produced also by Seth Meyers (Late Night) and Lorne Michaels (SNL).

A.P. Bio premiered in February with a sneak preview, then got a special ratings boosted showcase following the closing of the Winter Olympics. Last week's season finale pulled just 2.1 million total viewers with a 0.6 demo rating, but the overall numbers were probably enough for NBC to order a second season. The network says that A.P. Bio has "one of the most highly educated audiences" on broadcast TV, ranking third among adults 18-49 with four or more years in college. So sees kids, school really does matter.

Also on Tuesday, NBC has ordered to series two new comedies: Amy Poehler EP'd "I Feel Bad" and "Abby's."

The single camera I Feel Bad stars Sarayu Blue (No Tomorrow) as Emet, a most imperfect mom, boss, wife, friend and daughter. The logline says "She feels bad when she has a sexy dream about someone other than her husbad (played by Paul Adelstein), or when she pretends not to know her kids when they misbehave in pubic, or when she uses her staff to help solve personal problems. But that's OD, right? Nobody can have it all and it perfectly."

The multi-cam Abby's, stars Natalie Morales (Parks and Recreation, The Grinder and Powerless) as the titular owner of "the best bar in San Diego, home to good prices, great company and of course, Abby. This unlicensed, makeshift bar nestled in her backyard is the opposite of everything annoying about today's party scene. There are rules at Abby's: no cell phones- that een to "look something up"- and earning a seat at the bar takes time and losing a challenge means drinking a lime, sugary, "not-beer" drink. As the oddball cast of regulars (which includes Neil Flynn from The Middle) will tell you, hanging out at Abby's is a coveted honor. But once you're in, you're family. Josh Malmuth (New Girl) is the showrunner/writer/EP.

The two new comedies have joined the three new dramas, New Amsterdam, The Enemy Within and The Village on NBC's roster for the 2018-2019 TV season. You can catch the full lineup when it is unveiled at the NBC's upfront presentation on Monday.

Place Your Bets Here!! Life In Pieces "Lingerie Cookbook Gamble Surrogate"

Place your bets! Here's who won the comedy pool of the funniest episode of this week's Life In Pieces!

Whether you had it or not, the first winner of the funniest story of this episode happens to be Tim and Tyler having to buy a bra for Sam after Heather ruined it in the washer. Awkward, but it couldn't be any funnier than how it turned out to be one of the most hilarious father-and-son bonds I could ever see.

The second comes in a tie with Jen and her cooking, who happens to know little, but when Joan asks for a recipe to put in her cook. But Greg helps by taking a recipe from a restaurant and applying it to Jen's family recipe with a heartbreaking story, which inspires Joan to get all the supplies and have Jen show her how it is done. When all set and done, it turns out that Jen can cook.

Also, who doesn't like betting with their grandfather?  It builds character as it helps Sam deal with her not going to a party and placing bets on what will happen at the party, but when she sees her best friend hugging someone else, she isn't too pleased. That did give John to fix the game as he called the cops on the party to make Sam happy, but she had to pay up, too.

Coming in last would be something that I would have thought was a good, solid story, but it turns out to be annoying as Matthew and Colleen try to help Colleen's sister steer her in the right direction of staying healthy by eating and not partying and eating junk food.

"Lingerie Cookbook Gamble Surrogate" was another excellent, hilarious episode that had some top moments and some that didn't. The performance from the cast was terrific, once again, and the writing was pretty good. Overall, I give this episode an 8,5/10.

You can catch Life in Pieces with its one-hour season finale on Thursday, May 17th at 9/8c on CBS.

It's Not True: Champions "Nepotism"

This week's episode Michael and Vince learns a good lesson in not favoring someone for a job.

"Nepotism" was another hilarious and brings both characters of Michael and Vince a bit closer in learning from each other. Learning that his play is picked to be shown at his school, Michael is full of joy about it but thinks that he's audition for the role that he wrote for himself shouldn't be audition for anyone else until someone did and Michael wasn't to happy.

Meanwhile, Vince, who's trying to find a way to find help, believes that Matthew can't help with other duties at the gym. Everyone thinks that he's favoring over his brother in given him a real helping job. And after realizing what he has been doing and given advice to Michael about not quieting his play, Vince gives Matthew a position of helping new members fill applications and maybe get someone to help with the gym classes.

This was another funny, strong character development episode given Michael and Vince dealing with about the same issue and helping each other. Whether it's the scenes of Ruby and Brittany begging Vince to get additional help because they are doing double duty to Vince threatening Michael to unquiet his play or he'll be kicked out of the house. Also I loved the scenes between Vince and Dana that seems to be something there than just a working relationship. The performances from the cast was amazing and the writing was so good. Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch Champions when they return Thursday, May 25th on NBC.

Set Back: A.P. Bio "Drenching Dallas" Season Finale

In the season finale, will Jack finally get what he had hoped for since the premiere? Here we go!

After taking the Miles' offer of taking his position at Stanford, Jack parades the school for one last time, but when he sees Colin get pranked by a girl, who asked him out to prom, he decides to help get revenge on her and the drum-line team. Just as they come up with great ideas to get back, Jack gets a call from Miles checking in and reminds him that he shouldn't do anything bad before moving to Stanford, which means he can't help the students' revenge.

Meanwhile, the teachers come up with a goodbye video for Jack at the prom, but when looking through clips they spot a ghost like figure, but they don't believe til Helen tells them the story of Beehive Bethany.

