American Auto
American Auto is an American sitcom television series created by Justin Spitzer that premiered on NBC on December 13, 2021, and aired until its conclusion after two seasons on April 18, 2023.[1][2] The show depicts the inner workings of Payne Motors, a fictional Detroit-based automaker grappling with electric vehicle transitions, supply chain issues, and corporate mismanagement, as its executives make high-stakes decisions to salvage the company.[1][3] Led by Ana Gasteyer as the cunning CEO Katherine Hastings, the ensemble cast includes Tye White as the principled executive Jack Fordham, Harriet Dyer as the idealistic engineer Sadie Ryan, and Jon Barinholtz as the inept heir Wesley Payne.[4][5] Produced by Spitzer's team behind the long-running retail comedy Superstore, American Auto aimed to satirize the automotive sector's real-world pressures through workplace humor and character-driven plots.[2][6] The series received praise for its sharp ensemble performances and timely industry commentary, earning a 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes from a limited number of reviews, though audience reception was more moderate with an IMDb rating of 6.6.[7][5] Despite these elements, NBC canceled the program in June 2023, citing underwhelming ratings that failed to sustain a third season amid network scheduling shifts.[8][2]Overview
Premise
American Auto is a workplace comedy series set at the headquarters of Payne Motors, a fictional American automobile manufacturer based in Detroit that has been producing vehicles for over 100 years.[9] The core narrative revolves around a cadre of executives confronting the company's existential challenges, including flagging market position and operational inefficiencies, as they endeavor to reestablish its corporate identity.[5][10] The premise highlights the internal conflicts and bureaucratic hurdles within the auto industry, portraying misguided leadership decisions and reactive strategies to external pressures such as evolving consumer demands and competitive landscapes.[11] This setup underscores the tension between tradition and adaptation, with the executives navigating day-to-day crises that threaten the firm's viability.[12] Through satirical lens on corporate culture, the series depicts how institutional inertia and self-serving priorities exacerbate vulnerabilities in a sector undergoing rapid transformation, positioning Payne Motors at a pivotal juncture: evolve or risk irrelevance.[13][7]Setting and Format
The primary setting of American Auto is the corporate headquarters of the fictional Payne Motors, located in Detroit, Michigan, which serves as a stand-in for the real-world epicenter of the U.S. automotive industry.[14] This choice reflects Detroit's longstanding prominence in automobile manufacturing, where major companies like General Motors and Ford maintain significant operations.[15] Episodes extend to ancillary sites such as assembly line factories and executive boardrooms, illustrating the breadth of decision-making and operational challenges within a large automaker.[5] American Auto employs a single-camera sitcom format, typical of network television comedies, with episodes structured to run approximately 22 minutes to fit standard broadcast slots excluding commercials.[16] Created by Justin Spitzer, the series draws on his experience with ensemble workplace humor from Superstore, prioritizing character interactions and situational comedy over mockumentary tropes for a more straightforward realism.[17] The narrative integrates references to actual automotive sector dynamics during 2021–2023, including labor union negotiations as depicted in storylines involving contract talks with line workers, which mirror ongoing tensions in the industry.[18] Such elements ground the fictional scenarios in verifiable real-world pressures, such as adapting to technological advancements and workforce relations, without delving into overt political advocacy.[19]Cast and Characters
Main Characters
The primary characters in American Auto form the core executive team at Payne Motors, a fictional Detroit-based automaker navigating industry disruptions such as electric vehicle transitions and supply chain pressures. Their interactions satirize corporate hierarchies, where personal ambitions, nepotism, and departmental silos often undermine operational efficiency and long-term viability in manufacturing. Katherine Hastings serves as the central figure, an outsider CEO imposing pharmaceutical-style management on automotive realities, prioritizing short-term optics over engineering fundamentals.[4] Katherine Hastings (Ana Gasteyer) is the newly appointed CEO, recruited from the pharmaceutical sector with limited automotive expertise. She embodies flawed ambition, characterized by sharp-witted narcissism and a relentless focus on career advancement, often steering the company through public relations scandals via decisive but self-serving directives. Her leadership highlights causal tensions in auto manufacturing, where executive detachment from production realities leads to misaligned strategies, such as rushed pivots to compliance-driven features at the expense of core vehicle performance.