ABC picks up new Marvel show S.H.I.E.L.D., latest from Awake creator, 10 other new shows
ABC has picked up 12 new shows, the bulk of which will be canceled by this time next year, but one of which is that new Marvel show from Joss Whedon all the kids have been buzzing about, so hope springs eternal and all that. S.H.I.E.L.D. was the first of the network’s many pickups this afternoon—going before even picking up its returning hits—and it should come as no surprise that the network is betting heavily on a TV spinoff of The Avengers to bring some event TV leverage to the small screen. Whedon is involved in the show only in an executive producer capacity, though the pilot was co-written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, longtime Whedon collaborators. The series will be run by Jeffrey Bell, veteran of Angel and Alias, with Jeph Loeb also stepping in as a producer. It stars Clark Gregg, whose character is mysteriously alive somehow and maybe because he’s a werewolf. (We’re guessing he’s not a werewolf.)
In addition to S.H.I.E.L.D., ABC picked up another six dramas. The most prominent is likely Once Upon A Time In Wonderland, a somewhat ingenious attempt to keep the ratings for flagship Once Upon A Time from flagging by inserting it into the middle of the show’s run as a limited series. It hails from Once Upon A Time’s producers and features John Lithgow as the voice of the White Rabbit, and if it succeeds, can Once Upon A Time In Gormenghast be far behind? The other five dramas include Betrayal, a twisted soap in which a married photographer begins an affair with a lawyer who is defending a murder suspect being prosecuted by her husband (phew); Killer Women, in which Tricia Helfer plays the only woman in the Texas Rangers (not the baseball team); Lucky 7, an adaptation of a British series about working-class lottery winners that’s something of a departure for normally glitzy ABC; your favorite new doomed show, Mind Games, the latest from Lone Star and Awake’s Kyle Killen, who’s taking his best shot at winning the EGOT of network cancellations (only CBS remains, Kyle!); and Resurrection, in which the dead return on the doorsteps of the living and don’t try to eat them for whatever reason.
The five comedies are led by Super Fun Night, a series CBS considered for pairing with 2 Broke Girls last development season, then passed on. ABC picked it up for this development season, retooled it as a single camera comedy, then decided it was going to retool it all over again before it hits the air this fall. It seems a bit odd to us that the networks would have this much faith in series star Rebel Wilson—seriously, sometimes you have to let how much you liked Bridesmaids go—but Wilson seems like a TV star waiting to happen in the right vehicle, though it might be time to admit this one isn’t it. (It’s something about how Wilson and her friends keep trying to have a “super fun night” every Friday, which, ugh.)
The four other comedies include Back In The Game, in which James Caan and Maggie Lawson play father and daughter who reconnect over coaching a baseball team (see, game is right there in the title!); The Goldbergs, in which actor Adam Goldberg hopes you’ll be really excited to see a Wonder Years-esque look at his childhood in the ‘80s; Mixology, involving a bunch of singles trying to hook up over the course of one, long weekend night (which is not a TV show); and Trophy Wife, which is about a trophy wife played by Malin Akerman and also stars Bradley Whitford.
Reportedly, this is the end of ABC’s new series pickups, though a few pilots have been bumped for consideration for midseason. If you want to know more about any of them, Deadline has the goods here.