At the dance, the A.P. Bio students get ready for the revenge they've been looking for: to fake the king and queen ballots and Carrie their butts. But by the time it happened and Jack was given his short speech and the goodbye video plays, Jack gets a call from Miles and tells him that he got canned for being in a relationship online with a high school kid.  Which means Jack can't have the Stanford job because of Miles' recommendation and just as he gets the news, the bucket of pigs blood dumps on the king and queen and everyone runs out of the gym.

With a disappointing Jack walking back to school, he tells Durbin that he'll stay and walks back to his class, who thought that he had left for good. Sorry Sarika! But with no revenge plot to go on anymore, the Heather jumps to the chalkboard with a plan of her own to deport Miles. Soon it lefts Jack's spirit and takes down other people that done everyone wrong too even Jack (thanks Sarika!).

"Drenching Dallas" was very good and very much gave a nice closing end to the season, even though Jack didn't get what he wanted but his relationship with the students grown to even more. If there's a season 2 (which I hope there is) I hope it's about seeking revenge on those people they have listed on the board. That would be pretty good. The show has an amazing cast and the writing for the show is really good.

Overall, I give this episode a 9/10 and the season one a 8.5/10.

You can catch A.P. Bio available on NBC.com and NBC app.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 4 Trailer and Big News

On Thursday, Netflix has released a first look at the opening minutes of the comedy series' fourth season premiere (which debuts Wednesday, May 30), and in it, we see Ellie Kemper's Kimmy as she's starting her first day at work to the tune of an energetic, Mary Tyler Moore-style theme song (that is sung by co-star Jane Kraskowski). Kimmy even tosses her hat in the air (just like Mary Richards) but it gets stuck in a tree along with a dozen others.

Kimmy's the new HR manager at Giztoob, a hip tech start-up where she hands out unwanted hig-fives and hugs to he fellow co-workers, which includes the robot C.H.E.R.Y.L. But her job isn't as easy as her boss, Zach, informs her that she'll have to fire an employee for being late, and to fix the scratchy record player, while she's at it.

But there is word Thursday from Deadline that the upcoming Season 4 of Kimmy Schmidt will end its run, but a finale movie is in the works to wrap up an loose ends.

The movie will be reportedly be written by Kimmy co-creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock following the production on Season 4, which will be releasing its first six of it's 13 episodes on Wednesday, May 30 with the second half to stream later this year.

Gut-wrenching: Chicago PD "Allegiance"

With Al arrested, does Voight have one more card up his sleeve to help his old partner?

Just like the previous episode, "Allegiance" puts Voight in between situations one being the case of the week of a undercover gun take down and Al getting arrested that puts much stress to his ability. With Atwater and Halstead going undercover to take down a gun deal that left Atwater in a tight situation between brothers, who one of them had to kill in order to make their boss accept and do the deal, but when telling Voight about it, he just replies to Atwater to whatever you had to do to get it done. For which, they did.

But it was the Al story that might have stolen the episode and Voight trying his best to get him out and drop the charges. Using one last card, asking Tommy Wells to take role of the judging for Al. With Al staying in jail, his wife trying to get him to tell the truth and not stand by the code, and the meeting between Voight and Al's wife wasn't pleasant at all. But by the time the bail sentencing, Wells was a no show, knowing that Woods had something to do with it.

Back at the Intelligence, Voight returns stunned and being asked by Antonio about what they could do, but Voight provokes and pushes him and them away while he goes to his office and takes a drink and thinking. It leads to him walking up to Woods' home and wanted to talk. But by the time he get there, Al gets a surprise of someone stabbing him in the stomach multiple times leaving him to bleed out and to be continued. 

"Allegiance" was a strong character driven episode arc for Voight of his downfall from Woods, who's power is taking him to greater lengths than anyone before. The episode really accelerate to intense and emotional moments, mostly to Voight whether it's trying to take down this gun deal with gang members or dealing with Al's case. I would be surprised if Voight really confess to his doing of that suspect, mainly because I think he might have one last move, but what would I know it's been five seasons and I'm still surprised at times. The episode lives to the hype after the previous episode. Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch the season finale of Chicago PD next Wednesday at 10/9c on NBC.

Overwhelming: Chicago Med "This Is Now"

A massive park shooting turns Med into a war zone of treating and saving with everyone they have with everything they've got.

"This Is Now" turns into one hour of intense, emotional fast pace episode that they haven't really done since last season's blizzard episode. But in this case, this was like five times as big with everyone at Med trying treat victims of a park shooting who can be saved and quickly move on to the next one. Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Natalie deals with the thought that her son, Owe, might have been there during the shooting and tries to make the calls to her babysitter but no word and Jay was busy trying to find the shooter, who happens to be in the hospital with a severe neck wound but is saved by Rhodes.

Meanwhile, #Manstead fans would be all in the happiest moment when Will made some calls and went to get Owen and brought him over to Natalie. After seeing and hugging her child, all three were together hugging.

After what felt like three months of non stop action, the situation gone down and Goodwin tells the hospital lawyer that her demands of a new CT scanner is not enough of what they have just gone though and asked to more than CT scans and even a bigger ED to handle a massive causality.

This was one of the best action episodes since last season, with such driven and fast pace stories from one character to another.  It brought me back to the days of ER. Putting characters into situations that they are not normally felt comfortable, that goes for Latham who had to perform surgery in the doctor's lounge in the ED. Even the event put not only put April overwhelmed but even Ethan, who was shaken up after. Overall, I give this episode a 9.5/10.

You can catch Chicago Med Tuesday at 10/9c on NBC.