The start of the current television season doesn’t feel too long ago, but already, the broadcast networks are putting together their fall slates and ordering pilot episodes of potential new series. After the scouring the intel rounded up by The Futon Critic, here are my thoughts on the lineup.
- The paranormal and supernatural continue to capture the imaginations of network execs: they’ve greenlit pilots about superpowers (FOX’s Touch, CBS’s The Rememberer), magic (NBC’s 17th Pricinct), angels (CBS’s untitled Susannah Grant project, The CW’s Heavenly), zombies (The CW’s Awakening), witches (The CW’s Secret Circle), fairy tales (ABC’s Once Upon a Time, NBC’s Grimm), haunted houses (FOX’s Locke & Key), alternate universes (NBC’s REM), and forces of good and evil (ABC’s Hallelujah).
- Remakes are ever-popular. The television series Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Prime Suspect are being remade for ABC, NBC, and NBC, respectively.
- Mean neighborhoods are the settings for three ABC pilots—or really, mean subdivisions: Good Christian Bitches, Revenge, and Suburgatory.
- Four pilots highlight the agony and the ecstasy of being young in New York City: CBS’s Two Broke Girls, ABC’s Lost & Found, The CW’s Hart of Dixie, FOX’s Chicks and Dicks.
- Some pilots are more unique in their setting: the Amazon (ABC’s The River), 1840s Boston (ABC’s Poe), the friendly skies of the Jet Age (ABC’s Pan Am), a Plymouth Plantation living history museum (NBC’s Brave New World), a Playboy Club in 1960s New York City (NBC’s Playboy), and Reconstruction-era America (NBC’s The Crossing).
- ABC has two bitchy pilots in development: the comedy Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23 (featuring none other than James Van Der Beek) and the drama Good Christian Bitches, both of bitch—sorry—both of which will probably be renamed if they make it to air.
- There are plenty of impressive names to go along with the pilots: Ashley Judd (ABC’s Missing), Zooey Deschanel (FOX’s Chicks and Dicks), Sarah Michelle Gellar (CBS’s Ringer), Tim Allen (ABC’s The Last Days of Man), Ethan Hawke (FOX’s Exit Strategy), Kiefer Sutherland (FOX’s Touch), Debra Messing (NBC’s Smash), Patrick Wilson (CBS’s untitled Susannah Grant project), Amanda Peet (NBC’s Bent), Christina Ricci (ABC’s Pan Am), Maria Bello (NBC’s Prime Suspect), Minnie Driver (CBS’s Hail Mary), Leelee Sobieski (CBS’s Rookies), and Jason Isaacs (NBC’s REM).
- But there are also a lot of famous producers on the slate, like Robert de Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Will Smith, Conan O’Brien, Mark Wahlberg, Jennifer Lopez, Will Smith, Jack Black, Peter Berg, Drew Barrymore, and Steven Spielberg.
- Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice) is trying again to get her third series on ABC: this time it’s the public relations drama In Crisis.
- J.J Abrams is back with two new dramas, NBC’s Person of Interest and FOX’s Alcatraz, both of which feature a Lost cast member. (Keep reading.)
- Lost alums are still making their presence known on the big screen. Should their pilots get picked up Michael Emerson (CBS’s Person of Interest), Henry Ian Cusick (ABC’s In Crisis), Nestor Carbonell (CBS’s The Ringer), and Jorge Garcia (FOX’s Alcatraz) will join Elizabeth Mitchell (V), Daniel Dae-Kim (Hawaii Five-0), Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries), and Kiele Sanchez (The Glades) as former castaways in new starring roles.