TV Hot Spot: News

FOX: Upcoming Shows

Post by: Sal


Ordered To Series

Dollhouse: (According to Variety) Follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission. After each assignment -- which can be physical, romantic or even illegal -- the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the "Dollhouse"). Show centers on Dushku's character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions.Has been given a seven-episode order by Fox. Starring: Eliza Dushku. Executive Producer: Joss Whedon

Ordered To Pilot

Fringe: A drama about a young female FBI agent who, forced to confront the spread of powerful and unexplained phenomena, must work with an institutionalized scientist whose life's work may be at the center of the coming storm

Hackett: Meet Mr. THOMAS HACKETT, the new English teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High. He's a teacher who gives a teenager his old collection of Playboys because "the problem with getting boys to read today is that you never accidentally stumble on that brilliant article by William Styron surfing adult content on the Web." A bitter, hard-living womanizer with an irrepressible charm and no small amount of sex appeal, Hackett loves to rankle The Powers That Be. He's the last person you'd want as a role model for your kids and possibly the first one you'd want teaching them. Hackett used to be a high-flying professor at Yale, where he acquired a reputation as "the last great defender of the Y chromosome" and his novels propelled him into the hot, bright center of the New York literati set. But eventually his very public personal life the affairs, the drinking, the outspoken tirades overwhelmed his professional life. And when a 26-year-old grad student with whom he was having a consensual affair sued him for harassment, Hackett's career at Yale was over as was his marriage. Under a legal cloud for unpaid child support and desperate to see his young kids again, Hackett finds a job teaching English in what he calls "the hallowed halls of mediocrity" a public school in suburban Arizona. Soon, no one, not the slackers, the Goths or the wannabes, is safe from his lacerating wit. But Hackett's real sporting interest is the hyper-sensitized, super-PC world of public education, exemplified by power-hungry metrosexual Vice Principal EUGENE WOLGEMOTH (Jim Rash, "Help Me Help You," "Reno 911!"). Only AUDREY DOVER, the school's young, smart principal with a troubled personal life, barely manages to stay one step ahead of him. It is precisely Hackett's brash honesty and strong world view to which the kids respond. The truth is, he's becoming a great teacher in spite of himself. And with the help of his new friendship with fellow teacher TAM, a lesbian with as many problems with women as Hackett, he may find some redemption. HACKETT is an uncompromisingly edgy character comedy from writer Denise Moss ("Murphy Brown," "The Wonder Years," "Frasier") about a man who has to fall all the way to the bottom to find up again.

The Oaks: A relationship drama which revolves around three different couples who inhabit the same house at three different times - a young couple who just lost a child in 1967, a family of four in 1987 and a pregnant couple in 2007 - but are connected by mysterious spirits that appear to haunt it. Starring: Bahar Soomekh, Gina Mckee, Matt Lanter, Jeremy Renner, Shannon Lucio, and Sienna Guillory.

Smile You're Under Arrest: A "Punk'd"-esque series in which non-violent criminal suspects with outstanding warrants are lured out of hiding with promises of riches and other rewards, only to discover that they've been duped by law-enforcement officials.

This Might Hurt: A partially improvised single-camera comedy about a private medical practice run by three partners.

Untitled Dan Fogelman Project: A comedy about a typical dysfunctional nuclear family that moves into a sought-after gated community only to discover that everybody who lives there is an alien.

Untitled Sam Braun Project: A drama procedural that centers on a former law enforcer with the uncanny ability to read people to determine if they're lying. He pairs up with a female clinical psychologist to open up an agency and put his skill to work.

Script Order Only

Prison Break Cherry Hill: Female-version of the original Prison Break.

Church Of Reggie (FOX): A comedy that revolves around Reggie Fender, a young man who has kept an optimistic look on life even after experiencing a number of personal struggles. His take on life eventually catches on with others -- and all of a sudden he finds himself preaching his own religion. Executive Producers: Chuck Tatham (Arrested Development) and Ron Howard (Arrested Development)

Drop Dead Diva (FOX): A dramedy about an uninspired model-in-training who suddenly dies and finds her soul entering an overweight, less attractive female attorney.

Queen B (FOX): A drama about a brilliant but ruthless woman who takes over a worldwide conglomerate as a CEO and corrupts a young girl with power by making her the exec's right-hand henchwoman.

The FBI (FOX): A drama about the agency's critical incidents response group - a division involved in a range of cases, including kidnappings, hostage negotiations, hostage rescue and evidence collection

Untitled Fresco Pilot (FOX): A comedy that focuses on Ted, a charming, likeable thirtysomething who’s morals are tested when he heads up the research and development department at a Fortune 500 company.



Take Care,

Sal

TV Hot Spot: News

Prison Break SPINOFF!

Post by: Sal

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Fox is looking to expand its primetime prison population with a spinoff from "Prison Break."

Tentatively titled "Prison Break: Cherry Hill," the potential new series would be set at a women's prison and center on Molly, a new regular character that will be introduced on "Prison" later this season.

Fox has ordered a script of the possible spinoff, which is being written by "Prison" exec producer Matt Olmstead and co-exec producer Zack Estrin and produced by 20th Century Fox TV.

Molly is an upper-middle-class wife. After suffering a family tragedy at the hands of the Company -- the government conspiracy that framed Michael (Wentworth Miller) and Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) and put them behind bars -- she seeks them out at the hellish Panamanian prison Sona in her quest to exact vengeance.

"There is an ironic similarity between Molly and Michael -- they're both emotionally banged-up, both have lost loved ones, and both want the people responsible to pay -- so they empathize with each other," Olmstead said. (Michael's love interest Sara, played by Sarah Wayne Callies, was killed earlier this season.)

In "Cherry Hill," which would have the same tone as "Prison," Molly goes to a women's detention facility fully accepting the life sentence for her acts of revenge until she is contacted by the government with information that some of her loved ones are alive.

"In a moment's time, she is transformed from an unapologetic murderer to a motivated woman who would do anything to get out of prison and be with them," said Olmstead, who is exec producing "Cherry Hill" with Estrin and "Prison" exec producer Dawn Parouse.

Olmstead and Parouse had been talking about developing a show set at a women's prison for some time but had hit a roadblock -- how to set up and launch such a show?

"Concurrent with that, on 'Prison Break' we wanted to introduce a mystery character who brings some clues to the table and with whom Michael and Lincoln work to uncover the big conspiracy," Olmstead said. "The women's prison idea folded into the idea of introducing that character, and once we combined them, it immediately popped for us."

He approached Estrin with the idea, and he came on board right away.

A search is under way for an actress to play Molly. "Prison" producers will determine in which episode she will make her first appearance after casting the role.

If "Cherry Hill" doesn't go forward, Molly will continue on "Prison" as a regular character.

There have been several series set in women's prisons over the years, including the long-running Australian drama "Prisoner: Cell Block H" and Fox's short-lived comedy "Women in Prison."

"Cherry Hill" follows the path of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," which spun off Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), a character introduced on the hit medical drama, into her own series, "Private Practice."

Take Care,

Sal