The Stepford Wives meets … Westworld? NBC is developing a new drama called Beautiful People, a drama from Michael McDonald (Mad TV) in which families of mechanical human beings exist to service the human population — that is, until “some of the mechanicals begin to awaken.”
The network ordered the pilot from Universal TV ABC Studios. The drama was reportedly developed for ABC a few years back but the alphabet passed on it.
McDonald has also served as a director on ABC’s Cougar Town.
Dancing With the Stars head judge Len Goodman has taken to Access Hollywood to address longtime professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s claim on Monday night that the celebrities on DWTS are judged on their “so-called potential” instead of the performance of the night.
“How often, in the heat of the moment, we say things where we think why did I say that? I think Maks is going through one of those period right now,” Goodman said.
“What they have to understand is: They’re on trial. We’re the judges,” Goodman clarified. “You can’t be the judge at your own trial.”
On Monday night, after Len called Hope Solo’s rumba her worst dance of the season, he said Maks was to blame for half of that and reminded the pro that he’s been in this business for 50 years. “Maybe it’s time to get out,” Maks shot back.
Check out the full video below: READ FULL STORY »
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After numerous guest appearances on TV shows, Mandy Moore seems poised to make a more permanent move to the small-screen.
The actress has just signed on to star in the single-camera ABC sitcom, Us and Them, her publicist confirmed Wednesday. READ FULL STORY »
Ryan Murphy’s schedule just got a little scarier: Only a week after launching the FX drama American Horror Story, he has sold a comedy pilot to NBC, following a bidding war also involving Fox and ABC, EW has confirmed. If the single-camera project — which reportedly centers on a gay couple and the surrogate who will carry their child — is picked up by the Peacock for next fall, it could represent his fourth active series on the air. (In addition to AHS, he’s bringing you Fox’s Glee and Oxygen’s The Glee Project.)
Murphy will create and executive produce the NBC show with Glee co-exec producer Allison Adler, and the pair will co-write the pilot.
Image Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com
Renee Zelwegger is developing a drama series for Lifetime that’s loosely based on her “journey from small-town Texas to Hollywood stardom,” the network announced today. Cinnamon Girl would be set in Los Angeles in the late ’60s/early ’70s, and would chronicle the adventures of four young women who are coming of age at the time of cultural and political revolution.
The project — which is being created by Zellweger and Anthony Tambakis (Warrior), and exec produced by Zellweger, Tambakis, and Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) — reunites the Academy Award winner with Lifetime; in 2008, she served as executive producer of the movie Living Proof, about the UCLA oncologist who was instrumental in the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin.
SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED AMERICAN HORROR STORY!
By now many of you watched the first episode of FX’s new shock-a-palooza and have many questions. (Be sure to check out my colleague Jeff Jensen’s recap.) Who is Rubber Man? What the hell is in that basement? How fabulous is Jessica Lange? Thankfully, co-creator Ryan Murphy, who conceived the show alongside Brad Falchuk, talked to EW exclusively about the wild first hour and what’s in store for next week’s episode. READ FULL STORY »
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He’s baaaack: Jim Belushi just sold a sitcom pilot to ABC.
The former According to Jim star is working on a new comedy “where a co-dependent father and his teenage daughter’s relationship is turned upside down when they are put together in a unique situation.” Diane English (Murphy Brown) is the showrunner on the “put pilot” deal (where there’s a big penalty if the project doesn’t air) for the show, which is titled You Won’t Even Know I’m Here.
So you know what this means: If Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing survives the season, we could be in for an Allen/Belushi working man’s family comedy hour.
Conan O’Brien may soon have a second show on TBS. The network announced today that it has ordered a pilot from the talk show host’s production company, Conaco. The untitled multi-camera comedy will revolve around a family guy who leaves his job and returns to his childhood neighborhood, where he meets up with his old best friend. Ben Wexler (Still Standing) has been tapped as showrunner and co-writer of the project; O’Brien is also serving as an executive producer. The pilot will be shot later this year.
Nope, we’re not kidding. TNT has given a pilot order to Scent of the Missing, about an intrepid mystery solver and her pooch.
Based on a book with the same title, the project is produced by CSI executive producer Carol Mendelsohn. Scent follows a woman and her trained rescue McGruff who can, among other things, go fetch murder victims. Official logline: “An adrenaline junkie leader of a canine search-and-rescue team assists various law enforcement agencies with her best friend and partner, a golden retriever.”
Remember when air travel was glamorous?
No? Then take a visit to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, home to ABC’s Pan Am, a drama about the sexy stewardesses and pilots crisscrossing the globe on the once-luxurious airline. The biggest star of the series — in all senses — is the life-size re-creation of a Pan Am 707 jet, housed in a hangar near the Brooklyn waterfront.
On this muggy August day, a string of extras in skinny ties and horn-rimmed glasses are lining up, ready to portray journalists en route to President Kennedy’s 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Germany. Serving them on today’s flight: star Christina Ricci, who plays Maggie, a Greenwich Village bohemian trying her damnedest to worm her way into JFK’s appearance by flirting with the passengers.
“Can I get you anything else to drink, Mr. Manchester?” she asks one, fluttering the lashes around her saucer-size eyes.
Image Credit: Insidefoto/PR Photos Glee
Murphy also has been contemplating bringing Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, currently on Broadway in a critically acclaimed production, to the big screen with Mark Ruffalo potentially starring. “I am moving forward with it,” says Murphy. “I have a couple great casting ideas. I’m having a big meeting with CAA about it, about where to do it, how to do it. I love Larry’s play. I’m so thrilled that he and the play finally got all this recognition. I think it’s a story that needs to be told. It’s a beautiful love story.”
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Read more:
‘Glee’ scoop: Ryan Murphy reveals season 3 secrets, talks ‘The Glee Project’ winner
‘Glee’ scoop: Ryan Murphy says he’s planning for the show’s characters to graduate this season
‘The Glee Project’ Exit Q&A: Ellis talks
MTV is dipping into the scripted series waters again, and EW has an exclusive look at the trailer for the network’s comedy series, Awkward, which premieres on July 19 at 11 p.m. after Teen Mom. Created by Lauren Iungerich, Awkward is about teenager Jenna Hamilton (One Tree Hill‘s Ashley Rickards) who becomes a school celebrity after people mistakenly think she attempted suicide. “It’s got a really unique and completely contemporary point of view about growing up female in today’s day and age,” says MTV’s Head of Programming David Janollari. “The show really embodies our internal mantra of ‘Our lives amplified.’ In this case, it’s a teenage girl who goes from, as she describes herself, ‘almost invisible’ to completely visible and famous in her school because of this misunderstanding of epic proportions.”
Watch the trailer, which features some potentially NSFW language, below… READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Michael Schwartz/WireImage
CBS isn’t ready to throw in the towel on Rob Schneider, whose pilot about a confirmed bachelor who marries into a tight-knit Mexican-American family didn’t make the cut for fall. EW has learned that the network will re-shoot the pilot and has ordered a few more scripts for the comedy. If it’s good enough, it will join the net’s midseason lineup. (Yey?)
Schneider helped to write the pilot that’s executive produced by Eric and Kim Tannenbaum.
For more about the fall lineup:
Best and worst new shows, decisions, and scheduling moves of the 2011 upfronts
Fall 2011-12 primetime TV schedule chart
James Hibberd
@James_Hibberd
Lynette Rice
@EWLynette
