Angie Harmon, Secrets of a Small Town
It's that time of year again: Network executives are spending these lovely spring days in dark screening rooms, searching for next fall's big hit. As we approach the mid-May unveiling of the new 2006-07 prime-time schedules, the Biz is here to provide you with an early glimpse of which drama pilots are heating up. We'll report on the sitcoms next week.
ABC: Secrets of a Small Town — a drama starring Angie Harmon about a small town whose residents have plenty of skeletons in the closet — is believed to have the inside track for the Sunday-night slot after Desperate Housewives. (It's now a given that the network will move the superhot Grey's Anatomy to another night where it can help launch a new show.) Also hot are Six Degrees — another ensemble soap about six strangers whose lives intertwine in New York — and Traveler, about three graduate students involved in a national-security emergency.
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Onetime West Winger Matthew Perry stars on Aaron Sorkin's Strip.
Television's new fall lineups won't be unveiled until May, but Hollywood is already making predictions about which pilots will become full-fledged shows. Here are some projects that are generating heat.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip NBC has penciled in this drama from West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin about the backstage doings of a famous sketch-comedy show à la Saturday Night Live. Sorkin's mighty pen, and a cast that
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In other pilot news, Skeet Ulrich will star in Jericho, CBS' drama about a small town isolated from the world after a nuclear disaster.... Gail O'Grady has joined Kevin Williamson's CW sudser about a teen whose family moves to Palm Springs, while Hot Properties costar Sofia Vergara has been cast on ABC's new comedy from Donal Logue.... John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise) and Owain Yeoman (Kitchen Confidential) have been added to ABC's Nine Lives, about strangers who bond during a bank robbery.... John L. Adams (The Dead Zone) will play newscaster Angie Harmon's cameraman in Secrets of a Small Town, from Charles Pratt Jr. (Desperate Housewives).... And, in short order, Mark Feuerstein (Good Morning, Miami
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Question: Just saw your website for the first time. Gosh, you are an egomaniac! I always wondered. Answer: What's that you ask, Marissa? What are my picks for the 10 worst shows of 2005? I thought you'd never ask!
1. 2005 MTV Video Music Awards: A three-hour pile of overproduced horse poop. Note to viewers: Next time the VMA host feels the need to repeatedly tell you that "anything can happen," trust me: Nothing will.2. The War at Home: Turns out War is hell and horribly written.3. The West Wing (debate episode): Just like a real presidential debate, only duller.4. Saturday Night Live: The women still rock, but the rest of the show feels about as desperate as one of Horatio Sanz's midskit giggle fits.5. Queer as Folk ser
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My Name is Earl
Executive Session9:05 am “Last season was like a colonic,” starts off Kevin Reilly, entertainment president of fourth-place NBC. “It wasn’t a lot of fun to go through at the time, but it’s going to be healthy in the long run.” 9:05:15 Continuing with the intestinal-irrigation metaphor, Reilly adds, “It literally took any residual sense of entitlement or complacency at our company and blew it out.” That’s what you want to hear right after breakfast.9:09 Reilly announces “a new direction” for Joey this season that will hopefully make it suck less. “This year we will kick off with Joey finally making it in Hollywood,” he reveals. “Drea de Matteo’s character is going to go to work for Jennifer Coolidge [aka Joey’s agent]. We’re adding a new actor friend to Joey’s p
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Now that Elisabeth Rohm is finally leaving her Law & Order role of Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn, we are dancing in the streets. (Nothing personal, but she was always a little brittle for our taste.) And when we aren't delightedly pounding the pavement, we are dreaming up new partners in crimefighting for Sam Waterston's character, Jack McCoy. Since it's doubtful that our fondest wish will be granted — and Angie Harmon will suit up again as the best ADA ever, Abbie Carmichael — dare we hope that überproducer Dick Wolf will consider at least briefly these other could-be (and, in some cases, have-been) lawyers?
Lara Flynn Boyle: Provided that she can keep herself out of the Mary-Kate Olsen wing of her local rehab clinic, the incredible shrinking woman could use the legalese she learned as Practice prosecutor Helen Gamble to shore up the L&O cast. On sec
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