#abcdrama

[pilotseason2020]

THE BRIDES (ordered to pilot)

based on characters created by Bram Stroker

A vampire soap about empowered, immortal women and the things they do to maintain wealth, prestige, legacy — and their nontraditional family.

Cast (thus far)

Gina Torres (Suits) as Cleo Phillips. One of the three Brides of Dracula and the leader of this vampire trio, Cleo is an imperious woman with a queenly manner—understandably, as she was a queen in her former life— who was turned by Dracula after the death of her husband. Now a maven of New York City real estate, Cleo is challenged professionally by a mysterious newcomer —even as her ties to her sisters are dangerously fraying. (Mar 2)

Erin Richards (Gotham) as Renée, the head of a top modeling agency in New York City, known for her torrid affairs with her beautiful female models. In her former life, she was the wife of the Marquis de Sade when she invited Dracula into her “house of pain” and asked to be “turned” by him. (Mar 11)

Katherine Reis (Claws) as Lily Stevens, the youngest of the three Brides of Dracula, a striving singer in New York City whose relationship to a news reporter threatens to tear apart her marriage to her “sisters.” In her former life, she braved the streets of Jack the Ripper’s London, until being “rescued” by Dracula. (Mar 3)

Goran Višnjić (Timeless) as Count Dracula, the powerful, ageless, and iconic King of Night who “turned” each of his three brides. Dracula is left for dead at his destroyed castle in the Carpathian mountains while his three wives flee to start a new life together. (Mar 9; SeasonZero hinted at it hours before the announcement on Twitter)

Chris Mason (Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists) as Roland Grant. This stylish real estate mogul arrives in town to challenge Cleo— the “Queen of New York City real estate” — for professional supremacy. With secret ties to Dracula, Roland has a personal stake in the destruction of the Brides. (Mar 3)

Sophia Tatum (I Am Not Okay With This) as Justine Strang. Completely friendless and new to town, Justine shows up at the studio of Renée Pélagie, a top modeling agent in New York City and the “middle” bride of Dracula. Renée soon takes this young, hungry, aspiring model under her wing, unaware that Justine may have a past with Dracula as well. (Mar 3)

Charlie McElveen (The Deuce) as Arthur Seward. An ambitious young news reporter, Arthur works the graveyard shift at his paper, covering news of the bizarre. He becomes infatuated with Lily— unaware that she is, in fact, an immortal vampire. (Mar 11)

Series Creator: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Maggie Kiley

Producers: Greg Berlanti, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Sarah Schechter

Studios: Warner Bros. TV, ABC Studios, Berlanti Productions

Genre: Soap, Family, Horror, and Supernatural

Primetimer Pilot Preview: “consider”

Primetimer’s Character Descriptions

[pilotseason2020]

ABC Drama Masterlist

The Big Sky: Private detective Cassie Dewell partners with ex-cop Jenny Hoyt on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. When they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken. (S)

The Brides: A vampire soap about empowered, immortal women and the things they do to maintain wealth, prestige, legacy — and their nontraditional family.

Harlem’s Kitchen: Ellis Rice, an Executive Chef and patriarch, runs a successful Harlem restaurant with his wife and three daughters. But an unexpected death thrusts the family into turmoil and puts the restaurant’s future in jeopardy as long-buried secrets are revealed. 

Rebel: Annie "Rebel" Bello is a blue-collar legal advocate without a law degree. This funny, messy, brilliant and fearless woman cares desperately about the causes she fights for and the people she loves. When Rebel applies herself to a fight she believes in, she will win at almost any cost.

Thirtysomething(else): This revival of the 1980s series Thirtysomething revolves around the children of the characters from the original show, who are now 30-something themselves. Raising children never ends, but who could have known how hard it would be to raise parents?

Triage: A character-driven medical drama that follows a pioneering surgeon, Finley Briar, over three distinct decades at the same hospital. With the evolution of medicine as the backdrop, the show explores the interconnected careers, friendships and romances of Finley and her colleagues and their tenuous relationship with time. (2nd cycle)

Wreckage: On the surface, Lillian Linden looks like a brave survivor of a plane crash. But she’s been lying to her family, her friends, and the whole world since rescue helicopters scooped her and her fellow survivor, Dave Hall, off a deserted island in the South Pacific. Missing for almost four years, the castaways are thrust into the spotlight after their rescue, becoming media darlings overnight. But they can’t tell the real story—so they lie.

[pilotseason2020]

TRIAGE (ordered to pilot: second-cycle) 

A character-driven medical drama that follows a pioneering surgeon, Finley Briar, over three distinct decades at the same hospital. With the evolution of medicine as the backdrop, the show explores the interconnected careers, friendships and romances of Finley and her colleagues and their tenuous relationship with time.

