Renewed: ‘People of Earth,’ ‘Search Party’ Comedy Series on TBS
TBS has renewed a spate of its comedy shows for another season, including the new shows like “People of Earh” and “Search Party,” “Wrecked” and “Angie Tribeca.” Read on for the network’s full press release.
Turner’s TBS ends an impressive and transformative year with renewals of all six of its 2016 scripted comedies. The network today announced 10-episode season 2 renewals of its two most recent critically acclaimed comedies, People of Earth and Search Party, which join the network’s previous 2016 renewals of Angie Tribeca, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Detour and Wrecked, in addition to comedy mainstays Conan and American Dad!
SEARCH PARTY
To reach younger viewers Search Party launched with a unique binge of the entire first season over Thanksgiving week, drawing more than 1.1M viewers per episode across all platforms over five days and growing. The show performed especially strong with millennials with 18% of its audience in the adults 18-34 demo.
On VOD Search Party was the fastest TBS original to reach 1M views and delivered the youngest, most diverse audience of any TBS original. The dark comedy about a group of 20-something New Yorkers has garnered a 100% Fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com, and landed on best of 2016 lists including Vanity Fair, Vulture, Yahoo!, Daily Beast, The Guardian and more. The complete first season of Search Party is now avai lable on tbs.com, TBS On Demand and the Watch TBS mobile app. Another binge of the entire first season is scheduled to premiere during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
PEOPLE OF EARTH
Since premiering Halloween night, People of Earth has ranked one of the year’s Top 10 new cable comedies among adults 18-49 and is currently reaching 4.3 million viewers per episode across all platforms. The series has continued to grow throughout the season, with episode seven hitting a season high up 28 percent vs. the season average. People of Earth, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) from Emmy(R) winners Conan O’Brien and Greg Daniels, along with creator David Jenkins stars an ensemble cast led by Wyatt Cenac as a reporter investigating a support group for alien abductees.
“Twelve months ago we set out to reimagine the TBS brand and its place in the TV landscape. To end 2016 with all six shows returning is humbling,” said Brett Weitz, executive vice president of original programming for TBS. “The amazing teams behind People of Earth and Search Party have created complex, funny characters and crafted truly distinctive stories. Renewing both shows is the perfect end to a transformative year for TBS.”
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TBS began its extensive and highly successful brand evolution in January with the 25-hour binge-a-thon of the police procedural spoof Angie Tribeca, starring Rashida Jones and executive-produced by Steve and Nancy Carell. The success continued in February with the launch of TBS’s new late-night powerhouse Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which has since become one of the strongest voices on the political front this election year. In March, TBS debuted The Detour, an often too honest look at family dynamics created by star Jason Jones. Wrecked, a comedy from newcomers Jordan and Justin Shipley about a group of airplane passengers stranded on an island, launched at the beginning of the summer and quickly moved to the top of the comedy charts. With People of Earth and Search Party added to the mix, TBS is on track to finish 2016 with six of the year’s Top 20 new comedies on cable with adults 18-49.
Looking ahead, The Detour is set to start its second season in February, followed by the third season of Angie Tribeca in the spring, the second seasons of Wrecked and Search Party in the summer and the second season of People of Earth later in the year. In addition, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee will continue its weekly look at news and issues as it moves to a new night, Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. (ET/PT), starting January 11. Those shows will be joined in 2017 by the new comedy anthology The Guest Book.
From Emmy(R) winners Conan O’Brien (Conan) and Greg Daniels (The Office) and creator David Jenkins comes TBS’s People of Earth, a brand new comedy series about a support group for alien “experiencers.” The show’s ensemble cast includes three-time Emmy winner Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show, Wyatt Cenac: Brooklyn), Ana Gasteyer (Saturday Night Live, Suburgatory), Oscar Nunez (The Office, Benched), Michael Cassidy (Argo, Men at Work), Alice Wetterlund (The Interview, Silicon Valley), Luka Jones (Her, The Campaign), Brian Huskey (Neighbors, This Is the End), Nancy Lenehan ( The New Adventures of Old Christine, Catch Me if You Can), Tracee Chimo (Orange is the New Black, The Five-Year Engagement), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Selfie, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn), Bjorn Gustafsson (Spy, Kung Fury) and Ken Hall (Patch Town, Straight Man).
