Alyssa Milano has signed on to star in a comedy pilot for ABC only a few months after her last project for the network got scuttled.
The Charmed star will play a single mom in a pilot from writer Ricky Blitt. The network has also cast Lipstick Jungle star Kim Raver in Shonda Rhimes’ drama Inside the Box — which could be further bad news for the not-quite-cancelled NBC series, as now two of its leads have taken pilot roles.
ABC has also added three more actors to its pilot Happy Town, while at NBC David Lyons (ER) and Carly Pope (24) lead a quartet of actors cast in NBC’s post-apocalyptic drama Day One, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Milano starred in a comedy called Single with Parents that ABC picked up for midseason but then decided not to air, citing creative issues. In the new pilot, she’ll play the new girlfriend of a guy (Eric Christian Olsen) who’s torn between her and his needy best friend.
Raver, whose credits also include 24 and The Nine, will play a reporter in Inside the Box, which is set at a network news operation in Washington. Like Price’s role in another ABC project, Eastwick, Raver’s part here would defer to Lipstick Jungle should the show return. When two of a show’s three leads seek other work, though, that’s not a good sign.
Also at ABC, the mystery Happy Town has cast Robert Wisdom (The Wire) and Jay Paulson (October Road) as cops investigating a small town’s first major crime in years. John Patrick Amedori (Gossip Girl”) will play a teenager who’s part of a Romeo-and-Juliet romance.
NBC’s Day One comes from former Heroes writer-producer Jesse Alexander and follows a group of neighbors who survive an apocalyptic event. Lyons will play an Iraq veteran who assumes leadership of the group. Pope and Adam Campbell (Harper’s Island) will play a high-IQ couple, and Thekla Reuten (Sleeper Cell, In Bruges) will play a woman who takes voluminous notes about her neighbors.
Source: Zap2It
