‘Archive 81’ Star Dina Shihabi on That Family Secret, How Melody and Dan Could Connect in a Season 2

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC has finally set the premiere for the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul” — as well as the second half of the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul” — after teasing fans mercilessly with the information earlier this week. As an added bonus, the cable channel also revealed first-look images from the sixth season (see above) and unveiled upcoming digital series set in the “Breaking Bad” prequel’s universe.On Thursday, AMC announced that the seven-episode Part 1 of “Better Call Saul” Season 6 will premiere on April 18 at 9 p.m. ET.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAmanda Seyfried doesn’t think she nailed the iconic deep voice of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes for Hulu’s upcoming limited series “The Dropout” — but she did her “best to try to capture the oddness of it.”“The shape of my mouth isn’t the same as hers, but I can make sounds somewhat or pretty close to what she did,” Seyfried, who plays the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire on the Hulu show, said during a virtual panel at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour Tuesday. “And that’s my job as an actor, mimicking and stuff like that.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Child Care,” Monday’s episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”Baby made three for Judd (Jim Parrack) and Grace (Sierra McClain) on last week’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” — and on Monday’s episode, an estranged teen son and his mother made five. Totally unbeknownst to Judd and Grace, he had a son Wyatt (Jackson Pace) with Marlene Harris (Robyn Lively), a barrel racer he can hardly remember having met at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo in 2005.On Monday’s “9-1-1: Lone Star,” that boy comes to find Judd with the help of an online DNA ancestry website and Judd and Grace, just getting the hang of taking care of newborn daughter Charlie following her birth at the tail end of the Fox drama’s weeks-long ice-storm plot.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBC Sports says 16 million viewers tuned in to watch the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, an all-time low for Olympic ceremonies on linear television.That’s around 43% down compared to the 28.3 million viewers that watched the PyeongChang Winter Olympics opening ceremony in February 2018.Friday’s torch-lighting in Beijing aired live on NBC and the streaming service Peacock beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET yesterday morning and was replayed again in primetime.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterHulu has delayed “The Orville” Season 3 premiere from March until June, but released the first few minutes of footage from the new season as fans’ conciliation prize while they wait even longer for the return of the former Fox show.“To all The Orville fans: Thanks for being so patient with us as we’ve navigated the production challenges resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” “The Orville” creator and star Seth MacFarlane said in a statement tweeted Friday. “As occasionally happens, our show has been repositioned amidst the ever-changing television schedule landscape, which means that the wait will be just a bit longer, and we’re now preparing for a June 2nd launch on Hulu.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe Pearson family will be hitting the bench for a few weeks as the final season of “This Is Us” is bumped from NBC’s primetime schedule — along with all of the network’s other regularly slated comedies and dramas —  to bring in the Beijing Winter Olympics.While many “This Is Us” fans may not want to part with new episodes of the show in favor of figure-skating, curling and bobsledding competitions from Feb. 2-20, those viewers should know they were going to lose the Pearsons for three weeks this season, with or without the 2022 Olympics.“We don’t love having it off for two weeks [during the Olympics], but those two weeks would have been repeats or preempts anyway, because there’s 18 episodes and 21 weeks,” Steve Kern, head of scheduling for NBC, told Variety. “And so it actually helps us.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterStarz dropped the first teaser for its Sean Penn and Julia Roberts-led Watergate limited series “Gaslit” on Wednesday, revealing the actors’ on-screen transformations into Attorney General John Mitchell, President Richard Nixon’s most trusted advisor and best friend, and his whistleblower wife Martha Mitchell.Also announced was the show’s premiere date, which Starz has set for Sunday, April 24 at 9 p.m., the pay TV channel said during its Wednesday presentation at the virtual Television Critics Association press tour.Executive produced by Sam Esmail, “Gaslit” is a modern take on Watergate that focuses on the untold stories and forgotten characters of the scandal — from Nixon’s bumbling and opportunistic subordinates, to the deranged zealots aiding and abetting their crimes, to the tragic whistleblowers who would eventually bring the whole rotten enterprise crashing down, per Starz. Along with Penn (who rattled production with his insistence on strict enforcement of COVID-19 vaccine mandates on set) and Roberts, “Gaslit” also stars Dan Stevens (who replaced Armie Hammer on the series) as John Dean, Betty Gilpin as Mo Dean, Shea Whigham as G.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe “V.C. Verse” has found its official home at A+E Networks.