Pilot Season: Portia de Rossi, Mindy Kaling, and BSG!

Pilot season is an exciting, but it's a letdown come fall when the ones I look forward to do not show up on the TV lineup.  But it's nice to report these, so you too can get your hopes up and then me cruelly crushed by the corporate companies that care not for good TV!

First, ABC has ordered a pilot of developing comedy I mentioned earlier called The Smart One, starring Portia de Rossi and produced by Ellen DeGeneres and Lauren Corrao (A Very Good Production). De Rossi plays an intelligent, witty woman, who ends up working for her sister, who is completely opposite as a complete ditz.  And she's the mayor. 
Guess who's going to be the face and guess who's going to be the brains?  Portia de Rossi has come to enjoy strong female roles, it seems, of which we need more.  I'm glad ABC always takes a chance on favorite shows, but they never end up advertising them properly (except for Happy Endings last summer when they realized people were talking about it like crazy).  ABC is the same network that aired de Rossi's last project Better Off Ted, which I declare as my favorite TV show, tied with Parks and Recreation.  My bet is they will give this show a chance. And having it produced by a well-known TV personality, it'll be advertised.  Look out for this!

As reported earlier, Mindy Kaling will develop an animated comedy about a loser volleyball team, in which she write, produce, and voice-act.  But that's not the one we're talking about.  It's another show, a single-camera comedy, she's developing, as reported by Deadline, in which she'll play the main character, who is a, OB/GYN.  Kaling's own mother is an OB/GYN, so you know she's got some comedic gold to share with us!  It's unfortunate to note that this indicates, if picked up, her departure from The Office.  But with her departure and Dwight/Rainn's as well (because NBC is developing a Dwight spin-off sure to fail), The Office may not last another season, especially with everyone's burgeoning careers.

TNT has order a David E. Kelly pilot Chelsea General.  Yup.  Another medical drama.  This time it stars the incredible (and very edible) Jamie Bamber, of Battlestar Galactica fame.  It co-stars Jennifer Finnigan, whom I miss on Better with You. The show follows five surgeons and based off CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta's upcoming book Monday Mornings.  Gupta also has hit on Alex on Happy Endings!  Before that I'd never heard of him.

As reported by Deadline, Sarah Silverman is developing a new single-camera comedy for NBC with her co-writers of The Sarah Silverman Program.  (Will we get poop, fart, and vagina jokes?) The series is based on Silverman's life about a woman (Silverman) who just comes out of a ten-year relationship.  Tig Notaro (The Sarah Silverman Program) and Ken Leung (Lost) have been tapped to star.

Though, I'm not into The Munsters, I'm excited to see a new Bryan Fuller series.  He's re-imagining the family comedy to be edgier and darker and also more visually spectacular.  I would expect nothing less.

What happens with your friends when you've been together for ten years and have just broken up? Producers Courteney Cox and David Arquette (Coquette Productions)are willing to let us know in a new comedy.

Bridesmaids breakout comedian Rebel Wilson is writing and producing a new pilot bought by CBS called Super Fun Night, which chronicles the lives of a trio of fantastically nerdy female friends on their quest to find weekend fun.  I'm not a CBS person myself, but I'll give it a shot.

ABC ordered a pilot from executive producer Natalie Portman called Scruples.  The 1970s drama follows a widowed socialite who opens a fashion-forward boutique in Beverly Hills.

ABC has also ordered a comedy pilot called American Judy, which will be produced by and star Judy Greer.  She'll play a newlywed from the city who moves with her husband and his kids to the suburbs, where she must deal with her mother-in-law, sheriff (who is also her husband's ex), and her stepchildren.