'Another Period' Comedy Central
The historical satire is part 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' and part 'Downton Abbey.'
Lillian and Beatrice will torment turn-of-the-century Newport for another season. Comedy Central has given the official greenlight to a sophomore run of Another Period just a week before the half-hour concludes its initial 10-episode order.
A send-up of celebrity-driven reality shows, the historical satire is part Keeping Up With the Kardashians and part Downton Abbey, following the lives of the indulgent and deluded Bellacourt family and the staff catering to their every absurd whims. The second batch of 10 episodes will debut in 2016.
“Another Period is a beautiful reflection of a great American truth: the more things change, the more they stay the same,” said Comedy Central president of original programming Kent Alterman in his of the news on Tuesday.
Like many cable series, Another Period has struggled to bring in a huge linear audience. The most recent time-shifting stats have the series pulling 764,000 viewers in live-plus-three day ratings. Comedy Central touts that episodes from the first season of Another Period have been seen by over 9 million total viewers, with an additional 4.6 million viewing multiplatform clip views.
But Another period has also been greeted by enthusiastic reviews — including The Hollywood Reporter, which praised its absurdity. Created by and starring Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome, the series also boasts an enviable roster of comedic talent. Michael Ian Black, Paget Brewster, Jason Ritter, David Wayne and Christina Hendricks also star. "We are thrilled that Comedy Central has such good taste," Leggero and Lindhome added in the release touting the renewal.
Staying the course with Another Period, however soft its conventional ratings, also comes at a time of big change at Comedy Central. The network recently lost Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And the current season of Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele's Key and Peele will be its last. And while Amy Schumer may be locked in for another season of her titular sketch show, the runaway success of film debut Trainwreck makes an eventual expiration on her TV gig seem quite likely.
As for the first season of Another Period, two episodes remain. It will air Aug. 18 and 25 at 10:30 p.m. The show is executive produced by Leggero, Lindhome and Drunk History's Jeremy Konner and hails from Ben Stiller's Red Hour.
