Pilot Season In The States: The Best And Worst Of The Network Pitches

They call it March Madness in Hollywood: a crazy ass scramble of signing talent and selling ideas to execs. If that last sentence sounds too much like the especially insider-y episode of Entourage you switched off, that’s because it is. Times ten. It’s a city’s worth of screaming suits and insecure actors dumped together in a dash to discover the next big thing on the small screen. And with cast lists, creator credits and loglines leaked, this month offers up the industry version of that classic pub conversation, where you pitch your friend a great movie idea, cast it, and hopefully watch their eyes glaze over in appreciation. Except, of course, that everyone in Hollywood is doing it with an actual budget to consider, and they’re trying to please a lot more people than just your mate.

PICKING THROUGH THE PITCHES

Pilot season is about ideas. They’re conceived by writers and producers, who then take them to networks and production studios, who then audition and sign actors… and then everyone waits and sees whether the big bosses give them the thumbs up to start actually making a show. It may be hell for those in the business, but it can be pretty enjoyable for the entertainment addict. A whole smorgasbord of shows exists right on the edge of potentia and, if you listen hard enough, you can almost hear the theme songs playing in your mind’s ear. When it comes to finding new content, the US TV industry splits down the same divide that commercial and prizewinning fisherman do. The cable channels will throw out a line with a tasty piece of bait on the end, and angle and play with their catch until they pull out a doozy like The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. The networks, on the other hand, will dump a big old net in the sea and pull out a few squid, some flathead, and a bunch of old boots. Not everything in the net will make it to air. Not everything will get shot. Most won’t even make it past their first episodes before tiers of bosses and testing pass on the efforts. But we hope most of these ones do. Check back tomorrow for the more carefully-crafted cable offerings, which probably will make it to the small screen. Hopefully we’ll find something that’ll get you all excited for this September. — NETWORK COMEDIES NETWORK DRAMAS —

NETWORK COMEDIES

With 30 Rock and The Office wrapped, Parks and Recreation and Community only just skirting cancellation by a thread, and The New Girl dividing viewers in its second seasons, the American sitcom-scape could do with a booster shot. Here’s a list of some that might make it to air, and our opinion on whether they’re actually worth waiting for.

SPY

LOGLINE: A well-intentioned father of a highly intelligent and verbal son, who also happens to be his complete opposite, inadvertently takes a job at the Secret Service in order to prove himself a worthy father.
CAST: Rob Corddry, Paget Brewster, Mason Cook, Moshe Casher, Ken Jeong
VERDICT: The logline sounds suspiciously sappy, like a Kevin James movie that’s all farts and hugs, but the casting has us interested. Rob Corddry has played some great assholes since his stint on the Daily Show (Hot Tub Time Machine, Harold & Kumar 2, Children’s Hospital), and Ken Jeong (Community, The Hangover) has either won you over with his high-pitched screeching and nudity, or is enough to turn you off the show before production starts.

UNTITLED DAN GOOR/MIKE SCHUR

LOGLINE: About a diverse group of detectives in a precinct at the very edge of New York City.
CAST: Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, Melissa Fumero, Terry Crews, Stephanie Beatriz, Joe Lo Truglio
VERDICT: This comes from the people who brought you Parks and Recreation, and stars Andy Samberg (Saturday Night Live, Lonely Island), Terry Crews (Idiocracy) and Joe Lo Truglio (I Love You Man, Wanderlust). So it should be great. Also cast is Chelsea Peretti, whose distractedly blunt delivery could rival Aubrey Plaza’s in its ability to leave you delightfully confused about just how badly you’re being treated.

GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA

LOGLINE: After almost two decades, a 34-year-old woman wakes up from a coma to find out she has a 17-year-old daughter from a pregnancy she was unaware of when her life was put on hold. Based on Douglas Coupland’s book.
CAST: Christina Ricci, Miranda Cosgrove, Daniel Stern
VERDICT: Has anyone making this show actually read Girlfriend In A Coma? As well as the plot described above, Coupland’s ’80s cult classic stars an omnipotent jock ghost, a heroin-using burn out who works in special effects, doped up supermodels, and (spoilers) the end of the world. I guess we’ll see just how much of the novel the show lifts beyond the title, or whether every episode is named after a Smith’s song (a move we would encourage the producers to make).

UNTITLED MICHAEL J FOX PROJECT

LOGLINE: Loosely based on Michael J Fox’s real life, a husband and father of three in New York City deals with family, career, and challenges – including Parkinson’s disease.
CAST: Michael J Fox, Betsy Brandt, Wendell Pierce, Katie Finneran, Conor Romero, Jack Gore, Ana Nogueira
VERDICT: We love Michael J. Fox. We love Family Ties and Teen Wolf and Back to the Future and The Secret to My Success and The Concierge and Doc Hollywood. We’re also pretty into Wendel “Bunk from The Wire” Pierce and Betsy “Marie from Breaking Bad” Brandt. So excited were the execs to get Fox back on TV regularly that this has already been given a series deal, which means it will be happening. Hopefully when they come up with a title it’ll be a short one, because we cannot fit many more texta-scrawled MJF fan endorsements on our jeans.