Series Creator: David Cornue

Pilot Director: Jon M. Chu

Producers: Erica Messer, Jon M. Chu, Steven Marrs, Courtney Hazlett, Caitlin Foito

Studios: 20th Century FOX Television, Erica Messer Productions, OutEast Entertainment

Genre: Medical

NBC pilot “Ordinary Joe” is also playing with time in threes in its protagonist’s life, by looking at three parallel lives dependent on one choice at a crossroads.

[pilotseason2020]

WRECKAGE (ordered to pilot)

based on Emily Bleeker’s book of the same name

On the surface, Lillian Linden looks like a brave survivor of a plane crash. But she’s been lying to her family, her friends, and the whole world since rescue helicopters scooped her and her fellow survivor, Dave Hall, off a deserted island in the South Pacific. Missing for almost four years, the castaways are thrust into the spotlight after their rescue, becoming media darlings overnight. But they can’t tell the real story—so they lie.

Series Creator: Jacquie Walters

Pilot Director: Marc Webb

Producers: Jacquie Walters, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Mark Martin, Marc Webb, Keith Samples

Studios: ABC Studios, Black Lamb Productions, Timberman-Beverly Productions

Genre: Thriller and Adventure

Primetimer Pilot Preview: “consider”

The concept has already received comparisons to former ABC juggernaut “Lost” and current NBC drama “Manifest.”

[thetelevisionaries]

Desperate Housewives - Suspicion Song

Bree is still being harassed by the cop, Susan still thinks she's an artist, Gabby is still trying to get Carlos to stop drinking and Lynette is still making a fool out of herself while she desperately tries to save her marriage. I'm still watching this show…

Last night's episode was pretty ho hum. Chuck continues to harass Bree which is just kind of old hat at this point. Rather than having her entire plot line be that just keep it as a runner, we get it, he's creepy and dangerous. The Gabby plot line advanced a little bit with Carlos' drinking getting so bad that he's missing work. Gabby tries to cover for him but of course makes even more of a mess.

Lynette thinks that perhaps Tom is turning around and maybe there's a chance at them getting back together so on their anniversary she BREAKS into his apartment to set scotch next to his night stand "for old times' sake". OF COURSE Tom and his new girlfriend come in and are about to get down to business (with Lynette having scampered under the bed in order to hide) when she pops out. It was all so obvious and set up. Super awkward.

The Susan is such the *tortured* artist bit continues. This episode I made the official decision that the writers WANT us to hate her, there is no other way you write a character like her. Her paintings of her and the girls burying the dead body end up in an art show because they're *so* remarkable that the art teacher would do that against her will. Too late! Chuck has seen them and it is a "visual confession". Yikes.

Desperate Housewives airs on Sundays at 9pm on ABC.

-Sammie

[thetelevisionaries]

Desperate Housewives - Always in Control

Last night's Desperate Housewives ended up on the better end of episodes this season. With two decent plots, one excellent plot and one horrible plot (it's Susan's. Shocker.) 

Let's get Susan's plot over with, everything in her life is still revolving around her wanting to be a tortured artist but her art teacher hates her and picks on her. Snooze fest. She tries so hard to be a true and pure artists and sits in front of a "canvas" (sheet of paper) for hours in distress over the fact that she has no substance, which I've known for eight years. She goes to confront her art teacher at his house and he tells her to stop coming to class because she's void of anything. Susan defies this by painting a portrait of her and the girls burying Gabby's step-father in the woods. He approves of this painting. It's the first reasonable plot twist to come out of Susan since 2006.

Bree's storyline revolves around her trying to figure out who dug up the body they buried. She goes to the Australian guy from V and talks to him and he admits he found it but hasn't reported it yet. She convinces him to not report it after he sees her being accosted by the police guy she used to be sleeping with. 

Lynette's storyline revolved around her turning Penny against her father and her father's new girlfriend. Interesting plot line without any real hurdles but one that made logical sense in her and Penny's growth as characters.

The last plot line really did something for me and once again, it was Gabby's. It occurs to Gabby and Carlos that having Susan as a back up parent for Juanita and the other was not a good idea considering that if they went to jail, Susan'd be going with them. They decide to try and convince Bob and Lee to take them in case of emergency and Gabby has to try and train her girls to behave. They have Bob and Lee over for dinner and everything seems to be going okay until they leave and find that Juanita has sprayed some disturbing graffiti on the garage. Juanita then confronts Gabby asking what is going on and if Carlos is going to die. It really spoke to something palpable going on in the house that even the kids could notice, a really excellent plot line. 

