I find the annual horse race to be a ton o' fun, so let's open the starting gates... Primetime Pilot Panic Part Uno Here's my take on what I'm happy is being touted as hot, and sad not to see make the cut (but it's still early): FOX Glad to see... Terra Nova - Dinos would be different. Still hoping for... The Station - Ben Stiller banana republic CIA spoof with John Goodman and Carla Guigino? How can that not make the short list??? NBC Glad to see... The Event - A possible new home for the soon to be bereaved 24/Lost viewer? Maybe there's no sf/f component, but I do like John Ritter's son as the lead - good looks, maybe has his dad's talent as well? Other notable talent - Zeljko Ivanek and Ian Anthony Dale. The Cape - Hey, it's sci fi. I hope that it really doesn't need to "fight" with The Event for a spot on the schedule...why??? Still hoping for... Nothing from NBC's possibilities list. Maybe they're starting to extract head from posterior at long last? CBS Glad to see... Chaos - Terrific cast headed by Freddy Rodriguez for the CIA drama. Tim Blake Nelson and Stephen Rea are also in the cast. Still hoping for... Untitled Medical Project (drama about a roaming medical team that travels the US. helping those less fortunate get through life-or-death medical crises) - Not that we need another doc show, but the cast is intriguing - Amy Smart, Janeane Garafolo, Sissy Spacek and Skeet Ulrich??? This I gotta see! ABC Glad to see... No Ordinary Family - Terrific casting and decent premise (superpowered family). Still hoping for... How to Be a Better American with Jason Jones. But only a mild hope. Could be real misfire regardless. CW Glad to see... Betwixt - I'm a sucker for anything with a sf/f twist. Still hoping for... Hellcats - It's Ben Browder's big comback, frell it!
I really don't want to watch Hellcats, but I feel like I need to be supportive of Ben Browder's career! Also, dinosaurs are cool.
I was a lot more interested in Nikita when I thought Maggie Q was the lead, then it came out about a month or two ago that Maggie Q is playing the 'old Nikita' who rebels/escapes from the agency and the 'new Nikita' is brought in and trained to hunt her down. I was excited, but pretty surprised to see a US TV series handing off the lead role to an Asian-American. So turns out that wasn't the case and of course the 'New Nikita' for the CW demo is Lyndsy Fonseca who looks like just about all the other CW young actress staple. Put her in Gossip Girl, 90210, etc... as just a lily white rich girl and she'd fit right in. I find it hilarious that in the casting/pilot sheet this is how her character is described "attractive, young, white female with virtually no personal ties or paper trail." That's pretty much describing the CW.
I don't know. Ben Browder in Hellcats is still as much of a typecast as it was in Stargate. The white football coach role is just simply boring.
We need Browder to star in a show that combines dinosaurs and cheerleaders. Oh, and vampires. Ratings gold!
Untitled Medical Project (drama about a roaming medical team that travels the US. helping those less fortunate get through life-or-death medical crises) - Not that we need another doc show, but the cast is intriguing - Amy Smart, Janeane Garafolo, Sissy Spacek and Skeet Ulrich??? This I gotta see! This sounds awful.. Rob
So ABC already has a confirmed new cop drama, Rookie Blue, which has female lead (Missy Peregrym), and they are also looking at another cop drama with a female lead, where even the name True Blue is similar? Did they hire a network producer from NBC or something?
^^ LOL... You would expect them both out the same season, just on different networks (THRESHOLD and SURFACE) Rob
The premise is bad, but so much of this pilot season is...shows about rebellious/quirky cops, cops "fighting the powers that be," noble doctors, the usual crapola. I'm grasping at straws to find anything worth checking out, so an intriguing cast is enough to qualify. Every network has utterly interchangeable shows, and it's worse than ever this year. Cop shows, doc shows, lawyer shows and sitcoms that all sound the same. Ironically, the CW is the only one that stands out because of their young-female focus. The other networks don't have sleazefests about models, cheerleaders and vampires.
NY Times: bad economy, more online viewing = more sitcom pilots. TV By the Numbers: still expected to be same number of sitcom slots, just more contenders. Fine with me. Unless The Station comes to life, none of the comedies in contention sound all that interesting to me.
How about just accepting Browder in this role, and cheering him on, despite it not being science fiction? We don't want him to end up like the Shat now, do we?
Guess which showrunner finds himself inexorably drawn to any whiff of time travel in upcoming shows? However the good news is that a hot guy is in contention for the lead of Terra Nova.
Fox has nixed the American version of Torchwood. This might be a casualty of a trend nowadays away from remaking foreign (scripted) shows. There have simply been too many failures.