Pilot season is notoriously frantic. This season -- the Darwinian process in which the television industry rushes to write, cast and produce a slate of new scripted fare -- is even more frantic thanks to the three-month writers strike.
Some six weeks ahead of its competitors, NBC announced earlier this week its 12 new series for this fall and into the next year. But it's still a mystery which pilots ABC, Fox, CBS and the CW will pick for their prime-time schedules.
So far, among them they have 30 dramas and 23 comedies under consideration -- about half the number of projects those four networks usually develop this time of year. Those numbers could easily increase, though, as networks scramble for the next big hit.
What is certain is that next fall there will be fewer new dramas and comedies premiering across the networks. The most noticeable trend is the reliance on international successes -- 11 TV hits in Britain, Israel, Canada and Australia being remade at NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. There also seems to be a wave of nostalgia sweeping the small screen, with projects that recast TV classics as well as literary masterpieces.
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ABC
ABC leads the pack with 20 projects in development. But none is likely to roll out in the fall, because of strike-imposed time constraints.
Left with little time to assess the newcomers, the network already took the unusual step of renewing 14 programs, including four freshman series -- some of which in a nonstrike year would have been canceled.
Like ABC, the other networks also have given a high number of low-performing freshman series a second shot on their schedules -- thus saving much of the new fare for midseason.
"At the end of the day, we ended up with fewer pilots than we thought we were going to make before the strike," said Suzanne Patmore Gibbs, executive vice president of drama development. "We have to balance the risks with the things that might make safer bets."
In addition to nine drama and 10 comedy pilots, ABC has ordered an untitled series created by Zak Penn ("X-Men: The Last Stand") about people with extraordinary neurological abilities. The network has already shot the pilot of "Life on Mars," a David E. Kelley adaptation of a BBC series about a modern detective (Jason O'Mara) who is transported to the 1970s.
