La Brea is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on NBC from September 28, 2021 until February 13, 2024, across 3 seasons and 30 episodes. 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 spacetime portal to the same location in 10,000 BC. Meanwhile, the survivors search for a way back through the portal before it closes. Furthermore, a child from a village needs to go through the portal to get to 1988, because he is Josh and IzzieâÂÂs father in the future. If they didnâÂÂt make him go in the portal, Josh and Izzy would cease to exist.
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, which plans to weaponize time travel.
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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. On January 12, 2021, NBC gave production a series order for a 10-episode first season. The series is created by Appelbaum.
On November 12, 2021, NBC renewed the series for a 14-episode second season.
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. On November 20, 2023, it was reported that the third season would be the final season.
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. In March 2020, Jon Seda and Rita Angel Taylor joined the main cast. 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. On March 22, 2021, Nicholas Gonzalez and Rohan Mirchandaney joined the cast as series regulars. 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. On May 12, 2022, Tonantzin Carmelo and Michelle Vergara Moore were promoted to series regulars for the second season. On July 15, 2022, Jonno Roberts joined the cast in a recurring role for the second season. On September 22, 2022, Martin Sensmeier was cast in a recurring capacity for the second season.
The series began filming in Melbourne, Australia, on May 3, 2021, and wrapped up in September 2021. 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. The second season was scheduled to film in Victoria, Australia in the spring of 2022. On May 23, 2023, it was reported that filming for the third season was set to begin soon in Queensland, Australia.
In the USA, the series premiered on September 28, 2021 on NBC. The second season premiered on September 27, 2022 on NBC. The third and final season premiered on January 9, 2024. The series finale aired on February 13, 2024. In Canada, the series aired on CTV. In Australia, it aired on 9Now. In Germany, La Brea premiered on Sky One on April 24, 2022. In Italy - La Brea premiered on Italia 1 on June 8, 2022. 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. In Ireland, the first series was added in full to Paramount+ on August 1, 2022.
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 watchingâÂÂat least not yet." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 49 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". 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" 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. 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.
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.