NBC
If you like This Is Us, NBC has a new family dramedy that will be right up your alley. Council of Dads, which tells the story of a chosen family brought together by tragedy, premieres Tuesday, March 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
If you don’t have cable, you can watch Council of Dads live or on-demand on your computer, phone, Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV or other streaming device via one of the following cable-free, live-TV streaming subscription services:
Heavy may earn an affiliate commission if you sign up via a link on this page
Sling TV
Sling TV’s “Sling Blue” package includes 47 live-TV channels, including NBC (live in select markets). It costs $20 for the first month ($30 per month after that), making Sling the cheapest streaming service with NBC:
Or, as part of a special deal that Sling is currently offering, you can get a free Amazon Fire TV Stick if you prepay for two months:
Once signed up for Sling TV, you can watch Council of Dads live on your computer via the Sling TV website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the Sling TV app.
If you can’t watch live, Sling TV comes with 10 hours of cloud DVR and an extensive on-demand library of TV shows.
FuboTV
NBC (live in most markets) is one of 95-plus live TV channels included in the main FuboTV bundle, which comes with a free seven-day trial:
Once signed up for FuboTV, you can watch a live stream of Council of Dads on your computer via the FuboTV website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast or other supported device via the FuboTV app.
If you can’t watch live, FuboTV comes with 30 hours of Cloud DVR (with the ability to upgrade to 500 hours), as well as a “72-Hour Lookback” feature, which allows you to watch most shows up to three days after they air even if you forgot to record them.
Hulu With Live TV
NBC (live in most markets) is included in Hulu With Live TV, which comes with 60-plus live TV channels and Hulu’s extensive on-demand library of TV shows and movies.
Once signed up for Hulu With Live TV, you can watch a live stream of Council of Dads on your computer via the Hulu website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Echo Show or other streaming device via the Hulu app.
If you can’t watch live, “Hulu with Live TV” comes with both its extensive on-demand library (which has new episodes available after they air) and 50 hours of Cloud DVR storage (with the ability to upgrade to “Enhanced Cloud DVR,” which gives you 200 hours of DVR space and the ability to fast forward through commercials).
AT&T TV Now
AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) offers six different channel bundles. They range from 45 to 125 live TV channels, and they all include NBC (live in most markets). The “Plus” and “Max” packages come with a free seven-day trial:
Once signed up for AT&T TV Now, you can watch a live stream of Council of Dads on your computer via the AT&T TV Now website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, or other compatible streaming device via the AT&T TV app.
If you can’t watch live, AT&T TV Now — no matter what channel package you choose — comes with included cloud DVR.
‘Council of Dads’ Preview
The idea behind Council of Dads is that Scott Perry (Tom Everett Scott) is facing a health crisis when he finds out he has cancer, so he convenes a group of his closest male friends to be there for his family if anything should happen to him. He and his wife Robin (Sarah Wayne Callies) are the parents to five children and he’s worried about who will help raise them if he dies.
Among Perry’s council are Anthony (Clive Standen), Scott’s oldest and most loyal friend; Larry (Michael O’Neill), his tough-love AA sponsee; and Oliver (J. August Richards), his dedicated doctor and wife’s dearest friend. Together, they discover that there’s more to being a father than anyone could do alone – and more to being a family than they ever thought possible.
The show is based on the 2010 bestseller by Bruce Feiler called “The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me,” which was based on Feiler’s real-life cancer battle and the six friends he asked to be father figures to his twin daughters if anything should happen to him. For the TV adaptation, the creators chose to cut the “council of dads” from six down to three and they also chose to have the main dad die in the pilot — that’s not a spoiler, it’s in the trailer. Feiler did not die; he’s still alive and well and writing a weekly New York Times column called “This Life.” So why the change?
Executive producers Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, who are married and have two children, told the 2020 Television Critics Association winter press tour that they wanted the emotional crisis to make the story as personal as possible.
“It’s an immediate idea that I think that we’ve all dealt with. I mean, Joan and I have very similar conversations where she will say to me, ‘If I die, these are the approved women that you can have come anywhere near our children,'” said Phelan. “But, yeah, I think that that idea of reaching out to the people around you and bringing them in to help you in a time of crisis, I think that that’s not only with the cast but with our writers who are amazing, with the crew, everybody seems to have an experience like that and feels very personal about the story.”
He added that it was “very important” to us that the audience feels “like you know these people.”
“You get very intimate with them and that there is always a layer of life on top of everything, that you never walk into a room in their house and feel like, oh, it’s been staged because there are people coming in to look at the house. It’s always full of just life crap, toys, everything. But that’s also, you know how we if there is a style to the show in terms of the acting and the camerawork and everything, it’s to make it as real and immediate and recognizable as possible.”
Council of Dads has a special premiere Tuesday, March 24 following the season four finale of This Is Us. It will then debut in its regular time slot on Thursday, April 30 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
READ NEXT: ‘Survivor’s’ Jonathan Penner Reveals Wife Stacy’s ALS Diagnosis on the Show