''Connecting...'' is an American television

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

co-created and co-executive produced by

Martin Gero Martin Gero (born July 6, 1977 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a Canadian screenwriter and co-executive producer for ''Stargate Atlantis'' and the creator of '' Blindspot''. Born in Switzerland, Gero spent much of his childhood in Ottawa, Ontario ...

and

Brendan Gall Brendan Gall (born September 2, 1978) is a Canadian writer, actor and producer living in Los Angeles, California. Early life and education Gall graduated from the George Brown Theatre School. Career Gall has written and/or produced for the t ...

for

Universal Television Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a predeces ...

. The series premiered on October 8, 2020 on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

. In November 2020, the series was canceled after four episodes. The remaining episodes were released on NBC.com and

Peacock Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera ''Pavo (genus), Pavo'' and ''Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female pea ...

shortly after.

Premise

Set against the backdrop of the

COVID-19 pandemic in the United States The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the Uni ...

, the series follows the lives of a group of friends who try to stay connected via

videotelephony Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

as they navigate through the various nuances of life in a

lockdown A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely. The term is used for a prison ...

Cast

Main

Otmara Marrero Otmara Marrero is an American actress. She is known for the NBC series '' Connecting...'', 2019's ''Clementine'', and Crackle's 2016 series '' StartUp''. Early life Marrero was born in Miami, Florida, to a Cuban American family, and raised in H ...

as Annie *

Parvesh Cheena Parvesh Singh Cheena (born July 22, 1979) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Gupta in the TV series ''Outsourced'' and as Sunil Odhav on ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend''. He also voices Bodhi in '' T.O.T.S.'' Early life Cheena was ...

as Pradeep *

Keith Powell Keith Powell (born August 12, 1979) is an American television actor, writer, director, and web series creator, known for his role as James "Toofer" Spurlock on ''30 Rock'', and for creating and starring in the web series '' Keith Broke His Leg'', f ...

as Garrett *Jill Knox as Michelle *

Shakina Nayfack Shakina Nayfack (born December 8, 1980) is an American actress and transgender activist. She is most notable for her series regular role as Lola, a "trans-truther", on the second and third seasons of the Hulu television program ''Difficult People ...

as Ellis *

Ely Henry Ely Henry (born October 18, 1991) is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He is best known for his roles in ''Smallfoot'', '' Some Freaks'' and ''Mean Girls''. Career Henry's first role was in the critical and box-office success ''Mean Girls' ...

as Rufus * Preacher Lawson as Ben

Recurring

*Cassie Beck as Jazmin

Guest

Constance Marie Constance Marie Lopez (born September 9, 1965) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Angie Lopez in ''George Lopez'' (2002–2007), and Marcela Quintanilla (mother of Selena) in the film ''Selena'' (1997). She portrayed Reg ...

as Martha

Episodes

Production

On June 26, 2020, it received a straight-to-series order of 8 episodes by NBC. The first star to be cast in the series was Otmara Marrero on July 22, 2020, followed by

on July 31, 2020. The following month,

, Jill Knox,

and Preacher Lawson joined the main cast. Shakina Nayfack's casting made her the first transgender person to have a starring role on a major network comedy production. On November 2, 2020, NBC canceled the series, amid dwindling viewership, after airing only four episodes and pulled it from the network's schedule, with reruns of '' Superstore'' taking its place. The remaining episodes were streamed exclusively on NBC.com and

Release

On September 10, 2020, NBC released the first official trailer for the series. On August 27, 2020, it was announced that the series would be replacing ''

Brooklyn Nine-Nine ''Brooklyn Nine-Nine'' is an American police procedural comedy television series that aired on Fox, and later on NBC. The show aired from September 17, 2013, to September 16, 2021, for a total of eight seasons and 153 episodes. Created by Dan G ...

'' in NBC's previously announced Fall schedule and would premiere on October 1, 2020. On September 24, 2020, the series premiere was pushed by one week to October 8, 2020.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the series holds an approval rating of 67% with an average rating of 6.33/10, based on 9 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * {{Peacock (streaming service) 2020 American television series debuts 2020 American television series endings 2020s American sitcoms English-language television shows NBC original programming Peacock (streaming service) original programming Television series by Universal Television Television shows about the COVID-19 pandemic Television shows set in Los Angeles