Image Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC; Will Hart/NBC; Mitchell Haaseth/NBC; Dean Hendler/NBCTHIS JUST IN: NBC has announced the pickup of three new dramas (The Cape, Outlaw, Harry’s Law) and one comedy (Friends With Benefits). Oh, and they also officially confirmed this: Chuck is coming back for a fourth season!
Keep reading for the scoop on the four freshman entries, freshly repurposed from NBC’s press release…
* The Cape is a one-hour drama series starring David Lyons (ER) as Vince Faraday, an honest cop on a corrupt police force, who finds himself framed for a series of murders and presumed dead. He is forced into hiding, leaving behind his wife, Dana (Jennifer Ferrin, Life on Mars) and son, Trip (Ryan Wynott, FlashForward). Fueled by a desire to reunite with his family and to battle the criminal forces that have overtaken Palm City, Faraday becomes The Cape, his son’s favorite comic book superhero — and takes the law into his own hands. Rounding out the cast are James Frain (The Tudors) as billionaire Peter Fleming, The Cape’s nemesis, who moonlights as the twisted killer Chess; Keith David (Death at a Funeral) as Max Malini, the ringleader of a circus gang of bank robbers who mentors Vince Faraday and trains him to be The Cape; Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Orwell, an investigative blogger who wages war on crime and corruption in Palm City; and Dorian Missick (Six Degrees) as Marty Voyt, a former police detective and friend to Faraday.
* Starring Emmy Award winner Jimmy Smits (NYPD Blue), Outlaw is a new drama from executive producer John Eisendrath (Alias). Cyrus Garza (Smits) is a Supreme Court justice who abruptly quits the high-level position. A playboy and a gambler, Garza had always adhered to a strict interpretation of the law until he realized the system he believed in was flawed. Now that he’s quit the bench and returned to private practice, he’s determined to represent “the little guy” and use his inside knowledge of the justice system to take on today’s biggest legal cases — and he’s making plenty of powerful people unhappy along the way. Jesse Bradford (West Wing), Carly Pope (24), Ellen Woglom (Californication) and David Ramsey (Dexter) also star.
* Emmy Award-winning creator David E. Kelley brings his unique storytelling to Harry’s Law, a series about fate and the people it brings together, starring Academy Award winner Kathy Bates. Harriet (Bates), Matthew (Ben Chaplin, Me and Orson Welles) and Malcolm (Aml Ameen, Kidulthood) couldn’t be any more different. Harriet is a curmudgeonly ex-patent lawyer who, having just been fired from her cushy job, is completely disillusioned with her success and looking for a fresh start. Her world unexpectedly collides with Malcolm’s — a young man trying to figure out life. When he finds out Harriet is a lawyer, he begs her to represent him in an upcoming criminal case. Matthew, a dreamer at heart and also recently fired from his job as a high school teacher, is introduced to Harriet through Malcolm, a previous student of his. When these three cross paths, they realize they’re all looking for a fresh start. Now, the most unlikely of people are starting a law practice in the most unlikely of places — a rundown shoe store. Harry’s Law also stars Brittany Snow (Hairspray) as Harriet’s assistant, Jenna Backstrom and Beatrice Rosen (Dark Knight) as Eve, a high school French teacher.
* From Oscar and Emmy winner Brian Grazer, Friends With Benefits is a half-hour comedy revolving around a group of twentysomething singles as they navigate the difficult, and often confusing, world of dating. Ben Weymouth (Ryan Hansen, Party Down) is on the hunt for the perfect woman who meets his unique set of standards, while his best friend, Sara Maxwell (Danneel Harris, One Tree Hill), is just looking for a man to settle down with and raise a family. Ben and Sara have fallen into the habit of turning to each other for moral and physical support as they wait for Mr. and Ms. Right to arrive. Their friend Aaron (Fran Kranz, Dollhouse), a romantic at heart, doesn’t approve of Ben and Sara’s complicated friendship, but he, along with womanizer Hoon (Ian Reed Kesler) and straight shooter Riley (Jessica Lucas, Cloverfield), are all distracted with their own dating trials and tribulations.
