The recastings continue for “Last Man Standing” as Tisha Campbell has been tapped to play Chuck Larabee’s (Jonathan Adams) wife Carol Larabee, TV Guide has confirmed.
The TV veteran is taking over the role from Erika Alexander, who was unable to return to the series due to a scheduling conflict.
“Last Man Standing” stars Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, a married father of three trying to maintain his manliness in a world increasingly dominated by women. The comedy has been a hit for Fox since it was revived out of cancellation this spring.
TV Insider spoke with EP Kevin Abbott about what fans can expect when the show returns from the holiday hiatus in 2019. Below are a few excerpts from the interview.
How does it feel to be heading into 2019 with all-new episodes after the revival?
It’s interesting because, to a certain degree, coming back there was really a great shot of energy. It was an unfortunate cancellation, which was jarring. There’s also an unforeseen return, so there was a lot of enthusiasm. And the time off helped everyone kind of capture… their energy back and recapture the enthusiasm because when you’ve been doing a show for a long time, there’s a certain amount of, ‘the treadmill goes on’ feeling. Taking the time off gives you the chance to step back and appreciate what we really had.
What should fans look forward to for the Baxters when they return in January?
We have one [episode] coming up in February on the 15th, where Chuck (Jonathan Adams) and Carol get remarried. That’s a really great episode — it’s gonna be part of a back-to-back where we’re stringing a B-story through both episodes. That’s the one we’re shooting this week and it’s fantastic.
We’ve got some big developments with Mandy (Molly McCook) and Kyle (Christoph Sanders) coming up which we’re really excited about. And we have this lovely large, extended family now — Jay Leno’s on all the time with Bill Engvall back this week, who we’d love to get back again. Tisha Campbell is playing Carol, Chuck’s wife, and she’s gonna be on for a few and we hope to bring Vanessa’s mom back. We just have a really large rotating cast of characters now that we’re getting a lot of fun out of. I think will be great.
“Last Man Standing” returns Friday, January 4, 8/7c, Fox.
