Green Lit: Hollywood’s Upcoming Pilots

A small, and unfortunately quite real, sampling of Hollywood’s television pilots in production and development. And the pitch that one imagines was presented to the studio executives.

The Show: Desperate Housewives
Logline: A dark, humorous look at the lives of four married women living in an Anytown, USA cul-de-sac.
The Imagined Pitch: ‘It’s like ‘Sex and The City’ – but we show that their lives are empty even after they’re married.

Untitled Practice Project
“The Practice” spin-off, where Alan Shore (James Spader) enters the high-priced world of civil law.
‘It’s ‘The Practice’ but Spader’s representing people who found glass in their salad.’

Naked Hotel
Drama about guests and staffers set in a hotel in the Bahamas.
‘It’s like ‘Love Boat’ but it doesn’t go anywhere.’

Surgeons
Drama about the professional and personal lives of residents in surgical training at a San Francisco hospital.
‘E.R.-S.F.’

The Cut
Drama about the personal lives and professional struggles of first-year medical students in Boston.
‘E.R.-S.F., but set in a town with puritanical liquor laws.’

The Catch
An ensemble drama set in a world of bounty hunters.
‘It’s like ‘Renegade’ with Lorenzo Lamas, but Lorenzo Lamas isn’t in it. More people are.’

Untitled Jennifer Hewitt Project
Hewitt stars in this comedy as an up-and-coming sports producer and single mom, who unwillingly becomes an on-camera reporter.
‘Ms. Hewitt has temporarily shelved her musical ambitions and is interested in playing an up-and-coming sports producer and single mom, who unwillingly becomes an on-camera reporter.’

Countdown
Drama about a S.W.A.T. team and how it handles the final 43 minutes of every crisis.
‘It’s ‘real time’ like Kiefer Sutherland’s ’24’ – but we openly admit there are 17 minutes of commercials.’

Untitled John Stamos Project
A romantic comedy in which the entire season takes place over the course of a couple’s first date.
‘It’s ‘real-time’ like Kiefer Sutherland’s ’24’ – less 22.’

Untitled Byer & Hancock Project
A new drama that tracks the season-long pursuit of a serial killer by an FBI agent.
‘It’s like Kiefer Sutherland’s ’24’. But it’s all season. And it’s ‘Manhunter’.’

Cutting It
U.S. version of the hit British sitcom revolving around a husband and wife who own a hair salon.
‘A husband and wife own a hair salon and say and do things that aren’t as witty as when English people say and do them.”

Lost
After a plane crash, a group of people are stuck on an island in the Pacific and forced to create a new society.
‘It’s ‘Gilligan’s Island’, but we can do more than hint that the Professor screwed Ginger.’

Fault Line
A former Federal agent is partnered with a female detective in Los Angeles. She’s a by-the-book investigator while he’s more interested in figuring out why a crime was committed rather than the who and how.
“Do you remember the X-Files? Yeah. Like that but not so many Aliens.”

State of the Unions
Half-hour comedy about Max Union, whose wife wins a recall election and becomes governor of California.
‘You know how ‘Law & Order’ likes stories ‘ripped from the headlines?’ Well, what if the whole series was?’

Mr. & Mr. Nash
A detective series about a gay couple who work as interior decorators and seem to stumble upon a murder each week.
Queer Eye, She Wrote.