CW superhero king Greg Berlanti has just sold a show about the other attention-seeking weirdos who do improbable things in capes, with Variety reporting that ABC has purchased a procedural drama about magicians from the Arrow and Flash mastermind. Deception comes courtesy of Chuck writer Chris Fedak, who worked with Berlanti on Legends Of Tomorrow, and centers on a disgraced stage magician forced to do what all brilliant, charismatic, recklessly rule-breaking experts must eventually do in TV land: use his talents to join the FBI and assist them on cases of the week. (Sample dialogue: “Pick a card, any card. Oh, how strange…You picked justice.” Gunshots, fade to black.)
Meanwhile, ABC also picked up a new series from Revenge and Critical Minds producers Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie. The Crossing sounds like a blend of ripped-from-the-headlines politics and sci-fi high concept, with a small American town thrust into chaos when a group of refugees suddenly arrive seeking asylum. The twist: They’re time-traveling American refugees, who’ve time-traveled, from the future, because it sucks. Honestly, it sounds kind of engagingly nuts, even if it is already the plot of that South Park episode where everybody turk ‘ur jurbbs.