Shades of Blue Peter Kramer/NBC
The heavily time-shifted cop drama will see a second season.
Don't be fooled by the incredibly busy schedule that she's got. Jennifer Lopez is finding the time for more Shades of Blue. NBC announced Friday that it has renewed her rookie series for a second season.
The pickup comes after some aggressive time-shifting for the cop drama, which has been a welcome change for the network's long-troubled 10 p.m. Thursday time slot that Shades of Blue currently occupies. Live-plus-three day returns for the first three episodes have the series averaging a 2.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 11.2 million viewers. Its latest live-plus-seven day rating has it jumping a whopping 95 percent in the key demo.
“We want to thank Jennifer, who is the hardest working woman we know, for her incredible efforts as both the star and producer of this show, as well as well as our other amazing producers and cast for all their tireless work in creating one of the most compelling dramas on television today,” said NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke. “We’re so excited to find out where this story will lead and have them raise the stakes even higher in what we know will be a fantastic second season.”
Salke is not being hyperbolic about Lopez's work ethic. The multihyphenate is currently juggling her full-time job as a judge on American Idol's final season with a newly-launched Las Vegas concert residency, All I Have.
Shades of Blue, executive produced by Lopez and Idol pal Ryan Seacrest, has a lot of cooks in the proverbial kitchen. It is produced by Universal Television, Nuyorican Productions, EGTV, Ryan Seacrest Productions and Jack Orman Productions. The project was first announced as a straight-to-series pickup nearly two years ago.
Lopez, who stars as a crooked-ish cop turned FBI informant, is joined on Shades of Blue by Ray Liotta Drea de Matteo. The Hollywood Reporter TV critic Daniel Fienberg wrote that Lopez is "equally believable chasing down perps or lamenting the possibility of missing her daughter's cello recital."
The show joins an already robust slate of renewed dramas at NBC. The network has already tapped the vast majority of its roster to return for the 2016-17 season. Shades of Blue follows Law & Order: SVU and Chicago Med renewals earlier in the week. The trio join the rest of Dick Wolf's drama roster, The Blacklist and Blindspot in their renewals.
