According to Deadline, The O.C.’s Adam Brody has been cast as one of the leads in CBS’s untitled comedy pilot about “a group of friends and family at three different times in their lives.” Brody will play Andrew, a 40-year-old eternal optimist who sees his chance at a happy ending when a former crush reappears.
It’s somewhat startling that Brody has been cast as a 40-year-old man. After all, he comfortably played a teenager on The O.C., and that wasn’t so long ago. Sure, we’ve observed a few lines etching their way across our foreheads since the show wrapped, and, yeah, we now have to stretch more to keep our lower back from hurting. Okay, fine, we also tried to use the TV remote upside-down when we couldn’t find our glasses the other night. But none of that justifies Brody playing a character approaching middle age—never mind that the actor is 35—especially when he still has a perfectly youthful face. So there must be some mistake. If this show is about the same characters at different ages, then Brody should definitely play the teenager, leaving someone else—perhaps Clint Eastwood—to play the adult version of Andrew.
Anyway, the show comes from former Modern Family executive producer Dan O’Shannon and writer Peter Warren, and Modern Family is good, so we’ll keep an open mind about this if it’s ordered to series. It would be great if CBS could schedule it for 8 p.m., though. We’ve been so tired lately.