As broadcast networks tiptoe back toward schedules with an ever-so-slight uptick in the number of multi-cam comedies, NBC, in particular, targets the available broadcast TV audience: older viewers.
That explains the moderate success of Reba McEntire’s “Happy’s Place” and NBC’s interest in newcomer sitcom “Newlyweds” (8:30 p.m. Friday, WPXI) starring real-life spouses Téa Leoni and Tim Daly.
She’s Jeanie, a widowed, free-spirited middle school science teacher; he’s James, a slightly stuffy, recently divorced philosophy professor. They meet cute, he goes to Norway for a month, and upon his return, they marry in Las Vegas. They’ll figure the rest out later.
The rom-com aspect of “Newlyweds” is pretty played out, but the show provokes a decent number of laughs thanks to two supporting characters.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays James’ sarcastic, overbearing ex-wife, Claudia, who seems to always be hanging around, ready to throw a wrench in any plans Jeanie and James make.
“Typical man,” Claudia says. “Went to Norway, wouldn’t go to therapy.”
TV newcomer Bill O’Neill steals scenes right and left with his portrayal of Arvid, a Norwegian twentysomething who becomes James’ teaching assistant. Arvid, with his rubber-like limb movements in physical comedy set pieces, harkens back to the days of breakout sitcom supporting characters (think: Urkel).
Curtis created “Newlyweds” with sitcom veteran Gail Lerner (“Happy Endings,” “Ugly Betty”), but Lerner was fired from the show over “creative differences” this month after eight episodes had been filmed. Bruce Helford (“The Conners,” “The Drew Carey Show”) joined “Newlyweds” last week as its new showrunner.
During a virtual NBC news conference before that behind-the-scenes shakeup, Curtis referred to herself as the show’s “HBIC” (Head [Expletive] In Charge).
“If you ask my children, my husband, they would tell you I’ve been a boss my whole life,” Curtis said. “I’ve been waiting my whole life, literally, to be able to manifest ideas and bring what I love about what I do into the workplace I do it in, and I’ve been doing it not as a boss for a long, long time. And now I’m a boss, and I love it.”
Curtis also appreciates what O’Neill brings to “Newlyweds” as Arvid.
“Television has a history of fantastic eccentric — I don’t want to even categorize it as oddball — characters who bring that perspective of an innocent in a very complicated world,” she said. “Television has a history of those characters becoming our favorite.”
Lerner said Curtis brought her the idea for “Newlyweds” during the pandemic and aspects of the show’s plot resemble Curtis’ experience.
“I met my husband and married him after seeing his picture in a magazine, and we had never spent more than 72 hours together (at one time) before we got married,” Curtis said of her 42-year marriage to actor and director Christopher Guest. “We were strangers when we married. … We are polar opposites, and that was when we started talking about a later‑in‑life thing that happens to people in their 60s, who hook up and go, ‘Do you know what? Let’s do this.’ ”
Leoni and Daly, who met acting together on CBS’s 2014-19 drama “Madam Secretary,” married in July 2025.
“We had a lot of fun on ‘Madam Secretary,’ and the world got darker, and we wanted to get lighter,” Leoni said. “We’ve done this particular medium and loved it, and we wanted to spend our days together.”
“Newlyweds” marks Curtis’ first network comedy series since the 1989-92 ABC comedy “Anything but Love” co-starring Richard Lewis, which she called her favorite job. Her return to TV more than three decades later was not for a lack of trying.
“Every single year, all I’ve ever said to my agents is, ‘I want to do a sitcom. All I want to do is a sitcom,’ ” Curtis recalled. “I love every aspect of it, the dance with the cameras, the idea that you actually get to rehearse something and work it and learn a joke and play it. And I just never got to do it, and so I just decided to basically create my own job.”
Channel surfing
Starz returned to Verizon FiOS TV this week following a multiweek retransmission spat. … U2 will headline the halftime show of the NFL’s first Thanksgiving Eve game (Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams) streaming Nov. 25 on Netflix. … FX renewed “American Horror Story” for a 14th season. … Disney+ and Hulu ordered Ryan Murphy’s proposed “Glee” reboot to series. Casting was not announced but Variety reports Lea Michele will reprise her role as Rachel Berry.