After watching the success of True Blood, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead (all of which have less than 14 episodes a season), the networks are now re-evaluation what they have to offer to their audiences. The success of these shows, shows that shortened season are not an issue. This type of formatting allows networks to have drama-based content throughout the year and allows it to not rely so much on reruns and reality-based programming as filler. It also allows networks to ”maintain series options on the actors while at the same time maintain the project’s international value. And if you market them well, they bring in audience,” as Deadline noted.

Some of the pilots that we have been watching over the last year are strong contenders for this format.

The CW is seeing if it will use this cable-like formatting for The Reign and The Selection.

ABC is looking at it’s spin-off, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, as a contender, as well as Gothica.

Fox may use this methodology for its Sleepy Hollow series.

CBS is using Under the Dome as it’s gateway into this type of programming.

There is an added plus to this, many of you will be quite thrilled at the prospect of not having to deal with four-week gaps in-between new episodes of some of your favorite shows (and I’m talking about CW) because if the networks see that this works than shortened seasons allow for a straight run of back-to-back new episodes. A win-win for everyone.

Let’s hope that this happens.

Oxygen, an alien drama in the vein of District 9, hails from Space Floor TV’s Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg and Olé Prods’ Richard Shepard, Sean Furst and Bryan Furst. It was written by Averill (The Good Wife). All will exec produce the CBS TV Studios project, based on a format developed by Daniel Gutman of Pow Wow and Spanish producer Isla Producciones.

The Hundred, a sci-fi series set 97 years after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization. A spaceship housing the lone human survivors sends 100 juvenile delinquents back to Earth to investigate the possibility of re-colonizing the planet. The project is based on upcoming Alloy books written by Kass Morgan and published by Little, Brown. Warner Bros TV, which owns Alloy Entertainment, is producing, with Rothenberg and Alloy’s Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo executive producing. – Deadline

PRESS RELEASE: 

Wired’ takes place in a world that looks exactly like today, except for one thing: this is a world with ‘Syns’ (‘Synthetic Organisms’), exact replicas of human beings and the newest luxury accessory money can buy. Wired explores our evolving relationship with technology, the boundaries of society’s values and moralities, our hypocrisies and contradictions – holding up a mirror to who we are today and what we might become.

In ‘The Dead Beat’, two cops, one dead and one alive, become a reluctant team, working from leads in the world of the dead to track down killers in the world of the living. Subverting the crime genre, The Dead Beat brings a whole new meaning to cold cases, underworld informants, dead leads and buried evidence.

ABC

Untitled Roland Emmerich election drama
Logline: An astrophysics grad student in NYC learns that he is the chosen one to destroy the forces of evil.
Cast: Max Thieriot, Yaya DaCosta, Gabriella Wilde
Team: W/D Roland Emmerich, EP Mark Gordon, Nicholas Pepper; W/EP Harold Kloser
Studio: ABC Studios, the Mark Gordon Co.
Location: New York
AFTRA

Gotham
Logline:After pursuing a seemingly unsolvable case, a female cop discovers a magical world that exists within New York City. A world that goes unseen by normal humans takes all of the familiar N.Y. landmarks and reinvents them in a magical, otherworldly manner.
Cast:
Team: W/EP Michael Green, EP Erwin Stoff; D Francis Lawrence
Studio: 20th Television
Location: New York
AFTRA

Beauty and the Beast
Logline: A fantasy reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world where a beautiful and tough princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast.
Cast: Chris Egan
Team: W Jon Steinberg; EP Gary Fleder, Mary Beth Basile; D Yves Simoneau
Studio: ABC Studios, Mojo Films
Location: Vancouver

666 Park Ave.
Logline: When a young couple accepts an offer to manage one of the most historic apartment buildings in New York City, they unwittingly begin to experience supernatural occurrences, which complicate and endanger the lives of everyone in the building. Based on the book by Gabriella Pierce.
Cast: Terry O’Quinn, Dave Annable
Team: W/EP David Wilcox; EP Leslie Morgenstein, Gina Girolamo; D Alex Graves
Studio: Warner Bros. Television, Alloy Entertainment
Location: New York
AFTRA

NBC

Isabel
Logline: Inspired by the French-Canadian series Le Monde De Charlotte, a normal angry middle-class family wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter with magical qualities.
Cast: Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Nealon, Sophia Schloss, Abigail Mavity, Skyler Gisondo
Team: W/EP Howard Busgang, Tom Nursall; EP Aaron Kaplan, Jocelyn Deschenes, Karey Burke; D/EP Todd Holland
Studio: Universal Television, Kapital Entertainment, Sphere Media, Dark Toy
Format: Single-camera
Location: Los Angeles
SAG

CW

The Selection
Logline: Based on the forthcoming series of books by Kiera Cass, The Selection is an epic romance set 300 years in the future which centers on a poor young woman who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads.
Cast: Aimee Teegarden
Team: W/EP Elizabeth Craft, Sarah Fain; D Mark Piznarski
Studio: Warner Bros. Television
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Beauty and the Beast

Logline: Loosely based on CBS’ Beauty and the Beast series from the 1980s, this is a modern-day romantic love story with a procedural twist.

Cast: Kristin Kreuk, Austin Basis
Team: EP/W Jennifer Levin, Sherri Cooper; EP Paul J. Witt, C. Anthony Thomas, Ron Koslow, Bill Haber; D Gary Fleder
Studio: CBS Television Studios

Arrow
Logline: Based on the DC Comics title, published by DC Entertainment, this hourlong drama is a modern retelling of the legendary DC Comics character Green Arrow.
Cast: Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Colin Donnell, Susanna Thompson, Katie Cassidy, Willa Holland
Team: EP/W Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg (The Vampire Diaries)
Studio: Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television
AFTRA