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The Cape sounds interesting and original. I might give it a try.
And I’ll watch anything that Brian Grazer puts out!
Oh, and HOORAY! for Chuck!!!
The Jimmy Smits show looks good, Kathy Bates not so much, she is very old and not very likable. The Cape look interesting, who is the guy from ER?
The Cape sounds interesting and original. I might give it a try.
And I’ll watch anything that Brian Grazer puts out!
Oh, and HOORAY! for Chuck!!!
The Jimmy Smits show looks good, Kathy Bates not so much, she is very old and not very likable. The Cape look interesting, who is the guy from ER?
Kathy Bates is only 7 years older than Jimmy Smits. Oh, but you’re not one of those people who think women over 40 shouldn’t be allowed on television, are you?…
Gonna check out The Cape. There’s always room on the DVR for Summer Glau!
Amen to that! Couldn’t get enough of her on Dollhouse(RIP)but I’m so excited for her return to TV. Hopefully she’ll stay a while, AKA, more than 2 seasons.
Gonna check out The Cape. There’s always room on the DVR for Summer Glau!
Amen to that! Couldn’t get enough of her on Dollhouse(RIP)but I’m so excited for her return to TV. Hopefully she’ll stay a while, AKA, more than 2 seasons.
I can’t believe Chuck was renewed before Heroes. Is there no right in this world?
There is right in the world because that garbage show Heroes is CANCELED. 20 mins of a Chuck episode is better than the entire 4 seasons of Heroes
I love ‘Chuck’, but you’re being incredibly ridiculous if you think the first season of ‘Heroes’ wasn’t some of the best television EVER.
The first season of “Heroes” was some of the best television ever? LOL at you. You must not watch TV at all.
The first season of Heroes was awesome. I won’t even deny that. But Chuck has been consistently better than Heroes for the past couple of seasons.
@Liana – well that’s the problem. Season 1 was awesome. I bought the dvd the first day it came out. Unfortunately what followed was a hot mess.
Liana is right – the first season of Heroes was one of the very best Seasons of Sci-fi in TV history. It probably could have been in the running for THE best, if the finale hadn’t let it down so badly. Even then it held all the promise to continue to be the most incredible, mind bending story telling TV had ever seen. I can’t say exactly what went wrong, but for me when they killed Isaac and there were no more paintings something was seriously lost (no pun intended). Later the abilities all just became a wash, and all sense of continuity was quite simply abandoned because it was just too damned impossible for the writers to apparently fathom how to write a cohesive storyline that stayed true to the genesis of the show. The writers strike didn’t help at all – there was a really cool story line where the vial dropped and smashed which was changed so that Peter saved it and it all would have been way better if he hadn’t… And after that it really was just mush. The last season tried to stop zapping all over the place aimlessly and to concentrate again on a few key stories, but by then nobody was really anywhere near as interested as they had been dropping the ball so often for so long. I have the season 1 DVDs and I wont ever bother with the rest. Maybe the show itself would in time be remembered a lot better if it hadn’t bothered with the rest either.
Yeah, there is right – and Chuck being renewed proves it.
Chuck is ten times better than Heroes, Steve. I’ll admit that the first season of Heroes was incredible, but completely downhill after that. Chuck deserves another season, although this next one will probably be the last.
Apparently there is, because Chuck is back. Thank you NBC for seeing the light. Sorry about Heroes. I watched every episode of Heroes too, but still no comparison to Chuck.
I can’t believe Chuck was renewed before Heroes. Is there no right in this world?
There is right in the world because that garbage show Heroes is CANCELED. 20 mins of a Chuck episode is better than the entire 4 seasons of Heroes
The first season of “Heroes” was some of the best television ever? LOL at you. You must not watch TV at all.
The first season of Heroes was awesome. I won’t even deny that. But Chuck has been consistently better than Heroes for the past couple of seasons.
@Liana – well that’s the problem. Season 1 was awesome. I bought the dvd the first day it came out. Unfortunately what followed was a hot mess.