[4] Sadie Ryan (Harriet Dyer), head of communications, functions as the pragmatic crisis manager, a Type-A perfectionist balancing internal politics with external messaging. Her role underscores the archetype of marketing executives who prioritize brand perception over substantive product improvements, frequently clashing with engineering teams amid regulatory scrutiny and consumer safety issues. Sadie's resourcefulness in spinning corporate missteps reflects real-world pressures in the auto sector, where communication strategies must reconcile cost-cutting imperatives with innovation demands.[4] Wesley Payne (Jon Barinholtz), grandson of the company founder and a vice president-level executive, represents entrenched nepotism as a wealthy, prideful figure in denial of his incompetence. Floating through roles without specialized skills, he satirizes legacy hires in family-run industries, injecting volatility into decision-making through entitled schemes that prioritize personal status over fiscal discipline or quality control. His dynamics with peers expose how familial ties distort merit-based hierarchies, often exacerbating conflicts between cost containment and genuine R&D investment.[4][20] Jack Fordham (Tye White) provides a counterpoint as the unlikely C-suite promotee, elevated from assembly-line labor after an incident with a self-driving prototype. Suave and morally grounded, he brings blue-collar practicality to elite deliberations, challenging ivory-tower assumptions and advocating for worker-centric realities in vehicle design and testing. His archetype drives satire on class mobility in manufacturing, revealing frictions between frontline operational knowledge and detached executive strategies.[4] Cyrus Knight (Michael Benjamin Washington), chief product designer, is the idealistic innovator, abrasive and prideful in pursuing bold concepts like advanced propulsion systems. He embodies the engineer's push for technological leaps, often at odds with budgetary constraints and legal hurdles, illustrating causal bottlenecks in auto development where creative vision collides with scalable production demands.[4] Elliot Chisholm (Humphrey Ker), general counsel, offers jaded sarcasm as the regulatory gatekeeper, navigating compliance pitfalls with a veneer of cynicism masking underlying sensitivity. His function highlights legal realism in the industry, where adherence to safety standards and emissions rules tempers aggressive timelines, fostering tensions with profit-focused peers.[4] Dori Otis (X Mayo), Katherine's assistant, injects bold loyalty and local Detroit pride, frequently challenging authority while grounding the team in grassroots perspectives. As an anti-authority foil, she satirizes administrative roles in corporate structures, amplifying critiques of top-down decisions disconnected from manufacturing floor exigencies.[4]Recurring and Guest Characters
Joshua Malina portrayed Ted, a recurring character appearing in multiple episodes across both seasons, often involved in subplots related to external partnerships and crisis responses, such as panicking over prototype failures in "Young Designers" (season 2, episode 7, aired March 7, 2023).[21] His role highlighted management dependencies on suppliers and regulators, reflecting auto industry vulnerabilities to chain disruptions.[22] Guest characters frequently depicted factory-level tensions, as in "Earnings Call" (season 1, episode 3, aired January 4, 2022), where Jack and Elliot negotiate concessions with line-workers' union representatives to avert strikes, mirroring historical UAW disputes over wages and job security at Detroit plants.[23] Jerry Minor and Tom McGowan guest-starred as Steve and Ed, respectively, embodying worker pushback against cost-cutting measures that prioritized short-term profits over long-term viability.[24] These portrayals underscored empirical realities of labor incentives, where union demands for guarantees clashed with executive errors in forecasting demand.[25] In season 2, notable guests amplified satirical takes on corporate incompetence. Eric Stonestreet played Ian Osofsky, a crisis manager hired in episodes like "Crisis" (season 2, episode 1, aired January 24, 2023) to salvage Payne Motors' reputation amid scandals, critiquing reliance on external fixers for self-inflicted wounds such as poor PR decisions.[26] [27] Andy Richter appeared as a celebrity endorser in "Celebrity" (season 2, episode 5, aired February 21, 2023), exaggerating absurd supplier and marketing negotiations that exposed flaws in executive oversight.[28] Such cameos drew from real industry practices, where high-profile interventions often masked underlying operational failures rather than resolving them.[29]Production
Development and Conception
