Craig T. Nelson Returning As ‘Coach,’ NBC Orders 13 Episodes

Coach is coming back.

The 1990s sitcom about fictional college football coach Hayden Fox, played by Craig T. Nelson, will get a sequel. Deadline confirmed that NBC aggressively bought up 13 straight-to-series episodes before other networks got a chance. The resurrection is one more sign that the place to find the next big TV show is the graveyard.

In the sequel, Craig T. Nelson’s character Hayden Fox has been retired from coaching for some time. His adopted son Noah Fox, on the other hand, has followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming the football coach at an Ivy League school in Pennsylvania. Noah brings Hayden back into the game as an assistant coach, thereby completing the set-up for the series.

Craig T. Nelson will also be an executive producer on the show and Barry Kemp will return to write. The sitcom will follow the traditional multi-camera set-up popular in the 1990s.

Deadline reports that four major networks scheduled time to hear out the pitch to resurrect the 90s sitcom. NBC was the most enthusiastic to buy-up the show, pre-ordering 13 episodes.

If the new sequel is as successful as its predecessor, there will be plenty more.

According to People, the original Coach ran for nine seasons from 1987 to 1997. Jerry Van Dyke co-starred as Fox’s under-confident defensive coordinator, along with Shelley Fabares who played Hayden Fox’s girlfriend and eventually wife.

Nelson won an Emmy for the series in 1992 and kept household ratings in double digits until its final season.

According to Screen Crush, NBC hasn’t set a premiere date. Likewise, no other talent have been attached yet.

Still, the timing couldn’t be better for Nelson, since he just recently finished up on his current family drama Parenthood, also broadcast on the NBC network.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, X-Files will also get another chance at the small screen after taking a 13-year “commercial break.” The series was picked up for six episodes and will bring back its original stars, Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny.

Other recently revived TV series include Arrested Development (Netflix), Heroes (NBC), and 24 (Fox). Perhaps the most similar resurrection in style and era to Craig T. Nelson’s Coach is the recent Boy Meets World sequel Girl Meets World on Disney. Girl Meets World is on for a second season after a warm reception from TV audiences.

After Craig T. Nelson’s Coach, what TV show will be taken from the dustbin next? Has anyone pitched a new Wings series yet?

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