‘Parenthood’, the new NBC drama featuring Maura Tierney with a September premiere scheduled, has been pushed back to mid-season to allow Tierney to under-go her eight-week medical evaluation.  No details about the evaluation have been released by NBC.
 
The show also starring Peter Krause and Craig T. Nelson, has Tierney, who previously starred on NBC’s Newsradio and ER, has her playing Sarah one of four adult siblings trying to cope with raising children, their relationships, including their parents.
 
Based on Steve Martin’s movie of the same name, the show set to air 8:00 p.m. Wednesdays, will be replaced with ‘Mercy’, a medical drama about a group of nurses, starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Taylor Schilling and Jamie Lee Kirchner, with ‘Parenthood’ moving to mid-season.
 
All who have watched Maura Tierney’s work know how simply extraordinary she is.  Newsradio launching her career alongside Phil Hartman, Stephen Root, Dave Foley and Andy Dick, is still one of the most under-rated sitcoms of all-time.
 
Taking over for Julianna Margulies as nurse Abby Lockhart on NBC’s medical drama ‘ER’, Tierney proved she could just as easily do drama as comedy, holding her own against Sally Field in episodes where the Oscar winner plays her character’s mother.  A notable connection, as Parenthood is very akin to ‘Brothers and Sisters’, Field’s current show, also about a large, extended family struggling to love one another.