American Auto was created by television writer Justin Spitzer, whose prior credits include developing the NBC sitcom Superstore and writing episodes for The Office. The series concept emerged as a single-camera workplace comedy centered on the corporate headquarters of a fictional Detroit-based automaker, satirizing executive decision-making amid industry pressures such as technological shifts and competitive threats. Spitzer pitched the project to NBC in August 2013, securing a put pilot commitment through Universal Television, though it remained in development for several years without advancing to production at that time.[30] Spitzer drew from the ensemble-driven format of Superstore to explore dysfunction in a multibillion-dollar American enterprise, selecting the auto sector for its scale and visibility after initially envisioning a generic large corporation. The premise emphasizes inept leadership grappling with operational failures, product recalls, and adaptation to market realities like fuel efficiency demands and foreign competition, reflecting real-world critiques of domestic automakers' historical lag in innovation post the 2008 financial crisis and government bailouts. This approach contrasts with Superstore's retail focus by amplifying stakes in a capital-intensive industry prone to boom-bust cycles driven by poor strategic choices over external policy alone.[30][31][32] NBC greenlit American Auto straight to series on January 12, 2021, alongside other comedies like Grand Crew, as part of a compressed slate amid rising streaming dominance from platforms such as Netflix and Disney+. The network issued an initial order for 10 episodes for the first season, positioning it as midseason programming to fill gaps in its Thursday lineup following holiday previews in December 2021. This decision aligned with NBC's efforts to revive traditional broadcast comedies emphasizing relatable workplace absurdities, even as viewership fragmentation challenged linear TV models.[16][33]Casting
Ana Gasteyer was cast as Katherine Hastings, the CEO of Payne Motors, on February 24, 2020, drawing on her experience as a Saturday Night Live cast member from 1996 to 2002, where she frequently portrayed satirical authority figures in sketches that highlighted corporate and institutional absurdities.[34][35] Her selection aligned with the pilot's needs for a lead capable of delivering deadpan incompetence amid industry satire, a style honed through her improvisational comedy background.[36] Harriet Dyer was announced for the role of Sadie Ryan, head of communications, four days earlier on February 20, 2020, bringing her experience from British and American television to the ensemble.[37] Additional series regulars, including X Mayo, were added by March 10, 2020.[38] Casting for supporting roles such as Jon Barinholtz as Wesley Payne, Tye White as Jack Fordham, Michael Benjamin Washington as Cyrus Knight, and Humphrey Ker as Elliot occurred later, on July 9, 2020, reflecting a deliberate assembly of performers with prior credits in ensemble comedies to support the workplace dynamic.[39] The ensemble featured racial and ethnic diversity consistent with mid-2020s network television standards, including multiple Black actors in prominent roles alongside white and international performers, though production delays from the COVID-19 pandemic postponed pilot filming and may have influenced actor availability during recasting or adjustments.[40] No public statements from producers emphasized diversity quotas in selections; announcements prioritized actors' prior comedic resumes over explicit demographic targets.[39][34]Writing and Filming
The writing for American Auto was primarily overseen by creator Justin Spitzer, who credited extensive research—including reviews of automotive industry publications, consultations with a member of the Obama administration's autonomous vehicle task force, and a tour of a Ford F-150 assembly plant—for lending authenticity to the series' portrayal of executive decision-making and operational pressures at a fictional Detroit automaker.[41] This approach informed scripts that satirized real-world industry hurdles, such as the tension between short-term corporate imperatives and long-term viability, without basing characters on specific real individuals.[41] Filming occurred entirely in Los Angeles County, California, to leverage studio infrastructure while evoking Detroit's automotive milieu through set design inspired by facilities like Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant.[42] Principal interiors and exteriors were shot at Universal Studios Hollywood, with the Payne Motors headquarters exterior represented by 1 Baxter Way in Thousand Oaks.[43][42] Production timelines were extended by COVID-19 restrictions, which halted pilot filming in 2020 and delayed the series order until January 2021, shifting the Season 1 premiere from a potential fall slot to December 13, 2021.[16][44] On-set protocols included masking and testing, though specifics were not publicly detailed beyond industry-wide adaptations.[44] For Season 2, Spitzer noted iterative refinements to heighten focus on top-down corporate absurdities, drawing from observed executive behaviors to amplify critiques of reactive strategies like abrupt pivots to electrification amid unresolved supply constraints.[45]Episodes
