The court has made its decision: Night Court executive producer Melissa Rauch, best known for her role in the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, will be starring in the sitcom sequel series as Harry’s daughter.

Deadline reports that Rauch has stepped up to star in the Night Court sequel series in the lead role opposite original series co-star John Larroquette. Rauch will star as “the unapologetic optimist judge Abby Stone, daughter of the late Harry Stone, who follows in her father’s footsteps as she presides over the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court and tries to bring order to its crew of oddballs and cynics, most notably former night court prosecutor Dan Fielding (Larroquette).”

Rauch had been attached as executive producer alongside her After January production partner and husband Winston Rauch since December 2020, when the sequel series to the classic legal comedy show was first announced. A longtime fan of the original sitcom, Rauch had been a driving force in making the Night Court sequel series happen.

The original Night Court is a sitcom favorite, having run for nine seasons and getting nominated for the Emmy for Oustanding Comedy Series three times. Though the series never won the top prize, John Laroquette did win four Emmys for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Written/executive produced by Dan Rubin and based on the original series created by Reinhold Weege, the multi-camera series is a follow-up to the NBC sitcom that aired from 1984 through 1992 and followed the night shift of a Manhattan municipal court presided over by the young unorthodox Judge Harold “Harry” T. Stone (played by Harry Anderson). Unfortunately, Anderson died in 2018 at age 65, so the show shifts focus to his daughter, Abby Stone, who follows in her father’s footsteps at the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court. Abby is a newly created character who was not part of the original show.

This will mark Rauch’s first post-The Big Bang Theory role on TV. Rauch played Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on the hit CBS sitcom for 9 seasons, earning a Critics’s Choice Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the role in 2013. Since then, she’s made appearances in films like Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat alongside Meryl Streep, though she’s primarily been working behind-the-scenes with husband Winston Rauch, producing, co-writing and starring in Sundance film The Bronze. Rauch was initially set to only executive produce Night Court for Warner Bros. TV, but decided to take the lead role after reading the script, per Deadline.

Also executive producing will be Dan Rubin (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), who will be handling script duties as well.

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