‘This Is Us’ Season 5 Premiering Sooner Than Expected

After pausing filming due to the coronavirus pandemic, Season 5 of NBC‘s This Is Us was announced to have a premiere date of Nov. 10. On Wednesday night, NBC revealed in a commercial that ran during America’s Got Talent that the new season will instead premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 27, two weeks earlier than previously announced.

The first episode of the season will still be two hours long, as previously shared by NBC, and will air from 9 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET. The Season 4 finale of This Is Us aired in March, the same month many shows halted filming due to the coronavirus pandemic. This Is Us had already finished filming Season 4 before the pandemic, and the show’s writers have since been working on Season 5 remotely. The series is beginning production on new episodes this week, and creator Dan Fogelman told Entertainment Weekly that the show plans to address the pandemic.

“We have a carefully crafted plan through six seasons of the television show that hundreds of people have now devoted for four-plus years of their lives executing,” he said. “And we’re going to execute that plan, no matter what’s happening in the world. What’s happening in the world may shift the details of how things happen, but the big moves continue to happen — and actually potentially heighten and make better the television show then maybe some of our initial plans, because that’s our job. Here are the new rules we’ve been given. How do we continue to try and top ourselves and make things even better than they were?”

Fogelman has previously noted that Season 6 will be the show’s final season and told fans in a tweet that despite the pandemic, the endpoint of the series will remain the same.

Season 5 will also address the Black Lives Matter movement, and series star Sterling K. Brown told PEOPLE that the first two episodes are “outstanding.” Brown plays Randall, a Black man raised by a white family.

“It was as huge from a writer’s perspective as it was from mine,” he said. “I think Randall offers such a unique perspective. Being a Black man raised in a white family, there’s a very specific prism through which he sees the world, and I think the writers have captured it brilliantly. Our first two episodes are outstanding. As long as we, as actors, are able to execute what the writing has provided us an opportunity to do. I think our fans will be very, very, very happy.”