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It’s pilot season, and pilot news is usually only good for a headlines: Network, Actor, Show Premise, Showrunner. That’s all you really need to know because many of the pilots won’t make it to air, anyway. There’s no point in getting too invested. So, in an effort to enliven this pilot news, let’s rank the lead actors by their aesthetic value (i.e., hotness, but we’re classy), keeping in mind, of course, that I find Jenny McCarthy attractive, so according to many of our readers, my bangability scale is suspect.
7. Kate Moennig — Moennig, “The L Word’s” lesbian tomboy is returning to Showtime in “Ray Donovan,” the Liev Schrieber private dick show, which will investigate the problems of elite Los Angeles. Moennig will play Shrieber’s “edgy” and “intense” second-in-command. (TVLine)
6. Kal Penn — Penn, who has been on CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother” all season, is moving over to ABC, where he’s landed a pilot in “Prairie Dogs.” The show comes from the creators of “That 70’s Show.” The premise is actually vaguely interesting (from TVLine)
The show follows an uncool cubicle worker — aka “prairie dog” — named Neil who is the victim of identity theft. Said corporate drone ultimately discovers the thief created a much more fulfilling life with his identity than he ever did — and thus he engages the con man to help him improve his prospects.
If the con man turns out to be himself, then we’re basically looking at Fight Club without the fighting. (Image via Shuttershock)
5. Sophia Bush — Bush (“One Tree Hill”) is joining the cast of “Partners,” a CBS comedy from the creators of “Will 8 Grace.” The show will follow “two architects — Charlie is straight, Louis gay — whose friendship has lasted longer than either of their romantic relationships and almost seems like a weird marriage. When Charlie decides to propose to his girlfriend, Louis’ neurotic attempts to be supportive nearly result in the breakup of his own relationship.” Michael Urie (“Ugly Betty”) will star opposite. (TVLine) (Image via Shuttershock)
4. Ryan Hansen — Hansen (“Party Down,” “Veronica Mars”) is joining Fox’s comedy pilot, “El Jefe,” which is about a “lost 30-year-old who, tossed out of his Brentwood home, moves in with his longtime Latin American nanny and goes head to head with her strong-willed son and finds himself in a family and work life very different than the ones he grew up in.” More Hispanic racial humor — you can thank the success of Rob Schneider’s “Rob” for that. (Deadline)
3 & 2. Portia de Rossi and Malin Akerman — Ackerman and de Rossi will play sisters in “The Smart One,” and Jean Smart (“Designing Women”) will play their mother. Donald Todd (“Samantha Who?” “Ellen”) and Ellen DeGeneres are producing the single-camera ABC sitcom about a “brilliant and successful woman (de Rossi) who has to go to work for her less brainy but more popular sister, Candy (Akerman), a former beauty queen, weather girl and now big city Mayor.” (TVLine)
1. Kristin Kreuk — Kreuk (“Smallville,” Eurotrip) is set to play the beauty in another contemporary re-working of a classic fairy tale, “Beauty and the Beast” (which is also loosely based on the previous series of the same name, which starred Linda Hamilton in the role). This version, which was picked up by the CW, will add a procedural twist, similar to NBC’s “Grimm.” (TVLine)
