National Geographic Renews Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘StarTalk,’ Enlists Jerry Seinfeld for ‘Cesar 911’

TCA 2016: Network also unveils new development projects dealing with ivory trade and Iraq and Syria

The National Geographic Channel has ordered a third season of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Star Talk,” the network announced Wednesday at the TCA winter press tour.

The new season, which will air in fall 2016, will coincide with the release of the first-ever “StarTalk” book, published by National Geographic Books.

The book will take the greatest hits from the airwaves to the page to deliver an illustrated companion to the popular podcast and television series.

National Geographic Channels also announced that Jerry Seinfeld will guest star on the upcoming third season of Nat Geo Wild’s “Cesar 911.” Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica, enlist Millan to evaluate their difficult dachshunds, Jose and Foxy. Jose has an excessive barking problem, and Foxy has a “hating Jerry” problem, as the Seinfelds describe it.

“Cesar 911” returns on Feb. 19 at 9 p.m./8c.

Nat Geo is also developing a new scripted series from DNA Films & TV and FX Productions for what will be the network’s first scripted series, “Blood Ivory.”

“Blood Ivory” traces the massive global web of contraband animals and ivory, and its connection to the trafficking of narcotics, people and weapons. The series exposes an underworld that rewards greed and bloodshed while helping to fund the madness of terrorist regimes.

NatGeo will also partner with Scott Rudin Productions to produce a series based on the upcoming Annie Proulx novel “Barkskins.”

The series follows two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet as they arrive in New France in the 17th century. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters–barkskins.

The deal is part of Rudin’s three-year first-look development and production pact with Fox Networks Group. This would be the second production for NatGeo under this deal, after acquiring the rights to Adam Higginbotham’s “The Invisible Enemy: The Untold Story of The Battle of Chernobyl” earlier this summer.

Finally, NatGeo will partner on a new documentary project with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and best-selling author and journalist Sebastian Junger and his Emmy-winning producing partner, Nick Quested.

Junger and Quested will once again employ their signature verite style to immerse viewers into the complexities of the war in Syria and Iraq, as they gain unprecedented access to clandestine organizations to offer a hard-hitting look at one of the most serious threats faced by the Western world.

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