WASHINGTON — At ABC, where August is the new May, they just announced the pickup of five new series for the 2008-09 TV season, which starts next month.
But one of them is a reboot of a comedy the network debuted in the fall of ‘98 called “Cupid.”
The original starred Jeremy Piven — he’s the one who steals the show in “Entourage” — as a guy who thinks he really is Cupid, the god of love. Piven was wonderful in the role, only, sadly, Paula Marshall, Show-Killer Extraordinaire, co-starred as the psychologist/lonely-hearts expert to whom he got assigned.
A decade later, Bobby Cannavale — he won an Emmy for playing Vince on “Will &Grace” — will play Trevor, a.k.a. Cupid; and Sarah Paulson, aka Fingernails on Chalkboard Christian Comic Chick on “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” will play Dr. Claire Allen.
“Castle,” on the other hand, is a “comedic crime procedural” about a famous mystery novelist, Nick Castle, teamed with an NYPD detective after a real murderer starts staging scenes from Nick’s books.
His blood gets pumping, ABC assures us, as he steps in to help solve the crime. Presumably by turning to the last page of that particular book, which, apparently, the NYPD didn’t think of doing.
“The Unusuals” is also a comedic procedural set in a New York police precinct where the newbie, Detective Casey Schraeger (played by Amber Tamblyn), discovers that everyone in the homicide division has a distinctive sense of humor and his or her own “dirty little secrets.”
“Better Off Ted” is an office comedy about a man named Ted, though you’d probably figured that out already, who, ABC says, is successful but morally conscious even though he runs the R&D department at the “morally questionable” Veridian Technologies.
Veridian is the developer of suicidal turkeys and edible metal, and hilarity ensues. Jay Harrington is Ted, and Portia de Rossi is Veronica, his superhuman boss.
“Single With Parents” stars Alyssa Milano as Kristin Newman. Actually, that’s the name of the woman who created this series based on her own life (sigh). Which is, a chick in her mid-30s who has divorced parents who need to be put down.
Beau Bridges, Dad, needs her as a surrogate parent, and Annie Potts, Mom, counts on her 24/7 as a shrink and confidante.
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