With the writers strike over, daytime shows are finally premiering their new seasons after initially having to delay.
On Monday, CBS’s The Talk posted on Instagram that it would debut next Monday, October 9. The Talk originally had been scheduled to premiere on Monday, September 18, but was forced to delay after Drew Barrymore, star of her own eponymous talk show, posted a lengthy video apology on Instagram for deciding to go ahead with her own show’s return. The post created an outcry among Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA members — all of whom were on strike at the time — and two days later, Barrymore posted that the show would not go on while pulling the apology video. CBS Media Ventures’s The Drew Barrymore Show still has not announced a return date, although it’s expected to come back this month.
That forced the hand of Warner Bros.’s Jennifer Hudson, which stayed quiet through the fracas, and CBS’s The Talk, which had seen protests outside its Radford studio prior to deciding to delay. After moving off of its initial plan to return on Monday, September 18, Hudson opens its second season on Monday, October 2, with first-week guests Gwen Stefani and Niall Horan, coaches on NBC’s The Voice, as well as Taye Diggs, Cedric the Entertainer and Shaquille O’Neal.
Debmar-Mercury’s Sherri had to return to repeats just two days after it debuted season two on Monday, September 18, because host Sherri Shepherd came down with COVID-19. The show returned to originals on Tuesday, September 26, with guest comedian Leslie Jones, who has written a memoir.
NBCUniversal’s Kelly Clarkson, which is entering its fifth season, still has not announced a premiere date after the show relocated from Los Angeles to New York City.
