NBC’s first picks of 2017 are a military thriller and Jason Katims’ high school theater drama Rise

By William Hughes | May 5, 2017 | 2:39am

Aux Features TV

NBC has given the official green light to its first two new series of the year, with Deadline reporting that the network has given series orders to Rise, from Friday Night Lights alum Jason Katims, and For God And Country, a new military thriller from writer Dean Georgaris. The former—which previously went by the slightly goofier, if more memorable, name Drama High—is being co-produced by Hamilton’s Jeffrey Seller, and will star Josh Radnor as a teacher who reignites his faith in himself by dragging a high school theater program out of obscurity.

For God And Country, meanwhile, sounds like a fairly standard TV action-procedural that’s had a heavy dose of rah-rah military patriotism ladled on top. Starring Anne Heche and Mike Vogel, the show focuses on a team of Defense Intelligence Agency analysts, led by Heche, and the undercover Special Ops squad they send into places where dangerous interventions are required. (Or, to quote the press release: Use “their unbreakable bond and commitment to freedom to save lives of innocent people and execute missions in some of the most dangerous places in the world.”)