‘I Love Lucy’ Special Kicks Off CBS’ 2016 Summer Schedule of TV Shows
I Love Lucy is coming back to CBS this May, says the network in a press release. The new I Love Lucy Superstar Special, is actually a re-broadcasting of two of the TV show’s more iconic episodes remastered and colorized and will be presented on Sunday, May 22.
I Love Lucy, which starred Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley, aired on the CBS network from 1951 to 1957 and ran with consistently good ratings. The two episodes shown during the May 2016 special will be, “Lucy Visits Grauman’s” and “Lucy and John Wayne,” two back-to-back episodes from season 5 of the series which were originally broadcast in October of 1955. This was the season when the Ricardos and the Mertzs drove to Hollywood for Ricky’s big movie role.
In the first half of the CBS Lucy special, while visiting the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Lucy is lamenting that she hasn’t found the perfect souvenir of her summer trip when she discovers that the concrete slab that contains the footprints of John Wayne has come loose. Lucy being Lucy, thinks she found her souvenir. During the second half, Lucy and friends try to figure out a way to replace the missing footprints! What makes both episodes of this TV show so much fun is the addition of actor John Wayne himself.
These two episodes have been considered favorites of fans and were featured on CBS’s 1958 summer series, The Top Ten Lucy Shows, whose episodes were picked by a panel of 155 newspaper TV show critics and columnists.
The I love Lucy special kicks off CBS’s summer schedule of TV shows which features two new and two returning TV shows including the reality hit Big Brother, the second season of Zoo, the new comic-thriller BrainDead and the spooky limited series, American Gothic. In addition, the network will also air three primetime editions of its day time hit, The Price is Right.
The Price is Right is not only CBS’ #1-rated daytime TV series, but it is also the longest-running game show in TV history. The three hour-long specials airing on May 23-25 will be based on network’s most popular reality TV shows: Survivor, Big Brother and The Amazing Race. Each will feature special guests, Jeff Probst, Julie Chen and Phil Keoghan, the reality shows’ respective hosts.
Catch your @survivorcbs, @AmazingRace_CBS and @BigBrotherCBS favorites on #PriceIsRight! https://t.co/ZdUvaQC0MS pic.twitter.com/lGAiKwdah3
— The Price Is Right (@PriceIsRight) April 25, 2016
Speaking of Big Brother, the summer staple returns for more self-indulgent mayhem beginning with a two-hour 2016 season premiere on June 22 before settling into its regular three-night-a-week schedule on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The TV show puts a group of strangers in one house (albeit a really nice one) to live among themselves while 53 cameras and 97 microphones record everything that they say and do.
Zoo’s sophomore season will follow suit with a two-hour premiere on June 28. Based on the best-selling novel by James Patterson, the story consists of a small group of scientists and reporters trying to make sense of bizarre and deadly animal behavior. The animals’ DNA is mutating for some reason and things get even scarier when one of their own is found to be mutating as well! Zoo was CBS’s #1 summer scripted TV show last year.
Two new summer shows feature a definite creep factor. Robert and Michelle King, the creative pair who have been responsible for CBS’ hit, The Good Wife, presents BrainDead, which is centered in Washington, D.C. politics. Young and somewhat naive Laural (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a staffer who discovers that bugs eating the brains of various members of Congress are responsible for some of the bad decisions being made. The buggy comedy/thriller premieres on June 13.
The second is American Gothic, a new series from Steve Spielberg’s Amblin Television. The 13-week summer thriller focuses on a wealthy Boston family who discover that one of them is responsible for a string of murders. The problem being, of course, is that they don’t know which one of them is the culprit. Suspicion and paranoia will reign in this limited series. American Gothic premieres on June 22.
Related: ABC’s 2016 Summer TV Shows And Michael Strahan’s Other New Project
Related: NBC Announces Summer Programming For 2016
[Image via CBS]
