TV

TBS orders comedy series “Search Party” starring Alia Shawkat

Alia Shawkat stars in Search Party, a new comedy TBS has just ordered up for 2016 about “a group of four self-absorbed 20-somethings who come together when a former college acquaintance mysteriously disappears.” Her quartet is rounded out by John Early, John Reynolds and Meredith Hagner.

You also see Judy Gold and Jordan Carlos in this sneak peek from the pilot, written and directed by Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, and overseen by Michael Showalter. Roll the clip!

“Sarah-Violet, Charles, Michael and this fantastic cast of comedians have truly hit on the glory and utter misery of early adulthood,” said Brett Weitz, executive vice president of original programming for TBS. “Search Party is a carefully observed, blunt comedy for people who are testing out who they are and who they strive to be.”

Description straight from TBS:

Search Party centers on Dory (Shawkat), a fragile, frustrated, life-long doormat who’s not particularly proud of her impact on the world, especially since her greatest accomplishment to date is organizing clothes to be donated to Goodwill for her wealthy employer. Dory feels stuck in a stale and disconnected relationship with her boyfriend, Drew (Reynolds), a kind of clueless, complacent, spoon-fed doofus who just really loves Christmas. She also feels removed from her closest friends, Elliott (Early), a self-diagnosed narcissist who loves adding job titles to his designer-stylist-curator multi-hyphenate lifestyle, and Portia (Hagner), an actress always struggling to balance the challenging demands of chronic insecurity and pathological self-absorption.

Search Party opens with Dory learning that Chantal, a girl she barely knew in college, has gone missing. Despite having almost no personal connection to her, Dory becomes fixated on the mystery. Dory, Drew, Elliott, and Portia are not crime solvers. They value brunch, parties, and their own loud opinions. So when Dory drags them into a bumbling, perilous pursuit to find the missing girl, they soon learn the meaning of real danger and become entangled in a sinister plot that is more than their privileged Brooklyn lifestyles ever bargained for.

Search Party is being produced for TBS by Tony Hernandez’s Jax Media, with Hernandez and Lilly Burns joining Showalter, Rogers and Bliss as executive producers.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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