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Lucifer” star Tom Ellis has joined the cast of Hulu’s Sterling K. Brown-led “Washington Black” limited series in the role of steam-punk inventor Christopher “Titch” Wilde.Described as an epic nine-episode adventure series based on Esi Edugyan’s novel of the same name, “Washington Black” follows the extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe second season of “Euphoria” is a dream for HBO. Over the first three installments of its second season, the Zendaya-led drama has nearly doubled its Season 1 per-episode viewership, Variety has learned exclusively.The “Euphoria” Season 2 premiere, which first aired Jan. 9, has drawn 13.1 million viewers across multiple HBO and HBO Max to date, with Episodes 2 and 3 tracking similarly, per HBO.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“9-1-1” and spinoff “9-1-1: Lone Star” will be reunited on Fox’s Monday primetime lineup when the O.G. show comes back from hiatus in March. When the two are once again airing in the back-to-back 8 and 9 p.m.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus has renewed its revival of “The Game” for Season 2.Starring Wendy Raquel Robinson and Hosea Chanchez, the show is a continuation of the-CW-network-and-later-BET-show of the same name. “A modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football,” “The Game” follows the team as they face racism, classism and more, all while fighting for fame, fortune, respect and love.“The Game” revival also stars Adriyan Rae, Vaughn Hebron, Analisa Velez and Toby Sandeman.The first iteration of “The Game” debuted on The CW in 2006.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Push,” Monday’s episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”We did it, “9-1-1: Lone Star” fans. On Monday, the Fox drama finally made it to the end of the four-episode ice storm arc that kicked off its third season, and turned viewers into nervous puddles of emotion for a month. In the epic fourth-hour climax came three very big moments: The birth of Grace (Sierra McClain) and Judd’s (Jim Parrack) baby girl; the recovery of T.K.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC Networks has renewed its multiyear distribution deal with Comcast.Under the continued agreement, AMC Networks’ linear channels — AMC, We TV, BBC America, IFC, and SundanceTV — and streaming service AMC Plus will remain available to Comcast Cable’s Xfinity TV, broadband and XClass customers. Additionally, the pact covers expanded availability of AMC Networks’ other targeted streaming services — Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, Allblk and the recently acquired Hidive — to Comcast users.Among this year’s upcoming content offerings from AMC Networks are the final seasons of “The Walking Dead,” “Killing Eve” and “Better Call Saul,” as well as the launch of new shows “61st Street,” “Dark Winds,” “Tales of the Walking Dead,” “Moonhaven” and the first two series in its Anne Rice TV universe, “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” and “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.” “We are excited to continue and also expand our longstanding partnership with Comcast through a new agreement that includes not only continued carriage of our cable networks, but also our fast-growing targeted streaming services including AMC+, which was made available first to Xfinity customers,” Josh Reader, president of distribution and development for AMC Networks, said.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterFox revealed a first look at some of the costumes for “The Masked Singer” Season 7 during the network’s telecast of the NFL’s NFC Championship game on Sunday, with a promo showing six competitors from the season’s three groupings: The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly.The specific classifications are a new touch, seeing as “The Masked Singer” has only referred to a season’s groups by an assigned letter (i.e. Group A) throughout its first six seasons.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterComcast reported its fourth-quarter 2021 earnings Thursday, beating Wall Street’s expectations on both revenue and earnings. NBCUniversal revenue was $9.338 billion, up 25.6% from the previous year’s Q4.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterCBS is bringing the funny to a larger audience than its broadcast competition this season with eight of the top 10 most-watched comedies belonging to channel that’s home to “Young Sheldon.” And yes, “Young Sheldon” is by far the most-watched of that group.Out of the 34 comedy titles that have aired across ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW at this point during the 2021-2022 season, a tally that includes repeats of the broadcasters’ sitcoms, CBS has the six most-watched all to itself: “Young Sheldon,” “Ghosts,” “The Neighborhood,” “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “United States of Al” and “B Positive.”The rest of the top 10 list is made up of encores of “Young Sheldon” in seventh place, followed by ABC comedies “The Conners” and “Abbott Elementary” in the eighth and ninth slots, and reruns of “The Neighborhood” in 10th. At this time last year, there were 38 comedy series airing across the broadcast networks — again, including repeats — and CBS had six of the 10 most-watched.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterByrde family fans flocked to Netflix to watch “Ozark” Season 4, Part 1, drawing more viewers than any other TV series in its debut week on the streamer.The first half of the final season of the Jason Bateman-led drama landed at No. 1 on Netflix’s English-language TV Top 10 list for the week of Jan. 17-23, with 77 million hours viewed in just its first three days.