CONNECTING… Bosses on Making a Timely, Unique Comedy

CONNECTING — “Pilot” — Pictured in this screen grab: (top row l-r) Otmara Marrero as Annie, Ely Henry as Rufus, Preacher Lawson as Ben; (bottom row l-r) Parvesh Cheena as Darius, Jill Knox as Michelle, Keith Powell as Garrett, Shakina Nayfack as Ellis — (Photo by: NBC)

NBC’s sole new scripted show this fall is CONNECTING…, a timely comedy about a group of friends struggling to get by in the midst of global upheaval in 2020.

While the comedy has many of the elements viewers are accustomed to (a will they/won’t they couple, a married couple who isn’t quite on the same page), the characters—played by Otmara Marrero, Parvesh Cheena, Shakina Nayfack, Preacher Lawson, Ely Henry, Jill Knox and Keith Powell—interact almost exclusive via Zoom. (The big exception are Knox and Powell, who are married in real-life.)

But as modern as the show is, creators Martin Gero and Brendan Gall (who previously worked together on BLINDSPOT and THE L.A. COMPLEX) looked to iconic sitcoms from the past for inspiration.

“I started rewatching CHEERS right around when we did this,” Gero explains. “That’s a show where the whole episode is basically a scene: they’re there at the bar and they talk about a thing. And that’s what we wanted the show to be. We wanted it to be conversational.”

Here, Gero and Gall dive into the challenges of producing a show remotely, how the cast stepped up, and tackling some of the biggest moments of the year… Read more