Hot on the heels of today’s news that NBC finished first with viewers under 50 for premiere week for the first time in nine years, the execs at the Peacock Network have gone ahead and ordered up full seasons of two of their most popular comedies, the Matthew Perry grieve-fest Go On and the controversial-for-Utah adoption sitcom The New Normal (NBC’s freshman drama Revolution also got renewed, but the dramatic arts don’t concern us here). Both comedies benefited from having the wildly-popular singing competition The Voice as a lead-in, an advantage that the rest of the networks’ sitcoms haven’t had (and have been suffering for), but it’s good to see that Go On and The New Normal, which have both received far better reviews than NBC’s other new half-hours, Animal Practice and Guys with Kids, are building an audience. NBC’s reign as number 1 likely won’t last too much longer as The Voice’s ratings tend to slide as the season wears on, but at least these current NBC execs are getting to know how Jeff Zucker felt in 2002, even if it’s just for a week.
