Peacock, NBC’s freemium streaming platform, is about to hit you in the comedy nostalgia bone hard. The platform, as it’s wont to do, released three trailers today for upcoming comedy shows based on nascent properties. Two of them had already been confirmed — a Saved by the Bell sequel series and the return of cult comedy A.P. Bio — but the third and most exciting was the confirmation of a MacGruber TV series, in which MacGruber will make life-saving inventions out of household materials… probably.
The most important thing we learn from this trailer is that Will Forte, who plays MacGruber, clearly had a MacGruber costume at home ready to shoot this clip when needed. Other than that, the trailer is mostly a bunch of clips from the cult film MacGruber, which is based on the SNL sketch featuring the character.
The sketch/movie/show is a parody of MacGyver, and this new series will be eight episodes long and take place after MacGruber is released from a 10-year jail stint only to find that a villain named Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth is threatening the world. MacGruber must work to take him down but discovers that the evil may have been lurking within himself all along.
All the clips in the trailer are from the movie. Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe are reportedly finalizing deals to return. Forte is writing the show with the film’s director, Jorma Taccone, returning to direct. MacGruber will land on Peacock in 2021.
Moving right along with its cult comedy, Peacock also dropped the trailer for A.P. Bio. The series, which is about an A.P. biology teacher who doesn’t teach any A.P. bio and a cast of lovable students and faculty around him, garnered stellar reviews and a strong following when it aired on NBC for two seasons starting in 2018, but it was canceled. Not a month later, Peacock picked the series up for itself and hopes to build it into the comedy classic that it deserves to be.
A.P. Bio will premiere on Peacock on Sept. 3.
Last, and probably least, is the reboot/sequel for Saved by the Bell, which brings back some of the original show’s stars to a new, more self-referential Bayside High. As the trailer shows, this isn’t exactly the same show as the original, with a hefty dose more of comedy and a slant towards mocking the original series. That makes sense given 30 Rock and Great News writer/producer Tracey Wigfield is the one behind the series, but a lot of the more meta comedy featured in this trailer feels kind of forced. From the original cast, we have Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, and Elizabeth Berkley all returning. The show is “coming soon” to Peacock.
These might not be the Battlestar Galactica reboot we’re all waiting for, but getting some more MacGruber in our lives isn’t a bad thing.
