Season four of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is on Amazon Prime Video June 30. It is the final season and there are six episodes. John Krasinski plays Ryan. 

Two episodes are released June 30, two more July 7, and the two remaining ones July 14. 

Season four finds Ryan on his most dangerous mission yet, Prime Video teases, facing enemies both foreign and domestic. As the new CIA Acting Deputy Director, Ryan is tasked with unearthing internal corruption and uncovers a series of suspicious black ops that could expose the vulnerability of the country. As Ryan and the team investigate how deep the corruption runs, he discovers a far-worse reality — the convergence of a drug cartel with a terrorist organization — ultimately revealing a conspiracy much closer to home and testing his belief in the system he has always fought to protect. 

Wendell Pierce plays James Greer, Michael Kelly is Mike November and Betty Gabriel portrays CIA Acting Director Elizabeth Wright. Joining the cast are Michael Peña as Domingo Chavez and Louis Ozawa as Chao Fah. 

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is co-produced by Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television, and executive produced by Allyson Seeger, Andrew Form, John Krasinski, Brad Fuller, Michael Bay and John Kelly. Additionally, Tom Clancy and Skydance Television’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Matt Thunell executive produce the fourth season, along with Vaun Wilmott, Mace Neufeld and Carlton Cuse.

Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels include The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of All Fears and Clear and Present Danger. He died in 2013. 

Season three of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is on Prime Video December 21. John Krasinski stars. There are eight episodes.

We spoke with Vaun Wilmott, executive producer, about Krasinski, who of course played Jim Halpert on The Office. “He brings a real humanity, a likeability, a believability to the character,” said Wilmott.

In the new season, Ryan is working as a CIA case officer in Rome when he is tipped off that the Sokol Project, a secret plan to restore the Soviet empire, is being resurrected. Ryan aims to confirm the intelligence, but things go awry and he is implicated in a larger conspiracy.

"Accused of treason, with a Red Notice out for his arrest, Jack is forced to run from his own government, if he has any hope of uncovering the rogue faction before it’s too late," said Prime Video. "Crisscrossing Europe as he is hunted by former allies and new enemies alike, Jack races against the clock to stop the cascade of destabilizing conflicts from leading to global catastrophe."

Crisscrossing Europe, indeed. The show ventures all over the globe, including Italy, Greece, Austria and the Czech Republic. Wendell Pierce portrays CIA officer James Greer and Michael Kelly plays former CIA officer Mike November. As much action as the show offers, Wilmott said it’s the quieter moments between Ryan, Greer and November that he enjoys the most. He mentioned "when things slow down and there’s a fun moment between friends."

Krasinski is an executive producer too. Wilmott called him a key voice in helping "shape the world, the storyline and the episodes" of the series.

Executive producers along with Wilmott and Krasinski are Andrew Form, Allyson Seeger, Brad Fuller and Michael Bay. Tom Clancy and Skydance Television’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost executive produce the third season, along with Mace Neufeld and Carlton Cuse.

Author Clancy died in 2013.

Clancy's books work on the screen, Wilmott said, because of their "clear moral compass" that the viewer can get behind. "You like Jack Ryan and you root for him and support the good-versus-evil drive the character has," he said. "In today’s world, everything is gray, not black and white. It’s nice to follow a character where you know where he stands and he always tries to do the right thing, even if he has to do some wrong things to get there."

Wilmott added, "You always know his heart is in the right place." ■

Season three of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is on Amazon Prime Video December 21. Ryan is a CIA case officer in Rome who gets tipped off about a secret plan to restore the Soviet Empire. Ryan sets out to confirm the tip and gets wrongly implicated in a larger conspiracy. Accused of treason, he’s on the run from the CIA. 

“He’s doing what Jack Ryan does so well — believe in himself, believe in what he’s uncovered and discovered,” executive producer Vaun Wilmott said. “Bad guys are carrying out a plot. He believes in [the tip] and goes after it.”

John Krasinski plays Ryan and is an executive producer, too. Wilmott singled out Krasinski, formerly Jim on The Office, for helping “shape the world, the storyline and  the episodes.” 

That, and he inhabits Ryan quite nicely. “He brings a real humanity, a likeability, a believability to the character,” said Wilmott.

The show shot all over Europe, including Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. 

Wendell Pierce plays CIA officer James Greer and Michael Kelly portrays former CIA officer Mike November. There’s plenty of intense action, but Wilmott likes the quiet scenes, too. Asked about a season three highlight, he mentioned “when things slow down and there’s a fun moment between friends.” 