People of Earth centers on skeptical journalist Ozzie Graham (Wyatt Cenac) who investigates a support group to write about the members’ supposed alien encounters. The more he digs into their oddball claims, however, the more he realizes a semblance of truth to their stories and, possibly, even signs that point to his own alien abduction. The onetime outsider now finds himself a part of this eclectic group of misfits, all the while struggling with the idea of knowing that life could exist beyond our world. Gina Morrison (Ana Gasteyer), a part-time therapist, runs the support group, which meets in the community room of Our Lady of Sorrows in the small town of Beacon, renting the space through Father Doug (Oscar Nunez).
Produced by Conaco LLC in association with Warner Horizon Television, People of Earth airs Mondays at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on TBS.
TBS’s Search Party is a dark comedy about four self-absorbed 20-somethings who become entangled in an ominous mystery when a former college acquaintance named Chantal suddenly disappears. Led by Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), the cast of Search Party features an ensemble of young comic actors, including John Early, John Reynolds, Meredith Hagner and Brandon Micheal Hall. The entire first season of Search Party is available for binging through TBS On Demand, the TBS mobile app and tbs.com, as well as through the apps and sites for TBS’s partner television providers.
Search Party centers on Dory (Shawkat), a fragile, frustrated, life-long doormat who’s not particularly proud of her impact on the world, especially since her greatest accomplishment to date is organizing clothes to be donated to Goodwill for her wealthy employer. Dory feels stuck in a stale and disconnected relationship with her boyfriend, Drew (Reynolds), a kind of clueless, complacent, spoon-fed doofus who just really loves Christmas. She also feels removed from her closest friends, Elliott (Early), a self-diagnosed narcissist who loves adding job titles to his designer-stylist-curator multi-hyphenate lifestyle, and Portia (Hagner), an actress always struggling to balance the challenging demands of chronic insecurity and pathological self-absorption.
Search Party opens with Dory learning that Chantal, a girl she barely knew in college, has gone missing. Despite having almost no personal connection to her, Dory becomes fixated on the mystery. Dory, Drew, Elliott, and Portia are not crime solvers. They value brunch, parties, and their own loud opinions. So when Dory drags her three friends, along with her journalist ex-boyfriend Julian (Hall), into a bumbling, perilous pursuit to find the missing girl, they soon learn the meaning of real danger and become entangled in a sinister plot that is more than their privileged Brooklyn lifestyles ever bargained for.
Search Party is executive-produced by Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name Is Doris, Wet Hot American Summer), along with Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, whose credits include the 2014 SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Award-winning feature film Fort Tilden and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. Tony Hernandez (Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, Louie) and Lilly Burns (Broad City, Difficult People, Younger) also serve as executive producers. Turner’s Studio T is producing Search Party, in association with Jax Media.
About TBS
TBS, a division of Turner, is basic cable’s #1 network with young adults and home to six of the year’s most popular new comedies on cable, including Angie Tribeca, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Detour, Wrecked, People of Earth and Search Party. Upcoming comedies include The Guest Book and Tarantula, as well as the digital animated series Storyville. TBS also presents late-night comedy in the form of CONAN, starring Conan O’Brien, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and will soon launch the competition series Drop the Mic. In addition, the TBS lineup includes popular comedy hits like Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls; blockbuster movies; and live coverage of Major League Ba seball’s regular and post-season play, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and ELEAGUE, Turner’s brand new eSports gaming league.
Turner, a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, sports, animation and young adult multi-platform content for consumers around the world. Turner brands and businesses include CNN/U.S., HLN, CNN International and CNN.com, TBS, TNT, TCM, truTV, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, Turner Sports, Bleacher Report, FilmStruck, Super Deluxe, iStreamPlanet and ELEAGUE.
