In an attempt to salvage its relationship with comedy, NBC has ordered two new pilots from old friends that the network presumably hopes will recapture the chemistry of the first time they worked together. “Remember when we used to tape The Ellen DeGeneres Show in Studio 11 at NBC Studios?,” the network said, gently taking DeGeneres’ production company by the hand. “That’s what we want for your new pilot.”
That pilot is an as-yet-untitled project starring Parenthood’s Monica Potter, whose schedule will open up significantly when that series ends on January 29. Co-written by I Hate My Teenage Daughter creators Sherry Bilsing-Graham and Ellen Kreamer, the show feature Potter as a woman “juggling her busy family life as well as her three ex-husbands, which proves to be difficult when she starts dating again.” Degeneres will serve as executive producer on the show.
The second pilot comes from The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon; Fallon will serve as a producer on Sharing, a workplace comedy “about the different groups of people working side by side in a shared office space.” So, a lot of people crouching over laptops wearing headphones and leaving passive-aggressive notes about keeping the communal kitchen clean, then. These pilot orders bring NBC’s lineup of new comedies to nine, half of what it ordered last year.