PBS Kids premieres City Island, a series of animated shorts for early elementary-
school children, on December 26. The title shares its name with a waterfront neighborhood in the Bronx, but creator Aaron Augenblick says City Island is its own burg. 

That’s not to say New York has not been an influence. “I have great, great love for New York City,” said Augenblick, who runs Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn. “As I created the idea for City Island, it bloomed into a love letter for this city.”

Augenblick stressed that City Island’s influences don’t come from New York alone. “New York is definitely a big inspiration,” he said, “but the whole country is an inspiration.”

The shorts star Watt, a little lightbulb with big ideas. Watt meets members of the community and learns about how they make the city run, exploring locations such as the library, airport and museum.  

Augenblick cited Sesame Street, The Muppets and Peanuts as influences. He mentioned how Sesame taught kids valuable lessons without them necessarily realizing they were learning. “When I watched Sesame as a kid, I just thought I was watching an awesome show,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking I’d turned on the show to learn my ABCs and learn how to count.”

Viewers may see some New York architecture, geography and attitude in City Island. Said Augenblick, “The show is New York City on its very, very best day.” ▪️

Season three of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is on Amazon Prime Video December 21. John Krasinski stars. All eight episodes will be available on premiere day. 

Prime Video shared a season three trailer. Krasinski plays Jack Ryan. In the new season, he’s working as a CIA case officer in Rome when he is tipped off that the Sokol Project, a secret plan to restore the Soviet empire, is being resurrected. Ryan aims to confirm the intelligence, but things go awry and he is implicated in a larger conspiracy. 

“Accused of treason, with a Red Notice out for his arrest, Jack is forced to run from his own government, if he has any hope of uncovering the rogue faction before it’s too late,” said Prime Video. “Crisscrossing Europe as he is hunted by former allies and new enemies alike, Jack races against the clock to stop the cascade of destabilizing conflicts from leading to global catastrophe.”

Wendell Pierce portrays CIA officer James Greer and Michael Kelly plays former CIA officer Mike November. Joining the cast are Nina Hoss as Czech President Alena Kovac and Betty Gabriel as CIA Rome Station Chief Elizabeth Wright. 

Krasinski of course played Jim Halpert on The Office. 

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is co-produced by Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television. Executive producers are Andrew Form, Allyson Seeger, John Krasinski, Vaun Wilmott, Brad Fuller and Michael Bay. Additionally, Tom Clancy and Skydance Television’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost executive produce the third season, along with Mace Neufeld and Carlton Cuse.

Author Clancy died in 2013. ■

As the calendar changes to November this week, upstart streaming service Apple TV+ will make its debut with four new scripted series while IFC returns one of its long-running, signature series.

Apple TV+ will launch Nov. 1 with a lineup of several original shows, including four scripted shows -- period comedy Dickinson, sci-fi series For All Mankind, drama series The Morning Show, and fantasy show See.

Also on the docket for the week is the Oct. 30 season four premiere of the Baroness von Sketch Show (pictured), starring comedians Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne and Jennifer Whalen.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

Oct. 29 -- Any One Of Us (documentary) -- HBO

Oct. 30 -- The Bronx, USA (documentary) -- HBO

Nov. 1 -- American Son (movie) -- Netflix

Nov. 1 -- Ghostwriter (children's series) -- Apple TV+

Nov. 1 -- Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (returning series) -- Prime Video

Amazon Saturday released the first video trailer for the second season of its drama series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. 

The second season of the series finds CIA Officer Jack Ryan, portrayed by John Krasinski (A Quiet Place), heading down to South America to investigate a potentially suspicious shipment of illegal arms in the Venezuelan jungle. As Jack’s investigation threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission spanning the United States, UK, Russia, and Venezuela to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos, according to the streaming service.

Related: Amazon Studios Signs Development Deal with Lena Waithe

Amazon Studios Saturday released first-look trailers for several of its upcoming series premieres as part of its Television Critics Association press tour session.

Below are the trailers as well as premiere dates (if available) and short descriptions for each show:

Transparent (movie, premiering Sept. 27): The musical-tinged finale of Amazon’s long-running series follows the Pfefferman family as they face a life-changing loss and begin a new transition, confronting grief as they come together to celebrate connection, joy, and transformation.

Carnival Row (new series, premiering Aug. 30): The series, which stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, is set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with a growing population of mythological immigrant creatures that struggles to coexist with humans — forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. A recent string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.

