Pilot Season! Duck Season! Pilot Season! Rabbit Season!
Game of Silence. NBC has ordered a pilot for this one-hour drama from producer Carol Mendelsohn (CSI) written by David Hudgins (Parenthood, Friday Night Lights) about an attorney whose climb to the top is short circuited when his past returns to haunt him. (THR)
Untitled Tommy Johnagin Pilot. CBS has ordered a pilot for this comedy Inspired by the comic’s life raising a family in a small Midwestern town. (Wrap)
Untitled Legal Pilot. CBS has also ordered a one hour drama pilot from Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, the team behind Grey’s Anatomy and Madam Secretary. A defense lawyer gets involved with a client who might be a murderer. (Wrap)
Returning Shows
Ray Donovan. Ian McShane (Deadwood) has been cast in a recurring role for the third season of the Showtime drama. He’ll play a rich movie producer whom Ray (Liev Schreiber) takes on as a client. No word whether they’ll share screen time, but the run is a reunion for McShane and Deadwood alum Paula Malcomson who plays Abby. (TVLine)
Murder in the First. Dustin Maker (Parenthood) has been added to the cast of second season of TNT’s Taye Diggs crime drama as “a blue-collar kid who has never had it easy in life.” Each season of the show tracks a single murder case from the crime itself through the investigation, arrest and trial. Presumably, Murder in the First will fill the same June – August slot as last season. (THR)
Continuing Shows
The Mindy Project. Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty) is set for a guest spot on the 17th episode of Mindy Kaling’s FOX comedy. (TVLine)
In Development
The Frankenstein Chronicles. ITV’s six-part period crime drama “re-imagining of the Frankenstein myth” starring Sean Bean has added a crapload of people I’ve never heard of: Anna Maxwell Martin (Philomena, The Bletchley Circle), Charlie Creed-Miles (Peaky Blinders), Ed Stoppard (The Musketeers), Elliot Cowan (Da Vinci’s Demons), Hugh O’Conor (Killing Bono), Joe Tucker (Bronson), Kate
Dickie (Game Of Thrones), Lalor Roddy (Hunger), Patrick Fitzsymons (Game Of Thrones) and Richie Campbell (Lewis). These names will not be repeated. The mini is set to begin filming in Ireland on January 26. No word if/when it’ll come to the United States. (Deadline)
Roadies. Ron White (Blue Collar Comedy Tour), Branscombe Richmond (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Jacqueline Byers (Ascension) are the latest to join Luke Wilson and Christina Hendricks in Cameron Crowe’s hour-long comedy pilot about a rock tour as seen by the crew who make it happen. (Deadline)
Red Mars. Spike TV has drafted J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) to write their drama based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s best-selling Nebula and Hugo Award-winning science fiction trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) about terraforming Mars. (Deadline)
Game of Silence? That’s an actual thing? Was Throne of Lambs taken?
Haha. Ahh, the once proud Peacock Network….
Breaking Mad! Truly Detective! How to Get Away with Tax Evasion! House of Lies! (oh wait, that one’s real…)
Thank you for being the only person who notices the occasional joke I drop in on these. I’m still sad no one noticed when I used the line “Balls deep in beaver”