‘Great News’ gets a design update for Season 2

NBC’s “Great News,” a sitcom set behind the scenes at the fictional MMN’s “Breakdown” news show, returned this season with a new boss and some updates to its production design.

The show centers on Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan), a producer for the show who finds herself forced to work with the new intern — who happens to be her overbearing mother Carol (Andrea Martin) — and new network head Diana St. Tropez (Tina Fey).

The show-within-a-show that the characters work on, “The Breakdown,” is hosted by Chuck Pierce (John Michael Higgins) and Portia Scott-Griffith (Nicole Richie).

For the new season, “The Breakdown” updated its logo and set design.

Instead of the former serif and blackletter logotype, “The Breakdown” now appears in a narrow sans-serif font. 

The show’s set, which relies heavily on large video walls, received an update, adding sleeker metallic columns with internally lit reveal lines on either side of the camera-center background and an additional video wall to the side in place of the blocky printed cityscape graphics that appeared last season.

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Of course, not every scene takes place in the studio, and “Great News” makes heavy use of areas you’d expect to find at a television network, including an open newsroom, meeting spaces, lounge and pantry, private offices and control room, among other places.

Interestingly, the show’s newsroom, which features a double-height ceiling and curved staircase near the entrance, appears to be at least partially based on the main newsroom set seen briefly in “Morning Glory,” a 2010 film starring Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford, that also took place within a network.

In addition to the cubicles and workspaces, the newsroom for “The Breakdown” also features what appear to be edit bays and other support facilities. 

Credits

  • Photos by Tyler Golden, Greg Gayne, Erica Parise and Trae Patton of NBC
  • Production design by Joseph P. Lucky and Teresa Mastropierro (pilot)