ABC Greenlights Shonda Rhimes Pilot About Crisis Management

EXCLUSIVE: ABC has ordered its first pilot this development season, and fittingly, it is from the network's most prolific writer-producer Shonda Rhimes. The untitled project, about the life and work of a professional fixer and her dysfunctional staff, is based on the career of famous PR guru and crisis management consultant Judy Smith. It was written by Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice creator Rhimes, her first pilot script since the two-hour May 2007 Grey's Anatomy episode that served as backdoor pilot for spinoff Private Practice. It was a quick turnaround for the new project, which hails from ABC Studios and Rhimes' studio-based Shondaland banner. ABC brass read Rhimes' script on Thursday and 24 hours later, they greenlit it to pilot. The early order comes weeks before the traditional start of the broadcast networks' pilot pickup season. ICM-repped Rhimes will executive produce with her Shondaland partner, UTA-repped Betsy Beers. Judy Smith will serve as a co-executive producer and a technical consultant.

UTA-repped Smith, a former White House press aide under President George H. W. Bush, has been involved in some of the most controversial cases of the past 20 years. She has guided and counseled Monica Lewinsky, Michael Vick and Senator Larry Craig and has worked on the Iran Contra investigation, the prosecution of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry for drug possession, the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the Chandra Levy investigation and the Enron Congressional inquiry.

ICM-repped Rhimes and her Shondaland have 3 series on the ABC schedule this season: Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and the Jenna Bans-created new medical drama Off the Map, which premieres on Jan. 12. Additionally, the company is developing a comedic divorce drama project with BAFTA-winning British writer Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless).

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TV CASTINGS: Laura Fraser Joins Showtime Pilot 'Homeland,' Two Added To 'True Blood'

EXCLUSIVE: Scottish actress Laura Fraser has landed a lead role on Showtime's drama pilot Homeland. Additionally, In Treatment standout Dane DeHaan has joined HBO's vampire drama True Blood as a recurring, while Rebecca Wisocky has been cast for a key guest spot in the fourth season premiere.

Homeland, from?24 executive producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, centers on Marine Sergeany Scott Brody, who returns home eight years after going missing in Iraq, and Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes), a driven CIA officer who suspects he might be plotting an attack on America. Fraser (A Knight's Tale) will play?Jessica Brody, Scott Brody's smart, strong wife. Production on the pilot, whose cast also includes Mandy Patinkin, is slated to begin Jan. 10 in Charlotte, N.C.

On True Blood, DeHaan will play Timbo, one of the teens Jason (Ryan Kwanten) takes care of in Hotshot. The part extends DeHaan's relationship with HBO. He plays Jesse on the current season of the network's drama In Treatment.?Wisocky (90210) will play Queen Mab, who is described as an elegant beauty who presides over a fantasy land and also has a temper. Wisocky will next be seen in Atlas Shrugged.

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'Lost' Co-Star Jorge Garcia Cast In J.J. Abrams' Fox Drama Pilot 'Alcatraz'

EXCLUSIVE: Big news for Lost fans: series co-star Jorge Garcia has joined another J.J. Abrams drama about an island. Garcia is set to play a lead on the Fox pilot Alcatraz, which is executive produced by Lost co-creator/executive producer Abrams. The project, described to be "about secrets and the most infamous prison of all time," centers on a group of missing Alcatraz prisoners and guards who reappear in the present day. It chronicles the efforts of a team of FBI agents to track them down and unravel the mystery behind their disappearance thirty years prior. Garcia will play the hippy geek?Dr. Diego Soto, the world's?foremost expert on Alcatraz. Actor-comedian Garcia, who landed his first TV series role on the CBS comedy?Becker, rose to fame as one of the key cast members on ABC's hit drama?Lost. He was the first actor cast in the Lost pilot, just like he is now on?Alcatraz. The role of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes on?Lost was tailor-made for him. Similarly, he was the first and only actor the producers of?Alcatraz approached for the role of Dr. Soto. Garcia, repped by APA and KLWG Entertainment, guest stars on the Thanksgiving episode of CBS' comedy?How I Met Your Mother tomorrow night. He will also appear in an episode of ABC's midseason comedy Mr. Sunshine. Garcia is the third?Lost cast member eyeing return to primetime this season in a new drama series executive produced by Abrams.?Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn star as former special ops agents in the project?Odd Jobs, which?landed at NBC with a put pilot commitment.

Alcatraz was written on spec by?Elizabeth Sarnoff, who penned the final version, and Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, who wrote earlier incarnations. The project, from Abrams' Bad Robot Prods. and Warner Bros. TV, was bought by Fox with a pilot commitment in mid-September, and?greenlighted to pilot?a week later.?Sarnoff serves as showrunner and executive produces with Abrams and Bryan Burk. Lilien and Wynbrandt will co-executive produce and Danny Cannon will?direct the pilot, which is slated to begin in January in San Francisco and Vancouver.

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CBS orders Celebrity garden reality pilot

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Sunday 24 October 2010 @ 7: 59 pm PDT

EC has greenlighted the same name, the driver of one of the masters of comic celebreality, Cree Abrego hours. The project, which Abrego Executive produced with Eugene Young, is a comic series of fish-out-of water, involving ordinary people and they share the same name with celebrities. Each self-contained episode of the show, produced by 51 minds belonging to Endemol, will feature a celebrity as it the life of professions and careers with his/hers name doppelganger and they see what it is to live in with one another and other footwear, follow the two. The same name belongs to an expansion of the UTA-repped Abrego, who did most of its undertaking to VH1 so far.Collaborator frequent Mark Cronin, Abrego has been the go - to for kernel celebreality tariff channel with these series as The Surreal Life, the fragrance of love and love rock .for CBS, same name adds growing slate network performances on celebrity guy or other rich people masquerading as regular folk, which includes the reality hit boss infiltration and the series of promotions that get a lot.

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