Up All Night was a Syndication network comedy series created by Emily Spivey, which aired from September 14, 2011 to December 13, 2012, lasting for two seasons & 35 episodes.
It was produced by Broadway Video, Universal Television and Open 4 Business Productions.
Plot[]
The series followed Reagan Brinkley, who works as a producer on her best friend Ava Alexander's talk show and her supportive, stay-at-home husband, Chris as he & Reagan adjust to life being parents to their newborn daughter, Amy.
The second season focused on the cancellation of Ava's talk show, and Chris starting a business with Reagan's brother Scott, and Reagan struggling to adjust to her new role as a stay-at-home mother.
Cast[]
- Christina Applegate as Reagan Brinkley
- Will Arnett as Chris Brinkley
- Maya Rudolph as Ava Alexander
- Jennifer Hall (Season 1) as Missy (season 2)
- Luka Jones (Season 2) as Scott Chafin (season 2)
Production[]
Conception[]
The series was based on creator Emily Spivey's life when she went back to working on "Saturday Night Live" after giving birth to a baby boy.
Due to the nature of her job, Spivey was required to take care of the baby and work late nights. She decided she wanted to make a show based on those extremes. NBC executives were "supportive and excited" for the new series.
On February 1, 2011, "Up All Night" received a pilot order, written by creator Spivey and directed by James Griffiths, under the title Alpha Mom.
The series was officially picked up for 13 episodes at the NBC upfronts on May 15, 2011 under its final title "Up All Night."
After the success of Maya Rudolph's film "Bridesmaids," the show went through some retooling which now has her character Ava, as a talk-show host, and Reagan now as the show's producer, instead of them being PR executives. Spivey said the character change allowed Ava to be more fun.
Some media critics compared the character change to Rudolph's impersonation of Oprah Winfrey on "Saturday Night Live."
On October 4, 2011, "Up All Night" was later given a full-season pickup.
On November 21, 2011, NBC added two additional episodes to season one, bringing the total to 24 episodes.
Broadcast History[]
"Up All Night" premiered in the 10:00 pm timeslot, behind "America's Got Talent" (with "Free Agents" following it).
The following week, it was moved to its regular timeslot at 8:00 pm, and was eventually the only comedy after "Free Agents" was cancelled.
Starting January 12, the series was moved behind NBC's hit series "The Office", switching timeslots with "Whitney".
Some media critics have said that the goal for moving the series was in order to make it more of a ratings success (like "The Office").
Ratings[]
During its first season, "Up All Night" was a moderate success in the ratings by network's standards (at the time, NBC was the fourth highest-rated network out of five networks).
Due to the moderate success, the series was given a full season pick up alongside "Whitney."
Bill Gorman of TV by the Numbers has also stated the series is most likely to be renewed for a second and final season.
Cancellation[]
In October of 2012, it was announced that "Up All Night" would go on hiatus eleven episodes into its second season to convert from a single-camera setup to a multiple-camera setup shot in front of a live audience.
During the hiatus, series creator Emily Spivey & star Christina Applegate left the series and Will Arnett was cast in a CBS pilot (which eventually became the two-season series "The Millers").
On May 9, 2013 (after months of rumors of cancellations), "Up All Night" was officially canceled by NBC after two seasons and was not renewed for a third season.
Reception[]
"Up All Night" has received mostly positive reviews from critics. The show's first season currently holds a score of 64 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating generally positive reviews.
Many critics said that the series felt like two different shows in one.
HitFix reviewer Daniel Feinberg gave the series pilot a positive review, but disliked the office settings and the writing for Maya Rudolph's character commenting that "Will Arnett and Christina Applegate are playing parents, but Maya Rudolph is playing a sitcom character."
Despite this, the performance of the main cast members has received praise from critics.
Some critics compared Rudolph's role to her impersonation of Oprah Winfrey while she was on SNL, which Rudolph firmly denied saying, "I have yet to see the similarities between my character and Oprah."
Some publications declared it among the best TV shows of 2011, new or old, including Slant Magazine and Hulu.
Slate writer Hanna Rosin has praised the show in particular for slowly subverting the sitcom archetype of the father incompetent at managing the household, writing: "Chris started out as an idiot who stayed home with the baby because he had nothing better to do. In early episodes, he propped up the infant on the couch so he could play his video games or watch hockey, and didn't really notice when she tipped over. But over time he has morphed into the sane, sensible parent we all want to be. Now his role is to check his wife's crazy competitive instincts and to never renege on a promise made to his daughter. In fact, the show's main innovation is creating a reliable stay-at-home dad whose wife still wants to sleep with him."
Rosin recalled that the show then went further, by then assigning the usual role of a sitcom dad to Reagan, writing: "[She] turned into a version of Ralph Kramden, prone to tantrums and meddling. Like the classic doltish dad, she creates elaborate schemes to fix domestic problems but only winds up making everything worse. And then Chris swoops in, Alice-style, to make it all better."