In a bold new effort designed around actually being funny on purpose, MTV is doubling down on scripted comedies. Deadline reports the channel that long ago stopped being known to anyone as Music Television has picked up three new female-driven comedies, possibly in an effort to make everyone forget that Scream is coming back for a second season. The new shows include a vehicle for Girl Code star Nicole Byer, another about college vigilantes, and—in excellent news for those of us who are hoping lightning can strike twice—a new show from Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, a.k.a. the writer-director team responsible for Josie And The Pussycats, one of the finest films of the 21st century.
Byer’s untitled single-camera comedy will see her playing a young woman forced to move in with her sister and four kids in the suburbs after starting a fire in her NYC apartment. Kaplan and Elfont’s series revolves around Paige and Jordan, two women in L.A. who create a popular weed delivery app and try to keep their customers happy while doing as little work as possible. The third project, from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is called Little Darlings, and tells the story of a pair of college girls: First is Jules, a “perfect sorority dream girl, but little do her red-cup-toting sisters know, she’s got a completely different agenda come nightfall. Ophelia, your everyday stoner-hacker-hellion, has officially run out of effs to give, and when she discovers Jules may be the masked vigilante exacting justice on campus her interest in college life is re-energized.” Despite finding stoner-hacker-hellions to be something less than an everyday presence (outside of The A.V. Club offices), the description sounds promising.
Actually, adding these to MTV’s current shows Awkward and Faking It, you end up with the most female-skewing comedy channel on television. Presumably, this means MTV isn’t planning to rebrand itself as Misogyny Television any time soon, although that could be because Fox News has already trademarked the label.