Here is a link to upcoming television pilots. Just by seeing the descriptions, which ones do you think will make the grade, and which ones do you think will never see the light of day?
The only one that I would be willing to sit down and watch is “Friday Night Dinner” and that’s just because I really like Tony Shaloub and Allison Janney.
I like that they are willing to try ideas that have never been tried before…like that one with Roseanne Barr and John Goodman playing a lower income couple in a half hour comedy-sheer genius!
Untitled Martin Lawrence Project will not get a slot. I’m calling it now!
Half of the shows seem to be adaptations of British series, and a bunch of the ones that aren’t are obviously inspired by recent British successes (Gilded Lily is American Downton Abbey, Elementary is American Sherlock). Second British invasion?
Pretty much my reasoning for giving “Last Resort” a chance.
Here are the ones that I would give a chance to and why:
The Selection - Sounds interesting and I like Aimee Teagarden
Joey Dakota - Probably would suck, but I like time travel stuff
Cult - Rockne O’Bannon with the Schwartz/Savage team, and T-Bag is in it? Wow…
The Carrie Diaries - Schwartz/Savage again, and I like AnnaSophia Robb, hopefully it would be better than Sex in the City
Beauty and the Beast (theres TWO with this title?) - I will watch Nicole Anderson in anything, Kristin Kreuk is pretty cool too
Arrow - I would give it a shot, but I don’t put a lot of stock in TV superhero things – Willa Holland is in it, at least
Untitled Karyn Usher Project - Sound interesting
The Asset - Jamie Chung is great.
Rebounding - Aly Michalka is great.
Revolution - Could be good
Midnight Sun - Well that sounds cool, and I wondered what had happened to Julia Stiles.
Bad Girls - It might be good - I like Amy Smart too
Save Me - It would probably be terrible, but I would check it out
The New Normal - I give all of Ryan Murphy’s shows a shot, but I doubt I would really like it
Isabel - The description would make me watch at least one episode
Daddy’s Girls - Brenda Song is in it
Elementary - The guy from Hackers and Lucy Liu!?
Untitled Louis CK, Spike Feresten - Ashley Tisdale is in it
Zero Hour - It sounds good
Nashville - Hayden Panettiere as a country singer!
Last Resort - I don’t know if this has a shot, but it’s my favourite on the list. It sounds really good, plus I like a lot of the cast
Gotham - Sounds like it would be worth seeing
Untitled Mandy Moore - I LOVE Mandy Moore
The older I get, the more I think that descriptions like this aren’t all that important. Any of these shows (I haven’t read the whole list yet) could be great or could suck, depending on the execution. There’s some alchemy of actors and writers that sometimes rises above the setting.
They worked together in Big Night; that turned out okay.
Last Resort sounds fucking awesome.
Living Loaded is the only one I’d give a chance simply because it has the guys from It’s Always Sunny on board. Although their cartoon show sucks.
A one-sentence summary isn’t much to go one, but most of them sound very familiar to me. And this description of J. J. Abrams’ “Revolution” has me scratching my head:
“Follows a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist.”
(Bolding mine) What? I hope they come up with a better explanation in the actual pilot, because that makes no sense at all.
Including kinetic? Because that would be a little difficult to pull off.
A bunch of them seem like retreads of retreads, but the one that really made me go, “Oh come on now” was the one with Reba McIntyre. Didn’t she already basically make that show, except this time she moves away from the ex?
It’s a difficult premise, but it has potential.
Sounds like the Dies the Fire novels by S. M. Stirling. Basically the premise is that combustion no longer works.
That was horrible and you have shamed your family.
Shocking!
Only Fools and Horses! What the hell?
DAMN YOU for stealing my joke!
I’d find a better one but I just don’t have the…meh.
Bill Pullman as the president of the United States? It’s been done.
So it’s “Phoenix Wright: The Series”?
That sounds awfully like Padme’s backstory from Star Wars Episode I. No good can come of this.
I’ve always wondered why there’s never been a screen version of Green Arrow. I’m cautiously optimistic about this, but it’ll probably suck.
If they were looking for “hard-partying SOB”, they cast the wrong Sutherland.
A brilliant doctor with mental problems? There’s certainly nothing like that on TV right now.
Terminator, Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica, Westworld, the Matrix, With Folded Hands. How “imaginative” can it be if I can name half a dozen works with the same plot right off the top of my head?
“Arrested Development 2: Electric Boogaloo”.
A single camera comedy starring Sarah Silverman and loosely based around her own life? We haven’t had one of those before.
So that’s two House ripoffs so far.
So it’s a half-hour commercial for Groupon? Did Hollywood learn nothing from “Cavemen”?
That’s basically just the first 50 pages of the Illuminatus! trilogy.
It’s a Roland Emmerich drama. Of COURSE it’s set in NYC. It’s not as though Omaha has many notable landmarks to blow up with CGI.
Unless he’s going to be driving around offering schoolchildren rides and free candy, I don’t think “white van man” has quite the connotations that the producers of this show think it has.
I think that was the plot of a Goosebumps book, but the fact that Simon “Teyrn Loghain” Templeman is in it, presumably playing one of the aliens, makes me cautiously intrigued.