Starz has picked up WonderWorld, a new series about the “Mob-controlled porn industry of the 1980s,” and a drama that brings together all of Starz’s interests—period settings, the mafia, ample opportunity for nudity—in one magic place. Not a Magic City, however, as that series recently ended its two-season run, leaving executive producer Fred Berner scrambling to reteam with his old Law And Order colleague Rene Balcer and quickly come up with some other show where criminals in vintage suits make shady deals, and occasionally you see some ass.
In WonderWorld, those criminals are pursued by a pair of “straight-arrow” FBI agents, who—inspired by Ronald Reagan’s mission to rid the U.S. of pornography that worked out so well—lead an undercover operation that’s determined to expose the mobsters hiding behind the fuzzy lighting and even fuzzier pubic areas of ’80s porn. Oddly enough, the project is being executive produced by Owen Wilson, whose participation is limited, yet nevertheless enough for us to put up his picture right under the word “porn,” thereby doing more to make porn seem less enticing than Reagan ever did.