Period dramas are all the rage lately. A week after Fox announced it was developing a new series about sexy Egyptians, and just days after news of two other burgeoning shows about different eras of historic Malibu, California, comes news that both The CW and Starz are also looking to pick up shows about the past.
The CW has purchased Players, a one-hour drama set in 1930s Hollywood. Produced by Warner Bros. and Ellen DeGeneres’ A Very Good Production, Players tells the very-CW story of a young Midwestern woman who moves to L.A. in an attempt to avenge her sister’s death at the hand of a villainous studio head. While there, she ends up somehow becoming an ingénue herself, gets embroiled in a closeted star’s “lavender marriage,” and soon becomes a patsy for the mob.
Surprisingly, Starz’s series isn’t quite as seedy, but it’s still pretty criminal. Most Wanted traces the rise and fall of Nate Daniels, a bank robber who landed on the FBI’s list of its Ten Most Wanted in the '70s. Set in the Great Plains, Most Wanted deals with the collision of Daniels’ bank-robbing and personal lives, sort of like what was going on with Walter White in the final season of Breaking Bad. Sons Of Anarchy executive producer Chris Collins will serve as showrunner.