Tonight, CBS launches a new show where different parts of the same family all get their own storylines and then all of them converge together. If you’re thinking it sounds like Modern Family, you wouldn’t be wrong; however, this series gets its inspiration from somewhere else: Looney Tunes.
“Bugs Bunny was a show that I watched a ton of as a kid, and I loved how it had independent stories, multiple stories within a half‑hour episode, and each story had its own beginning, middle, and end, and I thought why couldn’t you do that with a big extended family, and that is how we all find ourselves up here together now,” creator Justin Adler recalled at this year’s Television Critics Association press tour panel for the new CBS series Life in Pieces.
The show – which has attracted such talents as James Brolin, Colin Hanks, and Dianne Wiest – is actually not exactly like Modern Family in structure, and the stories are often told as “independently as possible.”
With that, they are still able to have subtle connections that the producers think will be enjoyable for audiences to pick up. “If Colin’s character gets punched in the nose and he’s got a bloody nose in one story, in a story within the same episode later, you’d probably see that there was still the bruise on his nose. So while the stories are independent, there is a rule of a time continuum that is consistent,” Adler explained.
Will the show be successful? Sandwiched between The Big Bang Theory and Scorpion, it’s doubtful that they won’t have a big premiere. You can watch for yourself tonight (September 21) at 8:30PM ET on CBS. Below, you can see a preview:
