[11/17/09 - 06:22 PM] Development Update: Tuesday, November 17 By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)
LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:
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ASSISTED LOVING (NBC, New!) - Father and son Jay Tarses ("Public Morals") and Matt Tarses ("Worst Week") are developing a new comedy at the Peacock about a gay man who helps his father find love after the family matriarch dies. The project is set up at Sony Pictures Television with Matt's sister, Jamie Tarses, also attached as an executive producer. No other details about the half-hour were given.
EAGLEHEART (Adult Swim) - Chris Elliott has been tapped for the lead role on the comedy pilot, about "a low-level television executive sent to Texas to produce the action series 'Eagleheart' [who] finds himself stuck in a never-ending power struggle with his temperamental star/creator/executive producer (Elliott), a veteran action star past his prime who uses the show as a soapbox for his right-wing politics and conservative paranoia." Michael Koman and Andrew Weinberg are behind the project with Troy Miller and David Kissinger also executive producing for Dakota Pictures and Conan O'Brien's Conaco Productions, respectively.
HORRORBOTS (Cartoon Network) - Nate Corddry ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip") has snagged lead voice duties on the upcoming animated series, about "two outsider teenage droids who are only slightly less horrific than the ultrapowerful robots who populate their planet, Killglobe, [who] now they face their greatest challenge yet: high school." He'll play one of them, Thrasher. Michael Buckley created the series while Joe Deasy serves as a co-executive producer.
REX IS NOT YOUR LAWYER (NBC) - Abigail Spencer ("Mad Men") has joined the cast of the drama pilot, about Rex Alexander (David Tennant), "a top Chicago litigator who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court." She'll play Lindsey Steers, "an ambitious lawyer at Rex's law firm who also is his fiancee." Jeffrey Tambor also stars in the hour, which comes from Universal Media Studios and BermanBraun.
RIZOLLI (TNT) - Lorraine Bracco ("The Sopranos") is the latest addition to the drama pilot, about the crime-solving team of Boston police detective Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) and medical examiner Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander). She'll play Rizzoli's mother Angela, "who despite her tough Boston exterior is a beautiful woman, loyal wife and mother of three," on the series, which is based on the Tess Gerritsen's Jane Rizzoli mystery novels. Warner Horizon Television is producing.
THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW (Syndication) - Debmar-Mercury has cleared the series for two more seasons on Fox-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas. Said pickup, which will keep the series going through the 2011-2012 season, comes just six months after its national rollout. The New York-based "Williams" has averaged a 1.1 household rating this fall.
