Atlanta studio lands new NBC drama series ‘Grosse Pointe Garden Society’

Assembly Studios in Doraville also has a new CBS soap ‘Beyond the Gates.’
Birdie (Melissa Fumero) and Catherine (Aja Naomi King) on Grosse Pointe Garden Society Season 1 Episode 1. Photo: Steve Swisher/NBC

Credit: Photo: Steve Swisher/NBC

Credit: Photo: Steve Swisher/NBC

Birdie (Melissa Fumero) and Catherine (Aja Naomi King) on Grosse Pointe Garden Society Season 1 Episode 1. Photo: Steve Swisher/NBC

Atlanta has landed a new NBC drama series “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which begins production Nov. 6.

According to a note provided to members of the IATSE 479 union, the series will be shot at Assembly Studios in Doraville. A 12-episode pick up is scheduled to shoot through early April and is set to debut mid-season in January or February.

NBC provided this summary of the plotline: “Four members of a suburban garden club, all from different walks of life, get caught up in murder and mischief as they struggle to make their conventional lives bloom.”

NBCUniversal signed a long-term deal in 2022 with Assembly to oversee the studio space. It has previously shot Peacock shows “Fight Night” and “Teacup” there. The new CBS soap “Beyond the Gates,” which is the first new soap in 25 years, will start production at Assembly Nov. 4.

Among the cast is Melissa Fumero from Fox’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” The show describes her Birdie character as “entitled, rich, swathed in Chanel, a smoker, a drinker, self-destructive at times, toxic at others, but not without real pain beneath her facade, Birdie is a successful author whose memoir ‘Digging for Gold: Dancing Through Divorce’ is a bestseller.”

AnnaSophia Robb (“Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Soul Surfer”) plays Alice, “your favorite high school English teacher, a dreamer whose best dreams are crashing down on her.”

Ben Rappaport (“For the People,” “Ozark”) is Brett, who is “cool in a threadbare kind of way” and “puts his own dreams of starting a car restoration business on hold so his wife [now ex-wife] could finish law school. He continues his job as a manager of a garden store so he can take care of the kids.”

Nancy Travis is also on the cast, though NBC hasn’t released what her role will be. She has been a regular on several TV series including CBS’s “Becker,” TBS’s “The Bill Engvall Show,” Fox/ABC’s “Last Man Standing” and Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method.”

BILL ENGVALL and Nancy Travis provide nuptial yuks on "The Bill Engvall Show."

Credit: Richard Drew / AP

icon to expand image

Credit: Richard Drew / AP

The series is written and produced by Jenna Bans and Bill Krebs. Bans created NBC’s “Good Girls,” which shot season one at Third Rail Studios in Doraville in 2018. Krebs has worked on shows like Comedy Central’s “Workaholics,” Comedy Central’s “Ugly Americans,” and TNT’s “Franklin & Bash,” which shot its pilot in Atlanta in 2011.

The last time NBC, the broadcast network, shot a scripted series in Atlanta was “Good Girls” six years ago.