NBC: …And Even More Scripted Drama Changes: Brittany Snow and Aml Ameen Leaving Harry’s Law

…And now for news about a show that sucks and we hate:

In what is not a surprise, THR has confirmed that Brittany Snow and Aml Ameen (two of the four main cast members) have left the David E. Kelley extension of Boston Legal, Harry’s Law, under what is described as “amicable” circumstances.

…producers looked at the stories and roles and decided they weren’t going to be expanded and instead opted to give the duo the opportunity to pursue other projects.

Yeah… mmm… OK…

What this means in Hollywood-speak is that in typical David E. Kelley fashion, the stale writing that existed on the show to begin with has gotten even worse, the well has run completely dry and they can’t develop their bland, cookie-cutter, clichéd characters beyond one season nor can they write them into storylines.  We understand how developing characters and writing good stories can be difficult when every show you create is used for nothing more than a soapbox for a political agenda.

For the record, look at Kelley’s previous shows. They have a history of doing this.  Do you know why? Because like Jerry Bruckheimer, he’s just not that good or creative of a producer and he generally has lazy and uninspired writers.  As noted, we hate this show anyway and we were shocked that it was renewed.  The funny part is that it appears that the only reason that it was renewed was in deference to Kelley over not picking up Wonder Woman.  In other words, they threw Kelley a bone.

A note to NBC and the other networks:  STOP throwing Kelley a bone.  He’s overrated and audiences have grown tired of him (and Bruckheimer is nipping right at his heels in that department as well).  Time to open the door for new blood and ditch these dinosaurs.

NEWSFLASH: CBS Picks up J.J. Abrams/Jonathan Nolan Pilot, Person of Interest

J.J. Abrams (left), Jonathan Nolan (right)

In news that should make every genre fan happy for a variety of reasons, CBS has greenlit the pilot for the J.J. Abrams/Jonathan Nolan project, Person of Interest.

From Deadline.com:

“The project, from Warner Bros. TV and Abrams’ Bad Robot, is a crime drama centered on a CIA agent, presumed dead, who is recruited by a reclusive billionaire to wage war against violent criminals in New York City.”

The interesting thing about this is that the first time we looked at this piece the other day, in the description it featured the phrase,

“An ex-CIA hitman and a scientist team up to prevent crimes before they happen.”

You’ll notice that in the comments section of the Deadline piece that the above description is even referred to by one of the various whiny posters on that site.  We don’t know why this was scrubbed from the original piece but we were able to find the same description posted at Entertainment Weekly and it is described as “official” although no sources were indicated to verify that it is indeed official, but it is coming from EW so there’s no reason to assume that it’s not legitimate.

That being said, though,  since it isn’t sourced at this point and Deadline did scrub their original piece (and ALL Abrams’ projects are notoriously secretive), officially we can’t say whether it’s more like Human Target or more like the Stephen Spielberg Sci-Fi flick Minority Report or a hybrid of both, perhaps.

So what is so great about this project, anyway?  Well, of course, it’s a J.J. Abrams project and he’s just about the hottest property in Hollywood right despite the recent failure of NBC’s Undercovers (which, unlike audiences, we actually liked) so that’s the biggest selling point but maybe as cool is that this story is the brainchild of Jonathan Nolan.

Jonathan (whose nickname is “Jonah”)  is of course the younger brother of esteemed director and writer Christopher Nolan who is of course famous for the most recent Batman film franchise, Memento, The Prestige and 2010’s blockbuster hit (and Academy Award nominee for Best Picture) Inception.  What folks may not know (we certainly didn’t) is that Jonathan Nolan actually co-wrote The Dark Knight and The Prestige with his brother as well as Memento and he actually wrote Memento Mori, the original short story which the film is based on.  Oh, yeah… he also wrote the screenplay for the highly anticipated third installment of the Batman films, The Dark Knight Rises and he co-wrote 2009’s Terminator: Salvation.  You can check out his whole bio here.

CBS: "Don't worry, genre fans. We're not FOX."

Needless to say, Jonathan Nolan is an experienced and talented genre writer and we are looking forward to what he can bring to television with J.J. Abrams and though normally we would worry about a show like this because it usually winds up getting pitched to FOX and we all know what happens with brilliant genre and scripted drama that FOX gets their hands on, even with J.J. Abrams’ name attached to it.  This is not the case with CBS who tends to have a pretty good eye (no pun intended, but we’re going with it) for this type of scripted genre programming and give shows like this some time to build an audience.

Michael Emerson

Oh, and one more thing:  Guess who’s already been cast for the pilot?  None other than Lost alum Michael Emerson.  According to Reuters, Emerson who’s best known for his Emmy award-winning role as Ben Linus on Lost, will play the billionaire benefactor who will aid our player-to-be-named-later in fighting crime.

We don’t really know any more details right now about Person of Interest and probably won’t for some time (again, that’s to be expected with Abrams) but we are hopeful for an air date of Fall 2011 for the pilot but realistically it’s probably going to air mid-season 2011 – 2012.  The ‘Tastic, of course will keep you updated.