[01/02/12 - 11:13 PM] Development Update: Monday, January 2 By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)
LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:
Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (NBC) - James Murray ("Chaos") and Patrick Heusinger ("Royal Pains") are the first to be cast in the drama pilot, "set in the near future in a society where humans co-exist with mechanical androids that look like people but are treated like second-class citizens." The project, from ABC Studios and Universal Television, "centers on the very wealthy Lydia whose late husband founded the firm that makes Mechanicals." Murray then is set as her son, "a handsome and very successful attorney who's lived a rich and privileged life but makes a name for himself by publicly suggesting that Mechanicals might have civil rights - a notion that's largely scoffed at," with Heusinger as "a family man employed as a servant in Lydia's home who is in fact a Mechanical, but after one of his daughters is killed in a car accident, he proves to be 'defective' as he's plagued with forbidden emotions like grief and loss." Michael McDonald is behind the hour, to be directed by Stephen Hopkins. (Twitter.com)SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (FOX) - Nigel Lythgoe announced via his Twitter feed that FOX has pulled the plug on the results show portion of the competition series. "I will have to change the format of ['Dance']," he said in the post. "At least we have another season at the end of May." "Dance" aired as a weekly series during its freshman run in 2005 before expanding to separate performance and results shows in its second season. (Twitter.com)AND IN OTHER NEWS (WHILE WE WERE OUT)... - Jon Tenney will guest on HBO's "The Newsroom" as the boyfriend of Emily Mortimer's character (TVLine.com, December 22); Natalie Morales likewise will turn up on the Aaron Sorkin-penned drama as the girlfriend of Dev Patel's newsroom staffer (TVLine.com, December 23); Jesse McCartney is bound for "CSI" as "a recent college graduate who falls unconscious and crashes his car" (CSIFiles.com, December 23); Rita Wilson took to Twitter to confirm she'll return to "The Good Wife" later this season (Twitter.com, December 25); and Odette Annable will be downgraded to recurring for "Breakin In's" second season while guest star Michael Rosenbaum is not set to return (TVLine.com, December 28).