UNTITLED JOHN MULANEY/LORNE MICHAELS

LOGLINE: Young ensemble comedy based loosely on Mulaney’s life.
CAST: John Munaley
VERDICT: This may not sound like much of a show, until you realise that John Mulaney writes all the jokes for the party-blitzed Stefan on Saturday Night Live, and plays the dropsied and malaprop prone George St Geegland alongside Nick Kroll’s (Kroll Show) Gil Faizon. Don’t know what any of those things mean? Try below. Hopefully this new offering maintains some of Mulaney’s specific and bizarre meanderings.

CRAZY ONES

LOGLINE: A brilliant advertising executive works alongside his daughter.
CAST: Robin Williams, Sarah Michelle Gellar, James Wolk, Hamish Linklater, Amanda Setton
VERDICT: Finally, from the people who brought you Ally McBeal, comes the story of Patch Adams and Buffy rehashing ideas from Mad Men. Can’t you just see Robin in the pitch meeting with his clients? “And the cowboy’s like, ‘Get outta here’, and the gay Spanish baby says, ‘Mi gusta tacos, you naughty’, but then Reagan says, ‘Get outta here‘.” Back To Top

NETWORK DRAMAS

Remember when you were little, and one day out of unfocussed guilt actually cleaned the kitchen with no provocation? And then you tried to live off that fleeting charity for the rest of your time at the parental unit? Network television once delivered Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy in the space of a month. It then churned out cop and lawyer shows for a decade, and pointed to the dusty old relics every time someone questioned their commitment to quality. What about this year?

S.H.I.E.L.D

LOGLINE: Based on a peacekeeping group found in both the Marvel comic book and feature film universes, including the 2012 movie The Avengers.
CAST: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na, Brett Dalton, Elizabeth Henstridge, Ian De Caestecker, Chloe Bennet
VERDICT: Did you see Avengers? Did you think, what about all these spies running around talking to Thor—what’s their life like? Marvel has already made a revolutionary move, mashing its tentpole pictures into the block bustingest film of them all. Now they continue the story on television, going Downstairs to see the people mopping up the mess made by all those Upstairs’ superheroics. We expect all media to have in-canon Avenger-related products soon: Ant Man podcasts, Scarlet Witch downloadable mix tapes, Dr. Druid infomercials… But based on this short film released alongside Marvel’s Thor, starring SHIELD’s lead character Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), it could be fun.

BEVERLY HILLS COP

LOGLINE: Continuation of the movie franchise, centered around Axel Foley’s police officer son (Jackson), who takes down the criminal elements of the rich and famous in Beverly Hills.
CAST: Brandon T. Jackson, Eddie Murphy (pilot guest star), Kevin Pollak, David Denman, Christine Lahti, Sheila Vand
VERDICT: Did you catch Beverly Hills Cop in the wee hours of 3:30 am last Tuesday? Well so did Eddie Murphy, and then he thought about The Avengers, and then he took a nap, and when he awoke his angry, angry eyes slowly morphed into dollar symbols. We hope this new Axel Foley swans into garden parties hoping to stick it to these Fat Cats, only to be confronted with foreclosure signs. Topical.

THE ORDAINED…

LOGLINE: The son of a Kennedy-esque family leaves the priesthood and becomes a lawyer to prevent his politician sister from being assassinated.
CAST: Charlie Cox, Nestor Serrano, Jorge Garcia, Audra McDonald

…AND HOSTAGES

LOGLINE: A successful surgeon (Toni Collette) living in Washington D.C. is selected to operate on the President of the United States. She is thrust into the middle of a political conspiracy when her family is taken hostage, and it is up to her to save the lives of her husband and children. Based on Israeli format.
CAST:Toni Collette, Tate Donovan, Dylan McDermott, Quinn Shephard, Sandrine Holt, Mateus Ward, Billy Brown, Rhys Coiro, James Naughton
JOINT VERDICT: There’s a grand tradition of networks scrambling to ape their more creative competitors (see the quickly canned Playboy Club and Pan Am attempting to gain traction from Mad Men’s cultural cache), and here comes the inevitable response to Homeland. Terrorists have swarmed the fictional U.S., and Hostages and The Ordained are out to prove that you better be a resourceful doctor or especially blessed attourney if you want to survive the onslaught. Toni Collette may have just as good a cry face as Claire Danes, but we’re more excited to see The Ordained, if only for the season finale, when the lead character delivers his closing remarks to head plotter Banu Zhaneer, in a righteous Bostonian bray, “And may Gahd have mahcy on yah soll.”

BLOODLINE

LOGLINE: Set against the backdrop of modern suburbia, it follows the story of an orphaned young girl, Bird Benson, who, due to an accident of birth, is caught in the epic struggle between two warring families of mercenaries and killers. Mentored by a mysterious Chinese man, Bird must accept the quest to find and defeat her mother in mortal combat if she is ever to lead a normal life.
CAST: Skyler Samuels, Jonathan Banks, KaDee Strickland
VERDICT: Just threw this in because it sounds crazy. I mean, yes, it has Jonathan “Mike from Breaking Bad” Banks, but what doesn’t these days? And quick – cash in on all that Kill Bill heat, guys!

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Matt Roden helps kids tell stories by day at the Sydney Story Factory, and at night helps adults admit to stupidity at Confession Booth and TOD Talks.