--- title: Few Comedies on NBC's Fall Schedule description: Once home to Seinfeld, The Office and Cheers, the Peacock will air the fewest comedies in ages. canonical: https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/ author: James Poniewozik article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-11T18:36:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T07:06:16.335Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Few Comedies on NBC's Fall Schedule og:description: Once home to Seinfeld, The Office and Cheers, the Peacock will air the fewest comedies in ages. og:url: https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff0204c2555bfd8/6987ef44e53aba60e94dbc55/nup_167994_0763.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris - Season 1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Few Comedies on NBC's Fall Schedule twitter:description: Once home to Seinfeld, The Office and Cheers, the Peacock will air the fewest comedies in ages. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff0204c2555bfd8/6987ef44e53aba60e94dbc55/nup_167994_0763.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Upfronts Watch: NBC's Schedule, Not Much to Laugh About by [James Poniewozik](https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik May 11, 2015 6:36 PM UTC  Harris, host of NBC's new variety show Best Time Ever Harris, host of NBC's new variety show Best Time EverRobert Trachtenberg/NBC by [James Poniewozik](https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik May 11, 2015 6:36 PM UTC NBC, ancient, storied, its halls full of ghosts, is the network that benefits most from, and is burdened most by, its history. At events like this week’s upfronts–where networks announce their fall schedules for advertisers–it likes to remind us how many of our fondest TV memories started there. But it also means that when it slips up or runs into trouble, whatever it does is treated as a sign of The Troubles of TV Today because, well, it’s NBC. So on the one hand, the fact that NBC announced a fall schedule with only two sitcoms–a live version of _Undateable_ and the new _People Are Talking_–doesn’t sum up the state of comedy everywhere. ABC had a strong year with the debuts of _blackish_ and _Fresh Off the Boat_, and there’s plenty of comedy on cable. On the other hand: only one measly hour of comedy, on the home of _Seinfeld_ and _Cheers_, and that on the dead zone of Friday night. A few years ago, NBC talked about how it was changing its tack with comedy, stepping back from clever-but-niche comedies (like _Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt_, now streaming on Netflix) to broader, more “mass” comedies (like _Bad Judge_, now airing nowhere). Now it’s mostly stepped back from doing comedy at all. (The network has several comedies for midseason, but who knows when they will air or how well the network will commit to them.) The result is a fall schedule full of shows that work for NBC now (_The Voice_); shows that resemble shows that work for NBC now (_Chicago Med_, successor to _Chicago PD_ and _Chicago Fire_, and precursor, I assume, to _Chicago Gas & Electric_ and _Chicago Dept. of Zoning_); and shows that used to work for NBC in the past (_Heroes Reborn_). The other new series include _Blindspot_, a mystery-thriller with a bit of a _Blacklist_ feel; _Heartbreaker_, another medical drama; and _The Player_, with Wesley Snipes in an action drama about a security expert in Las Vegas. You can [see trailers from the new series online](http://www.nbc.com/new-show-trailers-2015-2016). They may be very good or may be very bad, it’s hard, at first description, to get very excited about any of them. And hey, can I blame them? NBC’s first job is to get ratings, not to excite me, and it has at least climbed out of the fourth-place subbasement it occupied when the network aired comedies that I watched. And while NBC’s sitcoms may be sparse in the fall, there is at least one new show that promises an intriguing experiment and ideally some laughs: Neil Patrick Harris’ variety show _Best Time Ever_. Still, NBC’s bet on NPH and the variety format seems a little tentative. Rather than give it a primo spot on the schedule, say immediately after _The Voice_, it will air Tuesdays through November at 10 p.m.–an oddly late slot for variety shows, which have usually gone earlier to grab an all-ages audience. Maybe NPH’s comedy will be racier; maybe NBC feels _Heartbreaker_ (which gets the _Voice_ lead-in) is a better investment. Either way, _Best Time Ever_ may or may not laugh best, but NBC’s scheduling has ensured that it will at least laugh last. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/"},"headline":"Upfronts Watch: NBC's Schedule, Not Much to Laugh About","datePublished":"2015-05-11T18:36:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:06:16.335Z","description":"Once home to Seinfeld, The Office and Cheers, the Peacock will air the fewest comedies in ages.","url":"https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/","keywords":["Television","Comedy","NBC","upfronts","American Voices"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff0204c2555bfd8/6987ef44e53aba60e94dbc55/nup_167994_0763.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Poniewozik","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff0204c2555bfd8/6987ef44e53aba60e94dbc55/nup_167994_0763.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris - Season 1","caption":"Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris - Season 1","creditText":"Robert Trachtenberg/NBC","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3854300/nbc-upfronts-comedy-nph/","name":"Upfronts Watch: NBC's Schedule, Not Much to Laugh About"}}]}] ```