The Hollywood Reporter has published a running list of all the network pilots in contention for the 2014–2015 season.
About 40% of them (11 of 26) feature women creators, showrunners, and/or executive producers, and four boast series commitments or straight-to-series deals.
Perhaps the most anticipated among them are Tina Fey’s two untitled comedies, the first about a women’s college that has just admitted male students for the first time and the second about a young woman (Ellie Klemper) starting her life over in New York City after fleeing a doomsday cult.
Two ABC dramas continue to expand the Shonda Rhimes empire. Rhimes and producing partner Betsy Beers have co-created with showrunner Peter Nowalk a legal thriller called How to Get Away with Murder. A Scandal writer is behind Sea of Fire, about three teenage girls in a small town whose sex scandal leads to wider repercussions. In a third Rhimes-related show, Private Practice star Kate Walsh changes career tacks with Bad Judge, a Fox comedy that follows a hard-drinking, hard-living lady magistrate.
Scroll down for descriptions of the women-created TV shows in pilot contention.
ABC
COMEDY
Irreversible
Logline: Based on the Israeli series Bilti Hafich, the comedy centers on Andy and Sarah, a somewhat eccentric, self-absorbed couple and their trials and tribulations, many of which they bring on themselves. The original ranks as the №1 original comedy on Israeli broadcast TV.
Cast:
Team: W/EP/D Segahl Avin (Bilti); EP Peter Tolan, Michael Wimer
Studio: Reshet TV (Divorce: A Love Story), Sony Pictures Television
Format: Single-camera
DRAMA
How to Get Away With Murder
Logline: A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller that centers on ambitious law students and their brilliant and mysterious criminal defense professor who become entangled in a murder plot that could rock their entire university and change the course of their lives
Cast:
Team: W/EP Peter Nowalk (Grey’s Anatomy); EP Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers
Studio: ABC Studios, Shondaland
Sea of Fire (redeveloped from 2012 script)
Logline: Based on Dutch format Vuurzee, the drama centers on three teenage girls in a small town who star in a pornographic film and the effects it has on their families. It leads to a disappearance, a murder and host of other secrets boiling under the surface.
Cast:
Team: W/WP Jenna Bans (Scandal); EP Rob Golenberg, Alon Aranya, David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Laurie Zaks, Robert Kievit, Frank Ketelaar
Studio: Sony Pictures Television, Scripted World, Mandeville
Secrets & Lies (10-episode series commitment)
Logline: Based on an upcoming Australian series starring Martin Henderson, the drama centers on a patriarch who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a young boy when he finds the body.
Cast:
Team: EP Aaron Kaplan, Tracey Robertson, Nathan Mayfield; EP/showrunner Barbie Kligman
Studio: ABC Studios, Hoodlum, Kapital Entertainment
CBS
COMEDY
How I Met Your Dad
Logline: In the spirit of How I Met Your Mother, it tells the story from a female point of view. A brand new story with new characters and a new voice at its center.
Team: W/EP Emily Spivey, Carter Bays, Craig Thomas; EP/D Pam Fryman
Studio: 20th Century Fox Television
Fox
COMEDY
Fatrick
Logline: Centers 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 chubby 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.
Cast: Marcia Cross, Ray Ford, Dante Hoagland, Lucy Rust
Team: W/EP Nahnatchka Khan, Corey Nickerson; EP Kevin Walsh, Jeff Morton; EP/D Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
Studio: 20th Century Fox Television
Format: Single-camera
Untitled Tina Fey-Matt Hubbard-Robert Carlock comedy — pilot order with SERIES COMMITMENT
Logline: A comedy that takes place at a women’s college that has just opened its doors to men for the first time.
Cast: Bonnie Dennison (Third Watch), Jack Cutmore-Scott
Team: W/EP Matt Hubbard, EP Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, David Miner; EP/D Pam Fryman
Studio: Universal Television, Little Stranger
Format: Multicamera
NBC
COMEDY
Bad Judge
Logline: Centers on a hard-living, sexually unapologetic woman (Walsh) who plays with the law and whose life on the edge is constantly in balance, as she also happens to be a judge in the San Bernardino Criminal Court system.
Cast: Kate Walsh
Team: W/EP Chad Kultgen (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone); EP Kate Walsh, Chris Henchy, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Anne Heche, Jill Messik
Studio: Universal Television, Gary Sanchez Productions
Format: Single-camera
Untitled Tina Fey/Ellie Kemper comedy — ORDERED STRAIGHT TO SERIES FOR FALL 2014
Logline: Centers on a woman (Kemper) who escapes from a doomsday cult and starts life over in New York.
Cast: Ellie Kemper
Team: W/EP Tina Fey, Robert Carlock (showrunners); EP David Miner
Studio: Universal Television, Little Stranger
Format: Single-camera
Working the Engels — ORDERED STRAIGHT TO SERIES
Logline: Follows a family (the Engels) that bands together to keep their heads above water after the loss of their father leaves them with a pile of debt. They go to work running the late patriarch’s storefront law firm — though they’re not all lawyers.
Cast: Andrea Martin, Kacey Rohl, Azura Skye, Benjamin Arthur; Martin Short and Eugene Levy to guest star
Team: W/EP Katie Ford, Jane Ford; EP Howard Busgang, Tom Nursall, Noreen Halpern
Studio: NBC, Halfire-CORE Entertainment, Shaw Media
Format: Single-camera
DRAMA
Odyssey
Logline: A Traffic-like thriller that centers on three families who are torn apart when a stranded female soldier, a disillusioned corporate attorney and a disrespected political activist are pulled into the same shocking international military conspiracy.
Cast: Nate Mooney
Team: W/EPs Adam Armus, Kay Foster (The Following); D/EP Peter Horton; EP Mikkel Bondesen, Kristen Campo, Simon Maxwell, Henrik Bastin
Studio: Universal Television, Fabrik Entertainment, Red Arrow Entertainment Group
