La Brea | |
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Genre | |
Created by | David Appelbaum |
Starring |
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Music by | James S. Levine |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 30 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producers |
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Production locations | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Cinematography |
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Editors |
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Running time | 43 minutes |
Production companies | |
Original release | |
Network | NBC |
Release | September 28, 2021 – February 13, 2024 |
La Brea is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on NBC from September 28, 2021 [1] until February 13, 2024, across 3 seasons and 30 episodes. [2] It was produced by Keshet Studios and Universal Television and created and executive produced by David Appelbaum. The series received mixed reviews from critics.
On September 26, 2021, a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles at the site of the La Brea Tar Pits and Wilshire Boulevard, pulling many people, vehicles and buildings, including the Petersen Automotive Museum, into its depths. The survivors find themselves trapped in a mysterious and dangerous primeval land where they must band together to survive. The show follows the Harris family, consisting of Eve, Gavin, Izzy, and Josh, after they are separated and attempt to reunite, with Gavin having visions of when and where Eve and Josh are. The sinkhole and the sudden appearance of Teratornis attract the attention of the United States Department of Homeland Security, who are investigating a similar event in the Mojave Desert. As the series progresses, the investigators realize that the sinkholes are a temporary portal to the same location in 10,000 BC. Meanwhile, the survivors search for a way back through the portal before it closes.
Season two reveals that the sinkholes were caused by the Lazarus Project, led by Gavin's long-lost father James Mallet and run by people from 2076, who are researching ways to deal with their time's depleted resources and how to master de-extinction.
The third and final season deals with the aftermath of a time portal's destruction, which brings different things from across time, such as dinosaurs. In addition, Gavin and his allies must contend with the Reisander Group, who plans to weaponize time travel.
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "Pilot" | Thor Freudenthal | David Appelbaum | September 28, 2021 | 6.37 [6] |
2 | 2 | "Day Two" | Cherie Nowlan | David Appelbaum | October 5, 2021 | 5.05 [7] |
3 | 3 | "The Hunt" | Adam Davidson | Jose Molina | October 12, 2021 | 5.06 [8] |
4 | 4 | "The New Arrival" | Thor Freudenthal | Zakiyyah Alexander | October 19, 2021 | 5.12 [9] |
5 | 5 | "The Fort" | Greg McLean | Arika Lisanne Mittman | October 26, 2021 | 5.20 [10] |
6 | 6 | "The Way Home" | Adam Davidson | Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt | November 2, 2021 | 4.03 [11] |
7 | 7 | "The Storm" | Thor Freudenthal | Aiyana White | November 9, 2021 | 4.70 [12] |
8 | 8 | "Origins" | Cherie Nowlan | Jessica Granger & Andre Edmonds | November 16, 2021 | 4.67 [13] |
9 | 9 | "Father and Son" | Thor Freudenthal | Arika Lisanne Mittman | November 23, 2021 | 4.33 [14] |
10 | 10 | "Topanga" | Adam Davidson | David Appelbaum | November 30, 2021 | 4.94 [15] |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
11 | 1 | "The Next Day" | Adam Davidson | David Appelbaum & Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt | September 27, 2022 | 3.86 [16] |
12 | 2 | "The Cave" | Adam Davidson | Rob Wright | October 4, 2022 | 3.90 [17] |
13 | 3 | "The Great Escape" | David M. Barrett | Arika Lisanne Mittman | October 11, 2022 | 3.54 [18] |
14 | 4 | "The Fog" | Ron Underwood | Andre Edmonds | October 18, 2022 | 3.38 [19] |
15 | 5 | "The Heist" | David M. Barrett | Jessica Granger | October 25, 2022 | 3.47 [20] |
16 | 6 | "Lazarus" | Adam Davidson | Bisanne Masoud | November 1, 2022 | 3.47 [21] |
17 | 7 | "1988" | Dan Liu | Erica Meredith | November 15, 2022 | 3.31 [22] |
18 | 8 | "Stampede" | Christine Moore | Russel Friend | January 31, 2023 | 2.20 [23] |
19 | 9 | "Murder in the Clearing" | Nick Gomez | Peter Beals & Onalee Hunter Hughes | January 31, 2023 | 2.02 [23] |
20 | 10 | "The Return" | Greg McLean | Rob Wright | February 14, 2023 | 2.12 [24] |
21 | 11 | "The Wedding" | Tara Miele | Jerome Schwartz | February 21, 2023 | 1.98 [25] |
22 | 12 | "The Swarm" | Rose Troche | Christopher Hollier | February 21, 2023 | 1.72 [25] |
23 | 13 | "The Journey, Part 1" | Cherie Nowlan | David Appelbaum | February 28, 2023 | 1.92 [26] |
24 | 14 | "The Journey, Part 2" | Adam Davidson | David Appelbaum | February 28, 2023 | 1.77 [26] |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
25 | 1 | "Sierra" | Ron Underwood | David Appelbaum | January 9, 2024 | 2.42 [27] |
26 | 2 | "Don't Look Up" | Ron Underwood | Christopher Hollier | January 16, 2024 | 2.18 [28] |
