Everybody is getting in on the scripted programming game – we’re still waiting on you, The Weather Channel – and DirecTV is bursting out of the gate with the Audience Network’s first series, the comedy Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, and it now has a full cast to go along with it. Listing the entire bunch right away would be anti-climactic, so let’s just dive into where the series is going, and who everyone will be playing.
Based on the popular play of the same name from Tony winner Peter Ackerman, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight will focus on several different relationships, and the 10-episode season will take place entirely during one night, in the hours between dusk and dawn. If you’re of the mindset that nothing good can happen late at night, this may be the series for you.
THR has a full breakdown of the first episode, which starts off with a Jewish professor named Ben (Broad City’s Stephen Schneider), whose girlfriend Nancy (Young Adult’s Collette Wolfe) makes a racially insensitive comment while the two are getting rowdy in his office. Then we have 19-year-old college sophomores Leo (Enlisted’s Parker Young) and Phil (Silicon Valley’s Jimmy Ouyang), who are trying to prank their dean (Enlisted’s Keith David), but are stopped by a security guard named Dawn (Reno 911’s Kerri Kenney).
Therapist Mark (American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas) is having a late night session with Grace (See Dad Run’s Alanna Ubach), whom Mark wants to set up on a blind date with his brother. Speaking of therapy, Donald (Midnight in Paris’ Kurt Fuller) and the jealously suspicious Estelle (Insidious’ Lin Shaye) find their 40 years of marriage are crumbling and in need of professional help. And finally, we have brothers Pedro 1 (NCIS: Los Angeles’ Jorge-Luis Pallo) and Pedro 2 (Boardwalk Empire’s Ivo Nandi), who are hired by Donald to count and stack rolls of carpeting, but soon find themselves the target of a hit man named Clean Gene (The Killing’s Hugh Dillon).
Apparently Thomas and Fuller are the only ones listed who aren’t officially series regulars, so it’s unclear just how much we’ll be seeing them. (Honestly, who would expect a therapy session to last all night anyway?) Otherwise, this sounds like a great squad. I’ll watch anything with the smooth-talking Keith David and Kerri Kenney, so I’m definitely on board for this. I also like the somewhat limited scope of the storytelling, as keeping everything happening in one night should help to rein things in. Not that 24 ever reined things in.
Production is currently underway for Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, which is executive produced by Ackerman and Nick Hamm (Rogue, Killing Bono). Expect to find the show hitting the Audience Network at some point later this year.
