NBC’s upcoming comedy “Abby’s” takes place in a bar and is centered around the various patrons that visit and commiserate in that bar.
If that sounds like another NBC sitcom, you’re not alone. If you only know Ted Danson as the reformed demon Michael on “The Good Place,” we’re talking about “Cheers,” the famed sitcom that ran on NBC for 11 seasons that also starred Danson.
During the Television Critics Association press tour on Tuesday, the cast and crew of “Abby’s” were asked — multiple times — about being compared to “Cheers,” and they were more than ready to respond to those comparisons.
“It’s a nice comparison, but I think our show is much better,” showrunner Josh Malmuth quipped to TV critics. “We think it will have a much greater cultural impact.” While Malmuth was joking about standing toe-to-toe against one of the most famous sitcoms in television history, the cast and crew of the series did not shy away from those inevitable comparisons to the famous Boston-based pub.
“We were acutely aware of the fact that, no matter what we did, the show would be compared to ‘Cheers’ and seen through the filter and the lens of ‘Cheers,’” executive producer Mike Schur added. “We stopped caring about trying to out-flank the inevitable comparison.”
And the comparisons are more than just the setting too. “Abby’s” will air on Thursdays beginning March 28, the same night that “Cheers” anchored for NBC for so many years.
“Abby’s” stars Natalie Morales as a woman who sets up a bar in her own backyard (it’s even filmed in front of a live, outdoor audience). This unlicensed, makeshift bar nestled in her backyard as the opposite of everything annoying about today’s party scene. There are rules at Abby’s: no cell phones (not even to “look something up”), earning a seat at the bar takes time and losing a challenge means drinking a limey, sugary “not-beer” drink.
And if we’re playing the “Cheers” comparison game, that would mean that Morales gets to play the same role that Danson did for 11 years as Sam Malone. “Any kind of comparison to ‘Cheers’ that we can have, or to Ted Danson that I can have,” she said, though her co-star Neil Flynn doesn’t easily see the similarities, besides the setting.
“The setting is the only thing in common,” he said.
“Abby’s” premieres Thursday, March 28 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT