Ultimately, it was that very longstanding Fox relationship that got “Accused” to the airwaves. “I was a little bit swimming upstream on this one,” Gordon, 61, told IndieWire. Even with Gordon’s résumé, it wasn’t easy. “Night Court” was cracking up all of our parents and their friends, Howard Gordon was a lowly writer on “Spenser: For Hire.” Lots of Fox hits and one “Homeland” later, Gordon found himself pitching his new anthology series “Accused” all over town. Rubin says his parents and their friends like his new show more than his long-running ABC sitcom “Happy Endings,” where the characters talked “too fast.”īack when O.G.

Older Americans, the kind who might gravitate toward new “Night Court,” appreciate that. Other hacks: To attract the largest possible audience - and appease an in-person studio audience - go broad with the humor. There’s no guarantee for a hit, of course, but it’s a shortcut. Reviving I.P., as Rubin did, creates an automatic blip on the radar. Nowadays? “You’ll hear about a show that people are talking about, and it’s not even on your radar,” he said. “Like, every new network show, whether I was super interested in it or not. “I remember checking out everything,” the 41-year-old Rubin recalled of his decade-ago viewing habits. John Larroquette returned as Dan Fielding in NBC’s “Night Court” sequel series - Credit: Jordin Althaus/NBC/Warner Bros. There were 599 scripted series in 2022, and you can watch most of them anytime you want - if you can find them. Two weeks later, “Night Court” was renewed for a second season.Ĭompared to the Season 4 peak of the original “Night Court” that averaged 20.3 million viewers per episode, 7.4 million viewers sounds far less impressive - but streaming has fragmented audiences beyond all recognition and made appointment TV is almost extinct. “Night Court” launched to 7.4 million total viewers on January 17, marking the largest comedy-series premiere on broadcast since ABC’s “The Conners” in 2018 (and NBC’s best since “Will & Grace” returned in 2017). It’s also booked the show’s recognizable TV stars, Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) and the returning John Larroquette, on every talk show that will take them. Today’s pilot process is less centralized than in olden times, but the general rollout remains: Introduce new shows at May’s upfronts, debut them in the fall.īeyond the name and the iconic set, Rubin’s “Night Court” also enjoys what he called an “old-school network push.” NBC gave the new “Night Court” the full billboard and bus-ad treatment. These days, we have summer originals, straight-to-series orders, smaller episode counts a midseason premiere is no longer a sign of desperation. This is not the heyday of broadcast TV, but there’s always room for a hit like Fox’s “Accused,” NBC’s “Night Court,” and CBS’ “Fire Country.” The path to making it from idea to air is both similar and different.

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