NBC, possibly looking to shift that load of pointy hats it somehow acquired during Brian Williams’ last byzantine contract negotiations, has given a script commitment to another sitcom based on the trendy idea of ladies with supernatural powers. This one is being developed by Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan, who co-executive produced 30 Rock for the network from 2009 to 2013. Given that NBC just gave a pilot order to Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein’s Bewitched remake, that means the network is currently considering at least two witch comedies for upcoming development. As any magical practitioner could tell you, two is a number of mystical provenance in this instance, because it’s higher than one, which already seemed like a hell of a lot of witch sitcoms to be making in 2014.
Witches are actually a thing right now across multiple networks: Lifetime’s Witches Of East End recently wrapped up its second season, and American Horror Story: Coven ended earlier this year. Meanwhile, WGN America’s flagship supernatural drama Salem has been renewed for a second season. Plus, it’s nearly Halloween, which seems as good a reason as any for a major network to drop giant sums of money to simultaneously develop two sitcoms about the same spooky thing.
Morgan and Siegal’s series will apparently focus on “a circle of friends who grow closer when one of them ‘comes out’ to the group—as a witch.” If the writers push forward with the implied supernatural metaphor for coming out of the closet, they’ll presumably be banking on the assumption that Joss Whedon is too busy with his avengings and his Ultrons to notice them cribbing from his old TV playbooks.