Modern Love (new series, premieres Oct. 18):The romantic comedy anthology series explores love in all of its complicated and beautiful forms as each standalone episode brings some of the most beloved stories to life with a stellar cast, including Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, John Slattery and Brandon Victor Dixon.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (returning series): The second season of the series finds CIA Officer Jack Ryan heading down to South America to investigate a potentially suspicious shipment of illegal arms in the Venezuelan jungle. As Jack’s investigation threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission spanning the United States, UK, Russia, and Venezuela to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos.

Undone (animated series, Sept. 13): Amazon's new animated series that explores the elastic nature of reality through its central character Alma, a twenty-eight-year-old living in San Antonio, Texas. After getting into a car accident and nearly dying, Alma finds she has a new relationship to time. She develops this new ability in order to find out the truth about her father’s death.

Roseanne, depicting a working-class family and its President Donald Trump-supporting matriarch, was television’s big story last season, averaging nearly 19 million viewers on a live-plus-seven-day basis.

Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet led to its cancellation, but the network wasn’t done with the idea: The Conners premieres Oct. 16, and ABC hopes the gang can do some semblance of the robust ratings Roseanne garnered last year.

Ignoring the fiasco of the tweet, other networks are chasing The Conners into Middle America, hoping to win viewers with heartland themes built around the everyman as hero: Last Man Standing on Fox; NBC’s stacked Chicago shows on Wednesdays; FBI and God Friended Me on CBS; and a handful of series on the streaming networks.

“When something like Roseanne happens, the industry as a whole looks to replicate that in some way, shape or form,” media consultant Bill Carroll said.

Very few network executives will ever concede to targeting one section of the country or the other, and anyone on the broadcast side of the business is thinking broad appeal for anything on air. But these days, the aim seems to be at the very “flyover” states once ignored by tastemakers. And while series on the streaming networks have for years focused not so much on vast appeal, but on select viewers interested in gripping stories, some on the streaming side say their shows, too, shoot for viewers in the heartland.

Before Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan premiered on Prime Video Aug. 31, placing Clancy’s ace analyst in the heat of the Middle East, showrunner Carlton Cuse said he saw Ryan as a “classic American hero” when TV’s defense-minded antiheroes, on the likes of Homeland and 24, bend the rules to complete their missions. “He’s a guy with morals, and a sense of altruism and patriotism,” Cuse said.

Jack Ryan aims to depict the federal defense agencies, such as the CIA and FBI, in a noble light when many are quick to criticize them, Cuse added. Patriotic civil servants play well in Middle America.

“It’s the type of show that’s not made for TV critics, it’s made for viewers,” he said. “We think it has broad appeal — and appeals to a whole section of the country.”

Same goes for drama One Dollar, which premiered Aug. 30 on CBS All Access. The show, which tells the story of multiple murders through a dollar bill that changes hands among connected characters, is set in Pittsburgh, where showrunner Craig Zobel said it can depict the city’s current class clash between the big brains of Carnegie Mellon and Uber and Pittsburgh’s steel-production past.

“The idea was to set something that wasn’t New York or Los Angeles,” he said. “It’s indicative of another part of America we don’t see all the time on TV.”

A year ago, Amazon chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos said he wanted a global hit or two out of Amazon Studios, something akin to Game of Thrones. “We’re a mass-market brand,” then-studio head Roy Price told Variety. Yet Amazon’s big fall release, Matthew Weiner anthology series The Romanoffs, which premiered on Prime Video Oct. 12, is hardly mass-market. Its pilot, set in Paris (with subtitles), feels like an independent film, running nearly 90 minutes and featuring a main character with racist tendencies.

Networks Soldier On

President Trump’s surprise win for the White House gave voice to overlooked voters in the heartland, and it appears to have prompted networks to make sure they don’t overlook them. The 2017-18 broadcast season featured a glut of military themed programming, including SEAL Team on CBS, Valor on The CW and The Brave on NBC. At the time, The CW president Mark Pedowitz downplayed any notion of programming to red or blue states.

“It doesn’t matter what the attitude of the country is,” Pedowitz said. “If it’s right, people will watch it.”

People, for the most part, did not watch. SEAL Team returned this season, while the other shows did not. (History also cancelled military drama Six, about Navy SEALS, after two seasons this past summer.)

Do red states and blue states actually like different programs? A study from E-Poll showed that Democrats’ favorite show for the 2017-2018 season was Game of Thrones, followed by How to Get Away With Murder, This Is Us, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Broad City. Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med also made the top 10, as did Stranger Things.

Republicans favored Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away With Murder, Supernatural, This Is Us and Criminal Minds. The Walking Dead, at No. 6, was the lone non-broadcast show on the GOP list. Roseanne came in at No. 71 among Democrats and No. 31 among Republicans.