Overall, it was a good episode, the season seems to be growing in an interesting direction. I'm getting more into the plot line with the buried body and I'm excited to see where they take it. Desperate Housewives is on ABC at 9pm, Sundays.

-Sammie

[thetelevisionaries]

Desperate Housewives - Witch's Lament

Desperate Housewives took their turn at a slightly halloween oriented episode and it was one of the more successful episode in the otherwise lagging season. The plot lines sprung a slight bit of originality and it's always fun to have a holiday themed show.

SPOILERS:

The beginning starts with a cliff hanger, we see Bree, Lynette and Gabby in the woods where they buried Gabby's step-father. Then there's a moment of shock but we don't see what they see, or don't see. Cut back to three days earlier where the plot lines begin. Vanessa Williams' character gets her own plot line this time about her and that Australian guy from V. She wants to finally seal the deal with him but she's nervous and decides to take some crazy chinese love serum. Of course she has a reaction to it and has to go to the hospital ruining everything. Not a super original plot line, but one suited and fun for halloween.

Gabby doesn't get a real storyline and hers is more focused around Carlos deciding to go to AA (or more, Gabby deciding that he has to). Not much meat there but progresses the character's arc along. Lynette's storyline was actually fun this week (shocker!) as she tries to compete with Tom's new girlfriend. New girlfriend offers to make Penny's halloween costume but Lynette insists it's a mother-daughter thing even though she makes terrible costumes. She outsources the project and OF COURSE gets back a slutty cat costume far inappropriate for the daughter. 

Bree's storyline is centered around her trying to figure out what is happening with the land that they buried Gabby's step-dad in and trying to devise a plan to stop the australian guy from V from building there. She and Gabby go out and try to plant endangered frogs but fail until she realizes they'll just have to move the body. 

Lastly, Susan's plot line was (shocker!) horrible and annoying. Someone must have some real deep-seeded issues with a former art teacher or something. It was all focused around him again and Susan has to babysit his kid because "his art is his baby, not his actual child." I think I just find it so irritating to suggest that Susan could become some crazy passionate artist who'd forget about her family, she's not talented, she's not passionate and she has no depth. Stop pretending she does.

The episode ends where it began with Gabby, Lynette and Bree in the forest finding that the grave they buried Gabby's step-father in is empty. Uh-oh.

Desperate Housewives is on ABC at 9:00pm Sundays.

-Sammie

[thetelevisionaries]

Desperate Housewives - The Art of Making Art

After eight years, Desperate Housewives is really starting to show its age. I know, I'm a little embarrassed that I'm (still) watching it but when you've been watching a show this long you pretty much have a history with it. This season has, for a lack of putting it softly, been pretty bad. The characters have all turned into unlikable versions of themselves and the overarching mystery that kept me coming back every other season is really lame this year.

Split into four plots each around one of the housewives I found three of them to be overdone and expected. Bree volunteers at a soup kitchen and accidentally turns it into a hangout for hipsters and exiling the homeless was a fun concept but didn't grow the character and made her seem excessively oblivious. Susan continues to have trouble with her adult community college art class and the professor is still torturing her. When she finally "stands up" for herself and decides she's had enough the professor comes to her HOUSE to talk her into coming back to the class. Really, DH? Really? Lynette used to be one of my favorite characters but since her separation with Tom I've found her grating and irritating. Her plot this time being about trying to get out and meet someone. She then almost goes home with a guy realizing she isn't ready, of course.

The last plot line started weak, Gabby was neglecting her duty as the head of the PTA and was trying to get the other moms to help her with a school function coming up. They refused to, commenting that she doesn't know what it's like to live a normal life because hers is so pampered and perfect. It may have started out rather obvious but as the episode was progressing Carlos was taking a drastic spiral downward (when CARLOS is by far the most compelling character on the show, things have taken a very different turn). While the other moms sit in judgement of Gabby while she haphazardly tries to put things together, she calls Carlos and asks him to come help claiming that her amazing husband will help her pull everything together even if she can't have their help. When Carlos arrives he's tanked, and it's obvious. One of the mothers stands to attention and starts ordering people to do stuff and they follow her order. In this moment Gabby is completely vulnerable, she's trying to get Carlos to leave realizing how drunk he is all the while her facade of the perfect life is falling apart in front of the people who accused her of having no issues. Gabby has always been such a superficial character but this season she's the only one I've seen grow. Overall the episode, like the ones so far in the season wasn't so great but I really saw a spark of hope in this last episode and I really hope they'll do more stories like this that put the characters into unique and vulnerable situations rather than recycling the obvious. This is Desperate Housewives' last season and I hope it catches up and goes out with a bang. Desperate Housewives is on Sundays at 9 on ABC.

- Sammie