Finally, a decision has been made: The Carmichael Show will get to tackle tough topics and laugh it up for at least one more season.
In a renewal that came down to the wire, NBC has ordered a third season of Jerrod Carmichael’s multi-camera family comedy. Season 3 will number 13 total episodes.
While the ratings weren’t massive, the show did grow its audience in season 2, averaging 5.4 million viewers per episode and a 1.3 rating in the 18–49 demographic (including DVR playback). Carmichael emerged as last summer’s surprise network comedy success, and has since reinforced its status as a buzzy, critical darling while earning raves from a man who knows his provocative family comedies, All in The Family creator Norman Lear. Starring Carmichael, David Alan Grier, Loretta Devine, Amber Stevens West, Lil Rey Howard, and Tiffany Haddish, the series stands as one of network TV’s most fearless comedies, routinely unpacking complex topics ranging from race to religion gender identity to gentrification. Earlier this year, an episode that tackled the Bill Cosby controversy scored high praise from critics.
The season 2 finale, which is slated to air May 29, explores the uproar surrounding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, as a family member decides to vote for the presumptive Republican nominee.
With Telenovela and Undateable receiving the ax, NBC’s only renewed comedies are The Carmichael Show and America Ferrera’s Superstore. The network has ordered the following new comedies for next season: Powerless, a comedy set in the DC Comics universe; the small-town legal comedy Trial & Error, featuring John Lithgow; Great News, the Tina Fey-produced, mother-daughter comedy set at a TV station; the Marlon Wayans-starring family comedy Marlon; and The Good Place, a series from Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur that stars Ted Danson and Kristen Bell. Of those series, only The Good Place will air this fall.
The pick-up of The Carmichael Show caps a busy Sunday for NBC, which announced its fall schedule earlier in the day. At the time, NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt said he had hoped for a positive resolution with Carmichael’s show, noting the divide was on total number of episodes. “I was hoping we’d have [the decision] by now, we’re going back and forth with the studio about the number of episodes and haven’t come to terms on that but hopefully we will,” he said.
For more coverage of NBC’s fall plans, head here.