TV Talk at TCA: How ‘Justified: City Primeval’ ended up back in Western Pa.

PASADENA, Calif. – FX’s “Justified” (2010-15) filmed its pilot episode in Western Pennsylvania back in 2009 before production on the subsequent episodes shifted to Southern California.

For the sequel series, “Justified: City Primeval,” premiering on FX this summer, the show is set in Detroit and primarily filmed in Chicago with a few scenes shot near Miami and back in Western Pennsylvania.

“Justified” returned to the region for two days of filming last summer at SCI Greensburg. During the Television Critics Association winter 2023 press tour, I had an opportunity to sit down with director Michael Dinner to ask why the production pulled up stakes and relocated from Chicago for just a few scenes.

Although Dinner directed the “Justified” pilot, that wasn’t the impetus for the return to Western Pennsylvania. Rather, it was his experience directing 2020’s Spectrum Originals/CBS series “Manhunt: Deadly Games” in Pittsburgh.

Dinner said the scenes shot at SCI Greensburg, which will be part of the final episode of “Justified: City Primeval,” were originally planned for an Illinois prison, but then state officials put the kibosh on those plans due to covid-caused staff shortages, and the production didn’t have time to build the sets needed.

“I opened my big mouth and said, ‘Well, you know, I was just shooting in this prison in Pittsburgh two years ago and it’s empty and it would work great and I don’t even have to scout it. I can tell you exactly how I’d shoot it,’” Dinner recalled. “We literally pivoted and the next day we were on a flight to Pittsburgh and the film [office] was fantastic. It could usually take weeks to organize this stuff and they were able to permit everything and get it going. Some of the Pittsburgh crew were guys that had been on the original pilot. It worked out great.”

Dinner couldn’t say which actors are in those scenes due to the potential for spoilers. When he arrived at SCI Greensburg, he discovered in one room a wall David Fincher had constructed for “Mindhunter” was still standing, along with a wall he’d had built for “Manhunt.”

“Justified: City Primeval” fudges the timeline a bit as Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is now raising his teenage daughter (Vivian Olyphant, Tim’s real-life daughter) in Miami. They travel to Detroit and get caught up in a murder investigation involving some unsavory characters.

Could “Justified” return to Western Pennsylvania a third time? Producers don’t rule out additional Raylan Givens stories.

“I’m like the swallows, I keep returning,” Dinner said. “You never can tell. Who knows, there could be a third installment to ‘Justified’ that we’re back or something else. But I do like it there.”

‘Night Court’ returns

Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”), star and executive producer of NBC’s “Night Court” sequel series (8 and 8:30 p.m. tonight, WPXI-TV) knows some viewers turn up their noses at the notion of a TV reboot. She’s trying to dodge that by calling “Night Court” a “new-boot.”

“Whenever someone hears the term ‘reboot,’ I know personally my whole body tenses up,” Rauch said. “With this, it’s not necessarily a reboot, because there is this fresh new element it.”

While many actors from the original “Night Court” have died, Richard Moll and Marsha Warfield are still not working, but not in this new “Night Court” cast, though Rauch teased they could guest star in future episodes. The only returnee from the original who is back to participate in dispensing what executive producer Dan Rubin calls “fast food justice” is John Larroquette, who reprises his role as Dan Fielding.

In the original, Dan was a lecherous prosecutor; this time he plays a defense attorney. Even with that change, Larroquette said he initially turned down Rauch’s offer to return. But when Rauch decided to not only produce but to star in the new “Night Court,” Larroquette changed his mind.

“It was a task to figure out what’s happened to him, where is he in life, and how is he still funny since some of the humor that Dan Fielding presented in the ’80s would probably not be funny today,” said Larroquette, who revealed he turned down a Dan Fielding spin-off during the original show’s run because he couldn’t imagine Dan as a series lead. “So, what’s still funny about him? I think his arrogance, the fact that he still thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. … It was a journey finding the jokes again. And that’s all this show is, and I’ll never claim to be ashamed of that. It’s to try and make you laugh, and if we can make you laugh, then we are successful. We have to just find other ways of doing it than I could do it in the ’80s.”

Moreschi exits WPXI-TV

Sto-Rox High School grad Angie Moreschi, who came home to Pittsburgh when she joined Channel 11 as an investigative reporter three years ago, exited the station earlier this month for a new, Washington, D.C.-based national investigative correspondent position.

Moreschi has been asked not to reveal where she’ll be working next until her first day on the job on Jan. 23, but she said Pittsburgh viewers will still be able to see her work. It’s unclear if she’ll be working for a national network or something more akin to the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit, whose reports air during WTAE-TV newscasts.

Kept/canceled

Syfy renewed “Chucky” for a third season and “Reginald the Vampire” for a second season.

“Snowpiercer” is the latest Warner Bros. Discovery series to get scrapped, presumably for a tax break. TNT will not air the completed fourth season as planned, but producers will shop it to another network/platform.

Netflix canceled Neil Patrick Harris’ gay romcom “Uncoupled” after a single season.