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Fox has ordered seven episodes of the half-hour comedy Breaking In, starring Christian Slater and Reaper‘s Bret Harrison, the network confirms. It will premiere Wednesday, April 6. The show, created by Adam F. Goldberg (Fanboys) and Seth Gordon (Four Christmases), is set at a high-tech security firm that takes extreme — and often questionable — measures to sell their protection services. As the logline explains, Contra Security, corporate America’s answer to The A-Team, gives clients a sense of security by first ripping it away. Hence the title, Breaking In. Slater stars as Oz, the mastermind described as a man of mystery and a master of manipulation. Oz’s hand-picked team includes: Bad girl Melanie (You Again‘s Odette Yustman), who is in charge of lock-picking, safe-cracking and heart-breaking; disguise expert Josh (The Whitest Kids U’Know’s Trevor Moore), who heads recon and intel; Cash (Chocolate News‘ Alphonso McAuley), a fanboy who specializes in strategy, logistics, and office pranks; and new recruit Cameron (Harrison), a lovable computer hacker straight out of college who’s still trying to meld with his colleagues. Though the pilot, written by Goldberg and directed by Gordon, tested well, Fox passed on a pick up last May. Fortunately, when the network resumed talks with Sony Pictures Television, the original creative team and cast remained intact.
This will be the third series for Slater since 2008 (after NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy and ABC’s The Forgotten, which lasted one season each), but his first comedy. Slater spoke to EW last February about his recent comedic turn, which included guest spots on The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Funny or Die video Nine Lives. “I love comedy. I just feel blessed to have gotten those kind of opportunities,” he said. “Right now, it’s an open-door policy. Whoever gravitates toward me in that sort of humorous fashion, I’m up for.” He talked about Flip cam videos he’d taken to shooting, the latest being a Bourne Identity spoof. “I sometimes sit at home, and I’ll make little movies of myself. I did one called The Boring Identity the other day, which was quite fun,” he said. “Basically, I turned the camera on and just sat in my replica Kirk chair from the Starship Enterprise, which was a nice Christmas present, for a good 15 minutes in silence before I got bored out of my mind.” We did a PopWatch poll, and 96 percent of readers said they wanted to see The Boring Identity. Hopefully Breaking In gets as enthusiastic a response when it debuts.
These two guys must have some kind of superagents. Slater’s now had two failed dramas on two different networks, and Harrison’s had two failed comedies on two other networks. Yet, Fox (which previously had Harrison’s “The Loop”) has decided the public wants to see these two guys in a show.
amen brutha.
Lots of people have had shows fail before they found one that took off. I don’t see their previous failures as an indication this show is doomed before it even airs. Give it a chance at least.
The only reason that Reaper failed was because it wasn’t hitting the CW’s target demographic – teenage girls and young women. It was – much like Nikita is today – one of their higher-rated shows otherwise.
Reaper was awesome.
it sounds like Sneakers… without Dan Akroyd.
I’m in.
This garbage belongs on Fri. nights; not Fringe.
I hope they changed some of the characters and actors from the pilot, because it wasn’t that great.
The Forgotten starring Christian Slater was a wonderful program…Slater’s did a stellar job–perfect for the role, the rest of the cast did a wonderful job, the storylines and writing were top notch…was sorry this show was cancelled…it was yards above most crime, detective shows, except for the Mentalist–another favorite of mine…shows based on interesting, b characters are far superior to shows based solely on high tech gagetry–
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