Saturday, May 12, 2012

PILOT PICKUPS: 666 Park Ave, Last Resort, Zero Hour, Nashville, Red Widow, How to Live with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life, The Neighbors, Family Tools, Malibu Country

ABC made many series pickups today to go with its renewals and cancellations. These shows join the straight to series order for drama Mistresses starring Alyssa Milano.

666 Park Ave is a new spooky show starring ABC vets Terry O'Quinn, Vanessa Williams, and Rachael Taylor. The show centers on supernatural occurrences that happen in an historic apartment building in New York City. ABC may be viewing this show as a complement to Once Upon a Time as it likely beat out Beauty and the Beast in that respect.

Last Resort is an action/adventure drama from Shawn Ryan and starring Andre Braugher. It centers on a nuclear submarine crew who become a small sovereign nation under unusual circumstances. It looks like ABC, which has gotten somewhat soapy and female-centered recently, may be going back after the Lost audience with this pickup.

A dark horse pickup came from Zero Hour which stars Anthony Edwards as a magazine writer who is pulled into a huge conspiracy. It's hard to tell from a logline about a show but there's something here that sounds somewhat like NBC's failed The Event last year.

An obvious pickup came to Nashville which was a front runner the whole time. The music/family drama features an aging star (Connie Britton) and rising star (Hayden Panettiere) in the country music capital. The show could be a contender to air after one of the nights of Dancing with the Stars.

A final drama pickup came to Red Widow (formerly Penoza) that focuses on a widow who must assume her husband's role in a crime syndicate. This was another dark horse that only received mixed buzz. With these pickups, ABC passed on high profile drama pilots including Beauty and the Beast, Gilded Lilys, Devious Maids, and Americana.

Four comedies were picked up starting with How to Live with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life, starring Sarah Chalke, Brad Garrett, and Elizabeth Perkins. The comedy centers on a recent divorcee who moves in with her eccentric pilots. The show has been a leading contender for most of pilot season and could be a candidate to air after Modern Family on Wednesdays.

Also picked up was The Neighbors, a dark horse contender which centers on a family who moves into a gated community where all the neighbors are literally aliens. This sounds like it might have worked in the 1960s but could be a tough sell now. Is this the Work It for this year? We'll see.

Family Tools (formerly Red Van Man) was picked up as well. Starring Kyle Bornheimer and Leah Remini, it focuses on a man who has to take over a family tool business despite other ambitions. This was another show that wasn't talked about much in pilot season compared to others like the Mandy Moore project or even The Manzanis starring Kirstie Alley.

Finally picked up was early frontrunner Malibu Country. The Reba McEntire sitcom was the only multicamera sitcom picked up and will likely be paired with Last Man Standing. Despite the talk about multicams, ABC and NBC only picked up one each while FOX didn't pick up any. Will this help or hurt the genre? CBS is sure to continue to pick up some.

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