At Reality-Heavy TCA Tour, Diverse Scripted Menu Seen
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 1/21/2007 7:00:00 PM
Pasadena, Calif. — Pasadena, Calif.— While reality may have garnered the lion’s share of attention during cable’s turn at the recent Television Critics Association winter press tour, original scripted fare also took center stage.
Home Box Office, Sci Fi Channel and Lifetime Television showcased some of their latest original series entries with the hope they will resonate like The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica and Strong Medicine, or take their place along such current audience winners as Turner Network Television’s The Closer, FX’s Nip/Tuck and Showtime’s The L Word.
SURF’S UP
HBO will premiere Deadwood director David Milch’s latest project, John From Cincinnati, this summer. The quirky series examines a family of California-based surfers who, despite their athletic talents, seemed to be cursed.
“With John From Cincinnati, David and his co-creator Kem Nunn take the themes of community and connection that he explored in the 1870s in Deadwood and he brings them into the present with his complex and layered portrayal of the surfing Yost family and the world of Imperial Beach, California,” said HBO Entertainment president Carolyn Strauss.
The premium network leader is also in early development on several other series, including 12 Miles of Bad Road, a drama about modern-day life in Dallas; and Tell Me You Love Me, focusing on three couples at different stages of marriage therapy.
Sci Fi Channel will take a page from the comics with the launch of two new original series, Flash Gordon and Painkiller Jane. While Gordon is still in development, Jane — which follows the life of a DEA agent impervious to pain who is recruited by a covert government organization — is scheduled to premiere this April.
The series version will differ in look and storyline from a Sci Fi original movie of the same name that aired in December 2005. Sci Fi executive vice president and general manager David Howe said the network decided to go a different direction with this version than with the original pilot.
“For a whole host of reasons, we didn’t actually pick up that pilot to series, but we’ve always really loved the premise and the character of Painkiller Jane, so we took the series back to the drawing board,” Howe said. “We brought in a completely fresh creative team, and we redeveloped it from the original comic book created by Jimmy Paiati and Joe Casada.”
Also in development for Sci Fi is The Diamond Age, a six-hour miniseries executive-produced by actor George Clooney and based on the best-selling novel by Neil Stevenson.
LIFETIME SLATE
Lifetime plans to launch its newest original skein, Army Wives, this June, according to Suzanne Daniels, the network’s president of entertainment. But the women’s-targeted network has several pilots in various stages of production that could also make it onto the schedule over the next year.
Among the projects in development: Side Order of Life, in which a woman re-examines her life after a close friend is diagnosed with cancer; Conspiracy, a suspense thriller set in a Washington D.C. firm; The Madness of Jane, based on the true story of a brilliant neurologist diagnosed with bipolar disorder; and The Virgin of Akron, Ohio, which centers on a woman recently released from rehab who returns to her hometown and is mistaken by the townspeople as a disciple of the Virgin Mary with healing powers.
Spike TV, meanwhile, will take a shot at the scripted genre this July with an eight-hour series dubbed The Kill Pit. The eight-hour drama stars John Leguizamo as the head of a group of Iraq War veterans whose attempt to rob a bank goes awry. Donnie Wahlberg stars as a police negotiator in the series.
A&E RETURN
A&E Network is poised to make a return to the original series waters, commissioning six drama pilots, its first venture into the genre since canceling two crime-based shows, 100 Centre Street and Nero Wolfe in 2001, following disappointing ratings.
The pilots include: Dry River, a crime story set in a wealthy Texas border community; an untitled project from producer Steven Bochco about a married couple in a family law practice specializing in divorce; and The Hunt, about a former Los Angeles cop who spends time in prison and finds himself outside the criminal justice system looking in.
Currently in production are Y3, about a thief-turned-good who dons a New York Police Department uniform to help solve crimes; an as yet-titled NYPD anti-terrorist project; and Johnny The Great, which revolves around the life of a hedonistic defense attorney.
Finally, the network is developing its first animated comedy series, dubbed Hollywood DMV.
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