TV Talk: Need a feel-good show? ‘Colin from Accounts’ fits the bill
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HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Every now and then a feel-good series comes along and becomes part of the cultural conversation. That’s more difficult to achieve than ever in this post-monoculture era with hundreds of scripted shows vying for viewers’ attention. But Paramount+’s “Colin from Accounts” deserves the same accolades once heaped on “Schitt’s Creek.”
Now streaming all eight episodes of its second season, the series stars real-life spouses Harriet Dyer (“American Auto”) and Patrick Brammall (“Evil”) as Ashley and Gordon, brought together in season one by a car accident and an injured dog that they name Colin. As season two begins, they’re trying to get Colin back from his new owners.
“We couldn’t keep doing will they/won’t they, because they have and they are living together. Colin brings them together,” Dyer said during a Paramount+ panel that was part of the Television Critics Association summer 2024 press tour. “If season one was will they/won’t they, we called season two, should they have? They’re thrust together, but there’s still a lot they don’t know about each other. We haven’t met his family, we don’t know about skeletons in closets, stuff like that.”
“Colin from Accounts” is not a romantic comedy in the traditional sense.
“The amount of times we see this clean version of love, whether it’s film or TV or even in reality, but people are gross, they do bad things,” Dyer said. “They make bad decisions, but you’ve kind of got to root for them.”
Brammall said the couples’ favorite comedies “have that minor key to them,” a darkness around the edges.
“It feels to us that you can relate to the characters because you recognize those as flaws of your own or flaws of someone you recognize,” he said. “People are trying to do a good thing but falling well short — and sometimes it gets a bit cringey, but we really enjoy that stuff.”
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As for the show’s title, Brammall said the couple fostered a dog for a few weeks and the pup had a name that wasn’t resonating for them, so they renamed him Colin from Accounts.
“It was pretty much verbatim the scene in episode one, season one, where it was like, ‘He needs a human name, like Colin, Colin from accounts,’ ” Dyer said.
“There’s so many things (Gordon and Ashley) don’t have in common, but what they do have in common is they’re on the same frequency, they make each other laugh,” Brammall added. “So giving a dog not just a very human name and a bit of an old-school human name, he’s got a job as well (with) a long title. That amused us as people and so it amuses our characters.”
The couple did acknowledge the title confuses some viewers who expect it to be a workplace comedy.
“Everyone thinks it’s (about Patrick’s character) going through the trials and tribulations of accounting,” Dyer said.
Manganiello joins ‘One Piece’
Mt. Lebanon native and 2000 Carnegie Mellon University grad Joe Manganiello will join the cast of Netflix’s live-action “One Piece” as Mr. 0 in its second season that is now filming in Cape Town, South Africa.
Kept/canceled/spun off
HBO renewed “Industry” for a fourth season.
Max canceled its “Pretty Little Liars” reboot after two seasons.
AMC canceled “Orphan Black: Echoes” after one season.
It took a few years, but Great American Family finally announced a renewal for “When Hope Calls,” which will begin airing its eight-episode second season in January.
The creator of biblical epic “The Chosen” announced plans for an animated spin-off, “The Chosen Adventures” After “The Chosen” wraps at the end of its seventh season, the next live-action series will be a three-season show about the life of Moses.
Premiering
A new “collection” of 12 episodes of “The Great British Baking Show” comes to Netflix Sept. 27.
Season 46 of “This Old House” and season 23 of “Ask This Old House” debut for free on demand on Roku Channel on Sept. 30, days after they are made available to PBS stations.
The 23rd season of National Geographic Channel’s “Life Below Zero” debuts at 9 p.m. Oct. 8.
Channel surfing
KDKA-TV forecaster Ray Petelin and daughter Elizabeth appeared on “The Drew Barrymore Show” Monday to talk about his annual back-to-school interviews with his daughter, and Barrymore gifted them a four-night stay at a wellness resort in Austin, Texas. View the segment at 4:40 here. (Amusingly, when Petelin posted on social media about the “Barrymore” episode in advance of its premiere, he did not mention a linear air time/place for the show, which is distributed by CBS Media Ventures but airs locally on KDKA rival WPXI-TV.) … Pittsburgh comic Learnmore Jonasi came in fifth on Tuesday’s season finale of “America’s Got Talent.” … The CW announced its 2024-25 ACC basketball schedule, which will include two University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball games against Clemson on Jan. 18 (noon) and at Notre Dame on Feb. 22 (2:15 p.m.). … WQED-TV took home six awards in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmys Saturday night, with KDKA-TV and WPXI-TV winning four awards each, the Penguins winning three and WTAE-TV taking home two. … Max will tape a four-episode “Friends” trivia competition game show, “Fast Friends,” at the “Friends” Experience in New York City timed to the 30th anniversary of the show’s premiere. … Kind Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky, previously a guest Shark, has been promoted to a series regular Shark when ABC’s “Shark Tank” returns for its 16th season at 8 p.m. Oct. 18. … Amazon’s Prime Video ordered two seasons of a series based on author Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books starring Nicole Kidman as medical examiner Scarpetta and Jamie Lee Curtis as Scarpetta’s sister, Dorothy. … Comcast will now carry relatively new, free, ad-supported streaming app The Network on its platforms. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Comcast will offer a one-month ad-free experience of The Network’s eight-episode original drama “The Green Veil,” starring John Leguizamo as a government agent in the 1950s who unravels a secret plan by the U.S. to separate Indigenous children from their families.