Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan is at SCAD TVfest previewing new shows like Disney+’s American Born Chinese, True Lies on CBS, and Not Dead Yet and Will Trent on ABC.
SCAD TVfest featured many of TV’s hottest new shows, including recent 2023 premieres like ABC’s Not Dead Yet and Will Trent, the upcoming TV reboot of True Lies on CBS, and American Born Chinese on Disney+ coming out this spring.
Not Dead Yet on ABC
Hot off the presses (quite literally—it premiered last Wednesday) is ABC’s Not Dead Yet, starring Gina Rodriguez as Nell, an obituary writer who sees dead people. The delightful new series has an old-fashioned charm to it and an easy chemistry among the cast, which includes Lauren Ash (Superstore) and Josh Banday (Upload).
“We all just kind of slid into a real camaraderie and real friendship, and I think that informed the characters more,” said Ash, who plays Rodriguez’s rival, Lexi.
“It felt like more of a family reunion,” said Banday, who plays Dennis on the series. “These are people that you already automatically love. The first time I met Gina, we had plans to do archery. . .and edibles, which would have happened, but she got pregnant and it didn’t happen.”
“We’re gonna have to replan that,” said Ash.
The sitcom is based on the book from Alexandra Potter called Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, a limited-release book in the same spirit as Bridget Jones’ Diary.
“I’ve always gravitated toward female-centric stories for whatever reason,” said show co-creator David Windsor. “The book was really wonderful, and we enjoyed it and were trying to figure out how to make it a show, what could make it stand out from all the other shows.”
“In the book, she doesn’t see the dead people that she’s writing about,” added co-creator Casey Johnson. “When we were trying to figure out how to take this really good story and these great characters, [we asked] what if she sees them and they’re following her around? It just all came together as a show.”
Executive producers Dean Holland and Corey Marsh were also taken in by the book, especially its title.
“I said, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I have to read that,'” said Marsh. “This is a really universal story of someone having to star their life over. It’s really a story about rebuilding.”
And who hasn’t been rebuilding their life following going through a global pandemic—something the show acknowledges. In fact, it was even pitched on a Zoom call.
“It was nice to at least mention it and say, ‘oh, that was a thing we went through’,” said Holland regarding COVID. “It does create something more realistic. This is something we all had to live through. Why gloss over it and act like it never happened?”
American Born Chinese on Disney+
At FORTY event space, SCAD TVfest showcased some “First Look” clips from the upcoming American Born Chinese on Disney+, which is highly anticipated for a number of reasons, including having not one but three Academy Award nominees from Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu).
“We demanded three Oscar nominees,” joked showrunner Kelvin Yu. “No, we were lucky enough to get a hold of a great director, Destin Daniel Cretton, and he basically picked up the phone and helped us get some incredible talent. Through that, he’s been friends with Michelle for years. Little by little, we collected this all-star team.”
The team includes some fresh faces in the form of Ben Wang and Sydney Taylor.
“Jin’s the character you follow through this meandering tale of mythological gods and adolescence and all of that,” said Wang. “He’s an awkward little kid who’s trying his best.”
And he has a thing for Amelia.
“Initially, she seems like this perfect all-American girl,” said Taylor, “but that’s not quite all of her.”
Familiar faces include Daniel Wu (AMC’s Into the Badlands) who plays the monkey king.
“He’s a legendary character in Asian folklore,” said Wu, “but this is a new take on the character. He’s a little bit older now; he’s a father. He has a son that reminds him of himself and he’s trying to figure out what to do with this unruly son.”
True Lies on CBS
SCAD TVfest also screened the CBS TV reboot of True Lies as part of its Gala Series Premiere Screening. Filmed in Georgia, True Lies stars Steve Howey in the Arnold Schwarzenegger role and the criminally underrated Ginger Gonzaga as his long-suffering wife, originally played by Academy Award nominee Jamie Leigh Curtis.
The show has all of the hallmarks to a successful CBS show, including the freewheeling use of technology (I enjoyed when Howey’s Harry puts the helicopter in auto pilot to tend to his wife dangling from the edge), a ragtag group of co-workers all on the same mission, and being based on a well-known IP. It’s always a treat to see Omar Benson Miller on screen, and his take on Tom Arnold’s Gib is a refreshing upgrade from the original character who was peak Tom Arnold in all of his Tom Arnold-ness (only those who lived through the ’90s will understand).
True Lies premieres on CBS on March 1.
Will Trent on ABC
ABC’s Will Trent hasn’t been out long, but it’s already a ratings hit for the network. Executive producer Daniel T. Thomsen said the reviews have been reflective of what they set out to do when creating the series.
“There was one review that talked about how the show goes out of its way to not just show the cops and investigators as heroes,” said Thomsen. “Sometimes they stumble and just have a really bad day. [Co-creator] Liz (Heldens) and I always try to lead with character, and it makes the characters a little bit messier than I think what’s normally in this format.”
Crime shows have been immensely popular in recent years, and crime writer Karin Slaughter, who wrote the book series on which ABC’s Will Trent is based, thinks the appreciation for the genre can be a bit therapeutic for fans.
“That’s my favorite thing to read,” said Slaughter. “I think for a lot of readers, it can be a bit cathartic, particularly as a woman reading these stories and knowing as a woman a lot of times there’s not a happy ending. It feels nice to know that Will (Ramón Rodríguez) and Faith (Iantha Richardson) are going to solve the crime and the bad guy’s going to get caught and everyone’s going to live to see another day.”
Sonja Sohn, who plays Amanda Wagner, has a lot of experience playing cops throughout her career, most notably as Kima on HBO’s The Wire, but she says there’s another avenue that has really helped with her understanding of law enforcement.
“Does [frequently playing cops] give me some sort of advantage when I approach a new law enforcement character?” said Sohn. “Possibly. It means I’m familiar with the world. I think my experience directing documentaries about law enforcement (The Slow Hustle, Baltimore Rising) and being in the environment from the inside has actually helped me a lot more recently in terms of my work. But also these characters are all different.”
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