‘Superstore’ Gets Full Season 2 Order With Back 9 Pickup By NBC

On the heels of a promising opening on Thursday, NBC’s Superstore has received a Back 9 order, bringing its Season 2 to a full-season 22 episodes. As a midseason entry last season, Superstore got a 13-episode second-season order last spring but recently received a pickup for nine additional scripts in anticipation of a Back 9 episodic order.

“We’re very proud of Superstore and we were so happy to see fantastic viewing levels with the preview during the Olympics as well as last night’s ratings in its new Thursday anchor time period,” NBC’s Jennifer Salke said. “This is a show our audience loves and, paired with The Good Place, which our audience also loves, we think we have a sensational new comedy block to build this season.”.

As for The Good Place, which logged a 1.4 Adults 18-49 rating behind Superstore last night after a strong preview behind The Voice on Monday (2.3), the high-concept comedy created by Mike Schur was designed for a limited 13-episode run, so there is no Back 9 order in play for it; it will be vying straight for a Season 2 renewal down the line. To give the highly binge-able comedy extra sampling, NBC will airing encores of the first four episodes of  on Saturday, Oct. 1 between 8-10 PM.

This week’s regular-time slot season-two 1.5 debut of Superstore following a special episodes during the Summer Olympics (3.0) marked NBC’s highest adult 18-49 rating by a Thursday comedy in nearly three years and improved on NBC’s average in the time period last season by +50%. In its initial season in live+7, Superstore averaged a 2.1 rating in 18-49 and 6.6 million viewers overall, making it NBC’s top-rated new comedy since the 2013-14 season.

Superstore centers around Amy (America Ferrera), the megastore’s most stalwart employee as well as the glue holding the place together, and newly hired Jonah (Ben Feldman). Their fellow associates include the sardonic Garrett (Colton Dunn), the ambitious Mateo (Nico Santos) and the sweet teenager Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom). Overseeing them all are store manager Glenn (Mark McKinney) and assistant manager Dina (Lauren Ash). It is executive produced by Justin Spitzer, Ruben Fleischer, David Bernad, Gabe Miller and Jonathan Green, and produced by Universal Television, Spitzer Holding Company and The District.

The well reviewed The Good Place follows Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), an ordinary woman who enters the afterlife, and thanks to some kind of error, is sent to the Good Place instead of the Bad Place, which is definitely where she belongs. While hiding in plain sight from Michael (Ted Danson), the wise architect of the Good Place (who doesn’t know he’s made a mistake), she’s determined to shed her old way of living and discover the awesome (or at least the pretty good) person within. The Good Place is executive produced by Michael Schur, David Miner, Morgan Sackett and Drew Goddard, who directed the pilot. It is produced by Universal Television, Fremulon and 3 Arts Entertainment.