Season 1 (2021–2022)
The first season of American Auto consists of 10 episodes that aired on NBC from December 13, 2021, to March 8, 2022, beginning with a two-episode premiere and featuring a mid-season hiatus after episode 7.[46][47] It centers on the dysfunctional executive team at Payne Motors, a fictional Detroit automaker facing declining market share, as new CEO Katherine Hastings attempts to steer the company through decisions on product development, labor negotiations, and public relations crises, often resulting in unintended consequences like amplified scandals or operational setbacks.[48] Core conflicts emerge from top-down directives clashing with practical realities, such as rushed vehicle launches exposing engineering flaws and cost-cutting measures exacerbating employee discontent.[49] The pilot introduces Hastings' arrival coinciding with a flawed autonomous vehicle rollout, setting up themes of executive overreach and immediate fallout from untested innovations. Subsequent episodes explore specific causal chains, including PR damage from associating with criminal activity in "White Van," union bargaining pressures during earnings announcements in "Earnings Call," and debates over affordable vehicle designs in "The $10K Car" that highlight trade-offs between accessibility and profitability.[50] Mid-season arcs intensify around factory operations in "Millbank, IA," where expansion efforts reveal logistical vulnerabilities, and a mandated inclusive advertising campaign in "Commercial" that backfires on messaging coherence.[51] The season culminates in "Recall," depicting internal deliberations on a defective component where delay risks amplify safety liabilities and legal exposure, mirroring industry precedents of postponed admissions leading to greater financial and reputational harm.| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | US viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Pilot | Jeffrey Blitz | Justin Spitzer | December 13, 2021 | 2.68 |
| 2 | 2 | White Van | Jeffrey Blitz | Christian White | December 13, 2021 | 2.68 |
| 3 | 3 | Earnings Call | Trent O'Donnell | Aparna Nancherla | January 4, 2022 | 2.36 |
| 4 | 4 | The $10K Car | Trent O'Donnell | Eric Ledgin | January 11, 2022 | 2.17 |
| 5 | 5 | Millbank, IA | Kim Fields | Mike Bern | January 18, 2022 | 2.10 |
| 6 | 6 | Commercial | Kim Fields | Liz Menel | January 25, 2022 |
Season 2 (2023)
The second season of American Auto premiered on January 24, 2023, on NBC in the 8:30 p.m. ET Tuesday time slot, and comprised 13 episodes that aired through April 18, 2023.[52] [53] Picking up seven months after the events of the first season, the storyline centers on the fallout from a major product recall scandal involving a defective vehicle that sparked a forest fire, prompting the introduction of a crisis manager to handle escalating negative publicity and internal chaos at Payne Motors.[45] The season heightens the satire on automotive industry pressures, including aggressive pushes toward electrification and sustainability initiatives amid practical constraints, as depicted in episodes addressing "going green" efforts and cost-cutting to adapt to shifting market demands.[54] Executive infighting intensifies, with CEO Katherine Hastings navigating reputational damage, hacker intrusions into company data, and interpersonal tensions among the leadership team, while subplots explore talent recruitment, celebrity endorsements, and operational hacks that expose vulnerabilities.[55] These arcs draw parallels to contemporaneous real-world events, such as ongoing labor negotiations between automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in 2022–2023, which highlighted tensions over wages, job security, and transitions to electric vehicle production.[56] The season culminates in the finale "Judgement Day," where the team's decisions place the company's long-term viability in jeopardy, emphasizing themes of short-term fixes versus sustainable strategy in a competitive sector.[57]| No. in season | Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crisis | January 24, 2023 [52] |
| 2 | Most Hated CEO | January 31, 2023 [54] |
| 3 | Celebrity | February 7, 2023 [58] |
| 4 | Cost Cutting | February 14, 2023 [59] |
| 5 | Going Green | February 28, 2023 [54] |
| 6 | The Letter | March 7, 2023 [58] |
| 7 | Young Designers | March 14, 2023 [55] |
| 8 | Hack | March 21, 2023 [54] |
| 9 | Best Friends | March 28, 2023 [58] |
| 10 | Leadership | April 4, 2023 [59] |
| 11 | Seagull | April 11, 2023 [55] |
| 12 | The 5-Year Plan | April 18, 2023 [54] |
| 13 | Judgement Day | April 18, 2023 [52] |