NBC Slots ‘Transplant’ & ‘Weakest Link’ On Sundays Post-Olympics

NBC’s midseason Sunday lineup is starting to take shape with reality series Weakest Link and Canadian medical drama Transplant making their Season 2 debuts on the night March 6 at 9 PM and 10 PM, respectively.

The network introduces a new Sunday schedule following the end of Sunday Night Football. This year, the launch of the new lineup, which will include a third series airing at 8 PM, is being delayed by NBC’s coverage of the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics.

Last season, NBC also started its midseason Sunday schedule with a game show at 9 PM (Ellen’s Game of Games), followed by an hourlong scripted series at 10 PM (Good Girls).

Transplant was originally acquired by NBC in the early months of the pandemic and was deployed in fall 2020 when all U.S. series had been delayed by Covid. Against atypical competition, the medical drama ranked as the #2 new drama in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Transplant follows the story of Dr. Bashir “Bash” Hamed (Hamza Haq), a talented doctor and Syrian refugee, who fled his war-torn country with his younger sister, Amira (Sirena Gulamgaus), for a fresh start in Canada. After a truck crashes into the restaurant where he’s been working, Bash earns the chance to practice medicine again by using his field-honed skills to save multiple lives in brilliant fashion, including that of Dr. Jed Bishop (John Hannah), the Chief of Emergency Medicine at York Memorial Hospital in Toronto.

Season two picks up with Bash and his fellow residents reeling after Dr. Bishop suffers a stroke. With everything at the hospital destabilized, the place that Bash had started to consider home suddenly feels precarious. As the team adjusts to new colleagues while dealing with the challenges of life, unexpected faces from the past leave Bash seriously doubting whether his transplant into this new world was successful.

Joseph Kay, Bruno Dubé, Jocelyn Deschênes, Virginia Rankin, Tara Woodbury, Josée Vallée and Adam Barken exec produce.  Director Stefan Pleszczynski joins as executive producer and will direct six episodes. Transplant is produced by Sphere Media in association with CTV and Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group.

Weakest Link, a reboot of the 2000s game show, was NBC’s #1 alternative series launch during the 2020-21 season in both the 18-49 demo and total viewers.

The show, hosted by Emmy Award winner Jane Lynch, is produced by BBC Studios’ Los Angeles production arm in association with Universal Television Alternative Studio. Ryan O’Dowd serves as executive producer for BBC Studios. Stuart Krasnow, who executive produced the original NBC run, serves in the same role and is also showrunner. Lynch also executive produces.