27 | 3 | "Maya" | Cherie Nowlan | Rob Wright | January 23, 2024 | 2.14 [29] |
28 | 4 | "Fire Storm" | Cherie Nowlan | Onalee Hunter Hughes | January 30, 2024 | 2.15 [30] |
29 | 5 | "The Road Home, Part 1" | Nick Gomez | Jerome Schwartz | February 6, 2024 | 2.06 [31] |
30 | 6 | "The Road Home, Part 2" | David M. Barrett | David Appelbaum | February 13, 2024 | 2.03 [32] |
On January 15, 2020, La Brea was given a pilot order by NBC. The pilot was directed by Thor Freudenthal and written by David Appelbaum who was expected to executive produce alongside Avi Nir, Alon Shtruzman, Peter Traugott, Ken Woodruff and Rachel Kaplan. The production companies involved with the series are Keshet Studios and Universal Television. [33] [34] On January 12, 2021, NBC gave production a series order for a 10-episode first season. The series is created by Appelbaum. [35]
On November 12, 2021, NBC renewed the series for a 14-episode second season. [36] [37]
On January 31, 2023, NBC renewed the series for a six-episode third season. The cast originally had contracts requiring payments for at least ten episodes per season; the cast accepted an offer to be released from their contracts so they would be free to pursue work on other shows after the season in exchange for reducing that number to six. [38] [39] On November 20, 2023, it was reported that the third season would be the final season. [40]
In February 2020, Michael Raymond-James, Karina Logue, Zyra Gorecki, Caleb Ruminer, Angel Parker, Catherine Dent, Veronica St. Clair, Jag Bal, and Chiké Okonkwo were cast as series regulars while Natalie Zea was cast as the lead role. [33] [41] [42] [43] In March 2020, Jon Seda and Rita Angel Taylor joined the main cast. [44] [45] On March 4, 2021, Eoin Macken and Jack Martin were cast to replace Raymond-James and Ruminer, respectively and Lily Santiago joined the main cast. In addition, the surname of the family has been changed to Harris. [46] On March 22, 2021, Nicholas Gonzalez and Rohan Mirchandaney joined the cast as series regulars. [47] In April 2021, Josh McKenzie was cast as a series regular while Ione Skye was cast in a recurring role and Chloe De Los Santos was cast to replace Taylor. [48] [49] On May 12, 2022, Tonantzin Carmelo and Michelle Vergara Moore were promoted to series regulars for the second season. [3] On July 15, 2022, Jonno Roberts joined the cast in a recurring role for the second season. [5] On September 22, 2022, Martin Sensmeier was cast in a recurring capacity for the second season. [4]
The series began filming in Melbourne, Australia, on May 3, 2021, and wrapped up in September 2021. [50] [51] The main photography of the series was shot in regional Victoria. The recordings for the first season were completed in September. The effects-heavy production spent $71 million in Australia, more than $60 million of it in Victoria. It is the most expensive TV production in Victoria since Steven Spielberg's HBO series The Pacific completed in 2009. [52] The second season was scheduled to film in Victoria, Australia in the spring of 2022. [37] On May 23, 2023, it was reported that filming for the third season is set to begin soon in Queensland, Australia. [53]
In the USA, the series premiered on September 28, 2021 on NBC. [1] The second season premiered on September 27, 2022 on NBC. [54] The third and final season premiered on January 9, 2024. [40] The series finale aired on February 13, 2024. [2] In Canada, the series aired[ when? ] on CTV. [55] In Australia, it aired on 9Now [ when? ]. [56] In Germany, La Brea premiered on Sky One on April 24, 2022. [57] In Italy - La Brea premiered on Italia 1 on June 8, 2022. [58] In the UK, the first episode of La Brea aired on Channel 5 on August 1, 2022 to promote the series, with the entire first series being added to Paramount+ on the same day. The series also premiered on 5USA on April 22, 2023. [59] In Ireland, the first series was added in full to Paramount+ on August 1, 2022. [59]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 29% approval rating with an average rating of 4.5/10, based on 21 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "There may be method to its madness, but La Brea simply doesn't commit to its insane premise hard enough to shake out a show worth watching—at least not yet." [60] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 49 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [61] In reviewing the series pilot, the television critic for The Globe and Mail wrote "The series is so wretchedly bad, it is gripping in its awfulness" [62] while the reviewer for SCIFI.radio wrote that "La Brea is everything I hate in network television science fiction" and mentions the many scientific improbabilities in the first episode such as the "statistically unlikely number of survivors" from falling after exiting a time portal suspended hundreds of feet in the primeval sky that should have killed everyone. [63] In contrast, the reviewer for The Guardian liked the series for being "gloriously, brazenly bad" while giving the series one out of five stars when the series debuted in the UK in 2022. [64]
