V I D E O • A G E AP R I L 2 0 1 1 20 BY LUCY COHEN BLATTER All eyes are on CBS and Warner Bros. these days. At press time, both industry insiders and regular joes were waiting with bated breath to find out the post-Charlie Sheen fate of Two and a Half Men. But believe it or not, there are other shows out there, and the 2011-2012 U.S. TV season is nearly upon us. The five big U.S. TV networks — ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and CW — have commissioned 84 pilots among them. And the scripts and stars are hoping to take the world by storm (in addition to actually getting picked up), despite their lack of what Sheen is said to have, “tiger blood.” Sure there are the usual police and medical dramas and quite a few remakes and series that are giving us deja vu. But there are also a number of new and interesting pilots, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Take for instance, ABC’s Poe (Warner Bros.). It’s a crime procedural, but a pretty unique one at that. The drama follows macabre writer Edgar Allan Poe as the world’s very first detective, investigating dark mysteries in 1840s Boston. Even the remakes sound intriguing. And they’re certainly generating a lot of buzz. There’s NBC’s Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.), a David E. Kelley-led reboot of the classic comic and ABC’s Charlie’s Angels (Sony Pictures), a remake of the 1970s classic set in Miami, which is being produced by one of the recent film remake’s angels, Drew Barrymore. We at VideoAge are guessing that with the recent success of the remake Hawaii Five-O, and Barrymore’s star power, this is a pretty sure thing in terms of pick-up potential. In the spin-off category, there’s FOX’s The Finder (Fox Studios), about a former military policeman who can remember everything. It’s a spin-off of the net’s forensic crime drama, Bones. There are also several British remakes (as usual). Blighty formats can be difficult to recreate, but NBC seems to be banking on them. The Peacock Net is offering up its own version of police procedural Prime Suspect (Universal Studios), comedy Outnumbered (Fox Studios), based on a comedy about a couple trying to raise three precocious kids and Free Agents (Universal Studios), based on a format about two quirky co-workers who are both on the rebound. From Israel, NBC has ordered an eight-episode format, Still Standing: a straight-to-series game show commissioned to Armoza Formats. NBC, now under the direction of Robert Greenblatt, is courting a lot of big names in order to get back on top. Highly buzzed-about series include Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.) and Playboy (Fox Studios), from Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, about 1960s Playboy Bunnies. Now,backtothetrends.Unsurprisingly given the runaway success of Glee, musicals are showing up again. ABC has Marc Cherry’s Hallelujah (ABC Studios), a drama that will be punctuated with gospel music and NBC’s Smash (Universal Studios), which will showcase musical theater. On the comedy side, there’s an abundance of wacky, modern families (in view of the success of the ABC series Modern Family). Take ABC’s Bad Mom (ABC Studios), which stars Jenna Elfman as a less-than-stellar mom, and Other People’s Kids (ABC Studios), about an irresponsible 32-year-old who falls in love with an older woman and has to deal with two kids, an ex-husband, and ex-in-laws. CBS has the Rob Schneider Project (CBS Studios), which stars the comedian as a confirmed bachelor who has just married into a tight-knit Mexican-American family. FOX has Council of Dads (Sony Pictures), about a group of five men called together by the widow of their close friend in order to help her raise his two young children. CBS seems to be attempting to appeal to its younger viewers with two comedies about young people trying to make it big: The Assistants (CBS Studios), which revolves around four people who work for a celebrity couple, and an Untitled Peter Knight Comedy(Sony Pictures/CBS Studios), about young people working at a high-powered venture capital firm. And ABC is getting in on the action too. The Alphabet Net’s Georgetown (Warner Bros.) follows young people working behind the scenes of D.C.’s powerbrokers. And lest one thinks that the vampire trend is a thing of the past, note that every network has something supernatural in the works. Thank you Twilight. The CW has three (out of its total six commissioned pilots): Awakening (Warner Bros.), about a zombie uprising; Heavenly (CBS Studios), which revolves around a former angel; and Secret Circle (CBS Studios/Warner Bros.), about a young female witch. Thom Sherman, head of Drama at the network, described Awakening as a “provocative script and the most unique piece of material we read and developed this year — a huge, fun, swing-for-the-fences kind of project.” While Sherman stressed the fact that the network is equally excited about its non-supernatural pilots, it’s hard to ignore the past success of shows such as Smallville, Supernatural andThe Vampire Diaries. So the hopes for the fantasy series are high. Now, we know Charlie Sheen has stolen the spotlight as the most-talkedabout TV star of the moment (and possibly all time), but the networks are pulling out other big guns to star in their pilots. ABC has cast Ashley Judd in its already-picked up drama Missing (ABC Studios), about a woman on a mission to track down her son in Italy. FOX is hoping for another 24-sized hit, tapping Kiefer Sutherland for Touch (Fox Studios), about a dad whose autistic son can predict the future. NBC’s got movie star Maria Bello playing the lead role in the Universal Studios-produced Prime Suspect (a role made famous by Helen Mirren in England). FOX has tapped Ethan Hawke for spy thriller Exit Strategy (Fox Studios). Minnie Driver stars in Hail Mary (Warner Bros.), a series for CBS about a pair of private investigators, one of whom is a suburban single mom. Debra Messing will bust out her singing chops in NBC’s Smash (Universal Studios). Whether or not the stars will make the series bonafide pick-up shoo-ins is, naturally, still unknown. Only L.A. Screenings time will tell. The L.A. Screenings Shaping Up After Sheen Shenanigans 2 0 1 1 - 2 0 1 2 U . S . T V S e a s o n Thom Sherman, head of Drama at the CW David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel star as FBI Special Agents on FOX’s Bones. A spinoff pilot, The Finder, has been commissioned by FOX.
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