Another E-Poll study showed viewers who are Democrats prefer shows that are “sexy, edgy, emotionally involving, ethnically diverse or have strong characters.” Republican viewers, for their part, like programs that are “family-friendly, funny, plot-driven or have storylines that involve ‘good vs. evil.’ ”

Everyone’s Invited

Similar to network executives, few showrunners will say they are targeting a certain section of the country. New ABC comedy The Kids Are Alright, which leads out of The Conners, shows a family of eight boys growing up with ultra-conservative parents in the early ’70s, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and other social strife. “I haven’t thought, this is a red-state show, this is a blue-state show,” creator/showrunner Tim Doyle said. “I haven’t approached it as, I’m reaching out to this audience or that audience.”

Neal Baer, showrunner on drama Designated Survivor — which will premiere on Netflix after two seasons on ABC — said people are too complex to program to individually. “You have to be really careful about saying you’re going to pitch to this group or that group and how that affects your storytelling,” he said.

Network executives don’t love talking about red states and blue states watching their shows, either. After all, it’s entertainment, not cable news. Andy Kubitz, executive VP, programming strategy, ABC Entertainment, said Roseanne wasn’t so much about politics as it was about social issues, seen through the eyes of working-class folks.

“I don’t believe the Roseanne conversation has much to do with red state and blue state,” he said. “The first episode touched on politics, but the rest was about real issues in America that no one else is talking about on television.”

Among the broadcast rookies, FBI, which premiered Sept. 25, shows the inner workings of the bureau’s New York office. Last Man Standing started Sept. 28. Airing for six seasons on ABC before it moved to Fox, it’s about a politically conservative guy, played by Tim Allen, who works for a sporting goods chain. God Friended Me, which debuted Sept. 30, is about an atheist podcaster who is friended on social media by God.

If The Conners looks crafted for the heartland, NBC’s comedies, which include Will & Grace, whose reboot was birthed by a video the four cast members did about Trump weeks before the presidential election, are designed more for urban viewers. Pedowitz said CW hit Supernatural connects with a broad swath of the country, while Crazy Ex-Girlfriend appeals to niche viewers.

“We’re broadcasters — we’re designed to hit the whole country,” he said. “But within the whole country you’re going to hit pockets.”

The Murphy Brown reboot on CBS reaches out to both ends of the political spectrum. The premiere saw Brown, who comes out of retirement to host a cable news show, spar with President Trump on Twitter. It also featured a cameo from Hillary Clinton, who interviews to be Brown’s secretary. (“For four years I was the secretary of a very large organization,” said Clinton.)

Murphy Brown also features Brown’s son, Avery — recall that Dan Quayle derided Murphy Brown for “mocking the importance of fathers” for depicting a single mother back in 1992 — hosting his show on a rival conservative network, the Wolf Network, that features chats with regular Americans in coffee shops and bowling alleys.

Executive producer Steve Peterman, who also worked on the original show, told The New York Times the series came back because Trump is in the White House. “If Hillary Clinton was elected there’d be no artistic reason for this show to be on the air,” he said. “But because of the election, and because the position the press is now finding itself in, there were so many reasons for this show to come back.”

Yet the idea of creating a show based on what the country appears to be feeling and thinking doesn’t quite line up with the labor-intensive, time-consuming nature of producing television. Preston Beckman, former senior strategist at Fox and chairman of media consulting outfit The Beckman Group, mentions Fox brass meeting after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to focus on how best to program to the wounded nation, before deciding they’d never be able to react in time.

“You make decisions today and implement them one or two years down the road,” Beckman said. “Who knows where the country’s head could be then?”

With NBC selling 30-second commercials for about $5 million each, Amazon Prime Video will be promoting its upcoming series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, which will premiere Aug. 31.

The Super Bowl is TV’s biggest and most viewed event. Digital and streaming services have been eating into traditional media, taking away both viewers and advertising. Yet digital companies still turn to TV to promote important products.

"Given the colossal scope and scale of the series coupled with the popularity of Tom Clancy's novels, we knew Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan would be a natural fit for Prime Video’s first Super Bowl ad,” said Mike Benson, head of marketing for Amazon Studios. “The global nature of the audience provides us with a unique opportunity to give viewers a look at this thrilling new series coming to Prime.”

Amazon’s Prime Video ad is schedule to air immediately following the Super Bowl half time show. It features Ryan, played by John Krasinski, and is set to audio clips of political leaders including Presidents John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Donald J. Trump, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. The soundtrack is Ed Sheeran performing Bob Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower."

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.