Season | Timeslot (ET) | Episodes | First aired | Last aired | TV season | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Viewers (millions) | Date | Viewers (millions) | ||||
1 | Tuesday 9:00 p.m. | 10 | September 28, 2021 | 6.37 [6] | November 30, 2021 | 4.94 [15] | 2021–22 |
2 | Tuesday 9:00 p.m. (1–8, 10–11, 13) Tuesday 10:00 p.m. (9, 12, 14) | 14 | September 27, 2022 | 3.86 [16] | February 28, 2023 | 1.77 [26] | 2022–23 |
3 | Tuesday 9:00 p.m. | 6 | January 9, 2024 | 2.42 [27] | February 13, 2024 | 2.03 [32] | 2023–24 |
No. | Title | Air date | Rating (18–49) | Viewers (millions) | DVR (18–49) | DVR viewers (millions) | Total (18–49) | Total viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Pilot" | September 28, 2021 | 0.8 | 6.37 [6] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
2 | "Day Two" | October 5, 2021 | 0.6 | 5.05 [7] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
3 | "The Hunt" | October 12, 2021 | 0.6 | 5.05 [8] | 0.3 | 2.58 | 1.0 | 7.64 [8] |
4 | "The New Arrival" | October 19, 2021 | 0.6 | 5.12 [9] | 0.3 | 2.57 | 0.9 | 7.69 [65] |
5 | "The Fort" | October 26, 2021 | 0.6 | 5.20 [10] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
6 | "The Way Home" | November 2, 2021 | 0.4 | 4.03 [11] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
7 | "The Storm" | November 9, 2021 | 0.6 | 4.70 [12] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
8 | "Origins" | November 16, 2021 | 0.6 | 4.67 [13] | 0.4 | 2.41 | 1.0 | 7.08 [66] |
9 | "Father and Son" | November 23, 2021 | 0.5 | 4.33 [14] | 0.3 | 2.28 | 0.8 | 6.62 [67] |
10 | "Topanga" | November 30, 2021 | 0.5 | 4.94 [15] | 0.3 | 2.18 | 0.9 | 7.12 [68] |
No. | Title | Air date | Rating (18–49) | Viewers (millions) | DVR (18–49) | DVR viewers (millions) | Total (18–49) | Total viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Next Day" | September 27, 2022 | 0.5 | 3.86 [16] | 0.3 | 2.16 | 0.8 | 6.02 [16] |
2 | "The Cave" | October 4, 2022 | 0.4 | 3.90 [17] | 0.2 | 2.03 | 0.6 | 5.93 [69] |
3 | "The Great Escape" | October 11, 2022 | 0.4 | 3.54 [18] | 0.2 | 1.78 | 0.6 | 5.31 [70] |
4 | "The Fog" | October 18, 2022 | 0.3 | 3.38 [19] | 0.2 | 1.80 | 0.5 | 5.18 [71] |
5 | "The Heist" | October 25, 2022 | 0.4 | 3.47 [20] | 0.2 | 1.60 | 0.6 | 5.07 [72] |
6 | "Lazarus" | November 1, 2022 | 0.3 | 3.47 [21] | 0.2 | 1.58 | 0.5 | 5.04 [73] |
7 | "1988" | November 15, 2022 | 0.4 | 3.31 [22] | 0.2 | 1.73 | 0.6 | 5.04 [74] |
8 | "Stampede" | January 31, 2023 | 0.3 | 2.20 [23] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
9 | "Murder in the Clearing" | January 31, 2023 | 0.2 | 2.02 [23] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
10 | "The Return" | February 14, 2023 | 0.3 | 2.12 [24] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
11 | "The Wedding" | February 21, 2023 | 0.2 | 1.98 [25] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
12 | "The Swarm" | February 21, 2023 | 0.2 | 1.72 [25] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
13 | "The Journey, Part 1" | February 28, 2023 | 0.2 | 1.92 [26] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
14 | "The Journey, Part 2" | February 28, 2023 | 0.2 | 1.77 [26] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
No. | Title | Air date | Rating (18–49) | Viewers (millions) | DVR (18–49) | DVR viewers (millions) | Total (18–49) | Total viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Sierra" | January 9, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.42 [27] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
2 | "Don't Look Up" | January 16, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.18 [28] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
3 | "Maya" | January 23, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.14 [29] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
4 | "Fire Storm" | January 30, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.15 [30] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
5 | "The Road Home, Part 1" | February 6, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.06 [31] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
6 | "The Road Home, Part 2" | February 13, 2024 | 0.2 | 2.03 [32] | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
The series was one of 94 out of the 200 most-popular scripted television series that received the ReFrame Stamp for the years 2021 to 2022. The stamp is awarded by the gender equity coalition ReFrame and industry database IMDbPro for film and television projects that are proven to have gender-balanced hiring, with stamps being awarded to projects that hire female-identifying people, especially women of color, in four out of eight key roles for their production. [75]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
People's Choice Awards | December 7, 2021 | Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show of 2021 | La Brea | Nominated | [76] |
December 6, 2022 | Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show of 2022 | La Brea | Nominated | [77] | |
Saturn Awards | October 25, 2022 | Best Fantasy Television Series: Network / Cable | La Brea | Nominated | [78] |
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