Liana is right – the first season of Heroes was one of the very best Seasons of Sci-fi in TV history. It probably could have been in the running for THE best, if the finale hadn’t let it down so badly. Even then it held all the promise to continue to be the most incredible, mind bending story telling TV had ever seen. I can’t say exactly what went wrong, but for me when they killed Isaac and there were no more paintings something was seriously lost (no pun intended). Later the abilities all just became a wash, and all sense of continuity was quite simply abandoned because it was just too damned impossible for the writers to apparently fathom how to write a cohesive storyline that stayed true to the genesis of the show. The writers strike didn’t help at all – there was a really cool story line where the vial dropped and smashed which was changed so that Peter saved it and it all would have been way better if he hadn’t… And after that it really was just mush. The last season tried to stop zapping all over the place aimlessly and to concentrate again on a few key stories, but by then nobody was really anywhere near as interested as they had been dropping the ball so often for so long. I have the season 1 DVDs and I wont ever bother with the rest. Maybe the show itself would in time be remembered a lot better if it hadn’t bothered with the rest either.
Yeah, there is right – and Chuck being renewed proves it.
Chuck is ten times better than Heroes, Steve. I’ll admit that the first season of Heroes was incredible, but completely downhill after that. Chuck deserves another season, although this next one will probably be the last.
Apparently there is, because Chuck is back. Thank you NBC for seeing the light. Sorry about Heroes. I watched every episode of Heroes too, but still no comparison to Chuck.
I have this feeling that NBC isn’t going to pick up the Rockford Files remake which is the *one* show I was looking forward too.
I don’t know. There are a couple hours left on the schedule that haven’t been filled. It can’t hurt to hope.
I have this feeling that NBC isn’t going to pick up the Rockford Files remake which is the *one* show I was looking forward too.
I don’t know. There are a couple hours left on the schedule that haven’t been filled. It can’t hurt to hope.
This sounds shallow and trivial, so I’m sorry: I hope Franz Kranz plays gay. Young gay main characters are virtually nonexistent in the half-hour world.
On an even more shallow note, I’ve had a crush on him since Dollhouse, so that factors into it too.
*Fran
This sounds shallow and trivial, so I’m sorry: I hope Franz Kranz plays gay. Young gay main characters are virtually nonexistent in the half-hour world.
On an even more shallow note, I’ve had a crush on him since Dollhouse, so that factors into it too.
*Fran
I think he would play that very well (and you make a really good point about the lack of gay main characters), but sadly he won’t be the one playing it either way. They picked up the show but dropped Fran Kranz.
All of these shows sound pretty freaking lame. Looks like NBC wont be getting much better. Any bets on how long some of these last before they get axed?
I’m with you…
“a half-hour comedy revolving around a group of twentysomething singles as they navigate the difficult, and often confusing, world of dating.” Wow, we’ve never seen THAT before!!
My thoughts exactly. Sounds like a whole lotta monotony to me.
Yeah how many times can they redo that show?
No kidding. There were already, what? – 10, 11 seasons of that?
Boohoo. Crybaby.
All of these shows sound pretty freaking lame. Looks like NBC wont be getting much better. Any bets on how long some of these last before they get axed?
I’m with you…
“a half-hour comedy revolving around a group of twentysomething singles as they navigate the difficult, and often confusing, world of dating.” Wow, we’ve never seen THAT before!!
My thoughts exactly. Sounds like a whole lotta monotony to me.
Yeah how many times can they redo that show?
No kidding. There were already, what? – 10, 11 seasons of that?
Boohoo. Crybaby.
The Cape sounds like those Batman abortions that Joel Schumacher was responsible for.
It actually sounds like a poor man’s Punisher. It could be interesting, then again it could be another “Heroes.”
The Cape sounds like those Batman abortions that Joel Schumacher was responsible for.
It actually sounds like a poor man’s Punisher. It could be interesting, then again it could be another “Heroes.”
FWB and Outlaw sound asinine.