Neil Patrick Harris’ new NBC variety show has an incredible title to live up to every night. Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris will try to resurrect a genre that has failed to stick in today’s landscape and the former How I Met Your Mother star is hoping that star power and spontaneity will bring in viewers.
The show is set to feature stunts, skits, performances, games and audience giveaways. It is based on the U.K. show Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, but will actually be among the new shows airing on Tuesdays this fall. It will be live.
Surprise appearances from A-listers will also be a big part of the show, but NPH spilled the beans about two appearances during the Television Critics Association Press Tour on Thursday. As Entertainment Weekly notes, he revealed that actress Reese Witherspoon and singer Ricky Martin will both be seen in early shows.
Harris also wants audiences at home and in the studio to be genuinely surprised. They won’t be told when to clap and won’t be told if something is a prank or genuine.
“We’re in a world where you’re not sure what’s real and what’s not,” Harris said of the show. “We’re going out of our way to make sure the audience doesn’t know things.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that Harris also said that Best Time Ever should be a game-changer, or at least he hopes it becomes one.
“I think it'll be fun and hopefully a little game-changing because it's essentially showing audiences six or seven shows simultaneously,” Harris said. “My hope is that you'll get to see a bunch of cool ... and it'll be live so you'll only be able to reference it the day after you see it.”
NBC also revealed when exactly Best Time Ever will air. According to Deadline, the show will premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 10 p.m. after the America’s Got Talent finale. The show will continue in the slot through November. Why this show is being aired at 10 p.m. when it could easily use a family audience at 8 p.m. was not explained.
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}