Bestselling author Patricia Cornwell, New Girl star Zooey Deschanel, and Don’t Trust the B — — in Apt 23 creator
Nahnatchka Khan are among several women who recently announced development
deals with the networks.
A roundup of what’s happening in TV:
— Patricia Cornwell, best known for her Kay Scarpetta series,
has sold a TV show about a female detective to ABC. Co-written by Cornwell and
Stephanie Sengupta (Law and Order), Greta Stone will be
about a “young, orphaned, highly skilled female cop who has an uncanny ability
to solve crime,” according to Deadline. Greta Stone is an
original creation by Cornwell, whose books have sold over 100 million copies.
— Actress
Zooey Deschanel and her producing partner Rivka Sophia Rossi have two comedies
in the works. Fox bought a sitcom called Freelancers,
which Deadline
reports as centering on “a disgraced and newly single lawyer who, after
getting fired from his corporate job, has to start over at age 30. He sets up
shop at one of those modern, shared office spaces that are suddenly everywhere,
where he’s forced to interact with a diverse group of oddball freelancers.” Deschanel and Rossi also sold a comedy to NBC called And Lies I Tell My Daughter. Written by Girls’ Deb Schoeneman, the show is about “an unconventional mom
finds that honesty is not always the best policy when it comes to her new
family.”
— Nahnatchka Khan’s new sitcom Fatrick
is the first comedy pilot to be picked up for Fox’s 2014–15 season. The
Hollywood Reporter notes that Fatrick will center on “Patrick, a 30-something man who realizes that his life
isn’t quite where it should be. The former fat kid is forced to face the damage
caused by years of being ‘Fatrick’ — a cubby little kid just trying to survive.
The comedy will take place both in the past — showing “Fatrick” at
school and at home — as well as in the present.” Khan has another project in
development this season, Fresh Off the
Boat, an adaptation of chef Eddie Huang’s memoir about his Chinese-American
childhood.
— Anne Heche reunites with Hung co-creator Colette Burson to potentially
star in a single-camera comedy on NBC. The
Hollywood Reporter writes that
the untitled project revolves around a “beauty
department sales manager Poppy Blake, 43, who questions everything about love
and relationships. With the help of her hilariously opinionated sister Chelsea,
her romantically deprived co-workers and an array of department store clients, Poppy
turns a comic yet anthropological eye on what love and sex really mean for
women.”
— CSI: Crime Scene Investigation showrunner Carol Mendelsohn and Scandal inspiration Judy Smith have sold
a “medical crisis drama” to CBS, according
to The Hollywood Reporter. The Advocate, written by Ayelet Waldman,
is about a “former doctor who has found her calling as a medical advocate,
where she works on behalf of patients and their loved ones, solving medical
crises and mysteries and guaranteeing people the care they deserve.” THR also notes that this is Mendelsohn
also has “an untitled 1960s surf drama in the works at The CW with 90210’s Rebecca Sinclair and an adaption of legal memoir Law Man in the works at NBC.”
— Laura Gutin (Enlisted, 1600 Penn) will
write and co-produce a multi-cam comedy called Olivia Jones Is My Girlfriend. Deadline
reports that the NBC show will be about “the unlikely
friendship between a girl who’s never had a boyfriend and a girl who has never
had any girl friends.”
— Laura Solon has an ABC comedy in the works, a project that
will center on “an uncompromising blue-collar nanny who finds the biggest
challenge of caring for an 8-year-old boy is living with his self-assured
bachelor dad,” per
Deadline.
