The Hunting Party Among 2 Renewals At NBC
Two freshman dramas, The Hunting Party and Brilliant Minds, emerged unscathed from NBC's Friday bloodbath and instead have been renewed for second seasons.
Season 1 of The Hunting Party averaged 4.2 million total viewers (with delayed playback). Out of the 11 dramas that NBC has aired this TV season, it ranks No. 8 (outdrawing the cancelled Found and Suits LA, and the theoretically on-the-"bubble" Grosse Pointe Garden Society).
With 4.9 million total viewers, Brilliant Minds ranks sixth among NBC's 11 dramas, trailing the #OneChicago trifecta and the two Law & Order shows.
Hunting Party stars Manifest alum Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca "Bex" Henderson, an ex-FBI agent leading a small team of investigators on the hunt for inmates who escaped from a top-secret prison (aka The Pit) after a mysterious explosion. The cast also includes Nick Wechsler (Revenge) as Oliver Odell, Bex's former partner and The Pit's onetime warden; Josh Mackenzie (La Brea) as Shane Florence, a former soldier and Pit prison guard; Sara Garcia (The Flash) as Jennifer Morales, an intel officer and major in the Army; and Patrick Sabongui (The Flash) as CIA agent Ryan Hassani.
TVLine readers gave Season 1 an average grade of "A-."
Brilliant Minds, based on the life of neurologist/author Oliver Sacks, stars Zachary Quinto as Oliver, a neurologist at Bronx General Hospital whose atypical approach to medicine irks his superiors but often garners surprising results. The show's freshman run ended with a bombshell: While Oliver had thought his father, Noah, died when Oliver was a child, it turned out he did not. When Noah (played by Mandy Patinkin) re-entered his son's life, he added to the shock by announcing he was ill and asking Oliver for help with treatment. (Read a finale post-mortem interview with executive producers Michael Grassi and DeMane Davis.)
The Brilliant Minds cast also includes Tamberla Perry, Donna Murphy, Teddy Sears, Ashleigh LaThrop, Alex MacNicoll, Aury Krebs and Spence Moore II. TVLine readers gave Season 1 an average grade of "A."
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