Bedrock preseumably greenlit at Fox
Fox has “unofficially” greenlit Bedrock, a Flintstones continuation reboot series from Warner Bros. Animation. There’s a social media page and a place on Fox’s website for it created earlier this morning. The Fox upfront is on Monday, May 17, where they will announce the Fox network’s Fall 2021 Schedule, so we should probably get an official announcement about this by then. An episode count should be given at the upfront, but my assumption is that they will order 13 episodes, as Bless the Harts, Duncanville, The Great North, and HouseBroken‘s freshman seasons had 13 episode orders.
This, presumably, series pickup comes almost a decade after it was announced that Seth Macfarlane was in the development stages of creating a reboot of The Flintstones for Fox. It never happened, but below is a promotional image of what the characters would look like.
Bedrock is Fox’s eighth animated show currently in production, which includes The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, The Great North, from Disney’s 20th Television, Duncanville from 20th Television and Comcast’s Universal Television, HouseBroken from Kapital Entertainment, and an untitled Dan Harmon series slated for sometime in 2022 from the new Fox.
Bedrock, a primetime animated adult comedy series continuing the story of everyone’s favorite modern Stone Age family, the Flintstones. Bedrock catches up with the Flintstone family two decades after the original, with Fred on the brink of retirement and 20-something Pebbles embarking on her own career. As the Stone Age gives way to a shiny and enlightened new Bronze Age, the residents of Bedrock will find this evolution harder than a swing from Bamm-Bamm’s club. Bedrock is produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman will executive produce through Brownstone Productions, with Brownstone’s Dannah Shinder and Lindsay Kerns serving as co-executive producers.
Bless the Harts’ final episode
The series order for Bedrock comes shortly, following the cancellation of Bless the Harts after two seasons and thirty-four episodes. The series is expected to conclude at 7:30pm on Father’s Day, June 20, on Fox. The series finale episode has a working title of “Betty’s Birthday” and features Christopher Meloni, who is on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, as a guest voice, voicing Detective Voccola, a frustrated detective who has seen it all until he meets a woman who claims herself to be Betty Hart. Just a few days ago, showrunner Andy Bobrow confirmed the production team rewrote the ending to the upcoming series finale episode to send off the Harts nicely, because the episode was originally supposed to air in season 3; but because Fox refused to order more episodes, it is now the series finale, unless another network picks it up. I’ve reached out to 20th Television about it being shopped to another outlet, but they have likely declined comment.
However, there isn’t all bad news for fans of Bless the Harts. While looking online, I found out that Bless the Harts is now a Disney+ Star original series in some areas. The studio may be testing the waters to see if there’s an audience abroad for it, before deciding whether to order more episodes for other networks. I presume that if the existing episodes do well on Star, more episodes may be ordered for Star and Hulu exclusively. Star is Disney’s international streaming platform launched on February 23 in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and it is expected to launch in other territories very soon. The show will also live on Hulu indefinitely, so new fans, hopefully, will come even after it leaves the Fox network in the summer.
The show has four more episodes left. “Haul Force One” will air tomorrow night, with Jenny and Brenda at odds against each other during a heat wave. “Toni with an i”, which was originally supposed to be the season 2 finale, will air next week on May 23, where Louise goes on her first date following the death of her husband Daniel. The Harts will take a break the following week, because the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 will air on May 30. And the penultimate episode “Tiny Pies” will air June 6. “Tiny Pies” has a ton of guest voices to look forward to, including Swoosie Kurtz, Erin Andrews, Joe Buck, Fred Armisen, and Ana Gastayer! This upcoming episode has a couple from New York move in new door to the Harts. All episodes will air at 7:30 on Fox.
What do you think about the upcoming Flintstones reboot and the final episode announcement for Bless the Harts?
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