Kelsey Grammer is producing an NBC cop drama based on Freakonomics

By Phil Dyess-Nugent | August 8, 2012 | 8:43pm

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When Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner published 2005's Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything, many took it for just a collection of essays on outside-the-box views on practical economics, espoused by a couple of guys who disagreed on how best to spell their shared first name. Seven years, one sequel, a blog, a podcast, and a feature film later, it’s clear that Freakonomics is, in fact, an ever-replicating entertainment machine that means to sink its tendrils into every medium available to 21st-century man. But with Philip Glass probably still blocked on Freakonomics: The Opera, there hasn't been a new Freakonomics project since 2010's anthology documentary.

To the rescue comes Kelsey Grammer, whose Grammnet Productions is whipping up Pariah for NBC, a drama that Deadline describes as a police procedural that features Freakonomics-inspired characters—specifically, a "rogue academic" who helps law enforcement solve crimes by conducting controversial experiments based on the methods in the book, causing an uproar. Grammer is co-producing the show with Lionsgate, also the partner on his very serious-minded Starz series Boss, which suggests that Pariah will also be very serious-minded. Or, at least, as serious-minded as a cop show based on Freakonomics can be.