Saturday, May 14, 2016

PILOT PICKUPS: Training Day, Pure Genius, Bull, MacGyver, The Great Indoors, Man With a Plan

CBS announced a slew of pilot pickups today, picking up dramas Training Day, Pure Genius, Bull, and MacGyver and comedies The Great Indoors and Man with a Plan.

Training Day is a thriller based on the film of the same name and set 15 years later where a young police officer is assigned to an elite LAPD squad with a grizzly veteran. I'm not convinced this will be able to do what TV rehashes of movies like Rush Hour couldn't, but we'll see. Training Days stars Bill Paxton, Justin Cornwell, Drew Van Acker, Katrina Lew, Scott Davis, and Julie Benz.

Pure Genius (formerly known as Bunker Hill) comes from Jason Katims of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood fame. It is centered on a Silicon Valley genius who teams with a veteran surgeon to start a new hospital with a cutting edge approach to medicine. Pure Genius stars Augustus Prew, Dermot Mulroney, Brenda Song, Reshma Shetty, Ward Horton, Aaron Jennings, and Odette Annable. This seems like it could be a new Sunday show.

Bull marks a quick return for CBS from departing NCIS star Michael Weatherly. Based on the early career of Dr. Phil, it is centered on a trial consultant who uses psychology, intuition, and data to learn as much as he can about jurors, attorneys, witnesses, and the defense. Bull stars Michael Weatherly, Freddy Rodriguez, Geneva Carr, Chris Jackson, Jaime Lee Kirchner, and Annabelle Attanasio. This could be a candidate for Tuesdays.

MacGyver was a troubled pilot but CBS is giving it a chance though they will retool and then re-film the pilot. It is a re-imagining of the popular 1985-1992 ABC series with Lucas Till as the unconventional problem solver. George Eads is the only other cast member in the first pilot who will continue on. There's no way this will be ready for fall and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see it until Summer 2017.

The Great Indoors is a new comedy about a veteran reporter who becomes a boss to a group of millennials at a digital magazine. It stars Joel McHale, Stephen Fry, Chris Williams, Shaun Brown, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Christine Ko, and Susannah Fielding. The Great Indoors could be a candidate to be paired with The Big Bang Theory.

Finally, Man with a Plan (formerly I'm Not Your Friend) marks the return of Matt LeBlanc to network television for the first time since Friends ended. It is about a contractor whose wife goes back to work so he has to deal with the kids. It co-stars Jessica Chaffin, Matt Cook, Grace Kaufman, Hala Finley, and Matthew McCann. It was supposed to have co-starred Jenna Fischer as LeBlanc's on-screen wife but it was announced today that she will not be going forward with the show. The retooling makes me think this will be held for midseason.

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