LA SCREENINGS - New US shows debut in Tinseltown.

When programme-buyers from around the world start arriving in Tinseltown next week for the annual Los Angeles Screenings, they can expect to come across some familiar names and faces. And not just among the Hollywood studio sales executives who use the event to start pitching series that are set to debut in the US this coming autumn.Though the US broadcast networks were still, at press time, deciding which of this year's 120-odd pilots to pick up as fully fledged series, a few projects have received early orders. The selection confirms that there's nothing the US TV industry likes more than a (supposedly) sure thing.The 2004-5 primetime season's surest thing should be CSI: New York, the successor to CSI (this season's top-rated show) and CSI: Miami in CBS's hugely successful crime drama franchise. The new series (see box for details) has already been given a full order - impressive in an industry that isn't scared to kill a show after just a few episodes - and co-producer and international distributor Alliance Atlantis is expecting an equally enthusiastic response from international buyers."We want CSI: New York in every market in the world by the end of the (screenings) week," declares Alliance Atlantis Entertainment Group distribution president Ted Riley, who promises announcements of some deals even before the LA event begins.Riley says he will first talk to broadcasters which already screen the first two CSI series (such as Five in the UK), but he adds that there is already "substantial interest in many markets from the chief rival to the brand owner".The new season's highest-profile comedy will be another spin-off from an existing hit. Even though the series has also been given a full order, potential buyers haven't yet seen a script for Joey, which is built around Matt LeBlanc's character from the just-concluded Friends (this season's top-rated comedy). However, Jeffrey Schlesinger, president of international television for Warner Bros, which makes Joey and Friends, says: "We're feeling pretty positive about (the new series), especially for places like the UK, where every broadcaster has expressed interest in it."Schlesinger says Joey will be treated for deal-making purposes as a brand-new project. "It makes sense if it ends up with the same broadcaster that has Friends (C4 in the UK)," he posits, "but it's not essential."Other offshoots of successful series on offer this year include Universal International Television's Law & Order: Trial by Jury which, if ordered from its pilot, will be the fourth series in the Dick Wolf franchise for NBC; and 20th Century Fox Television Distribution's untitled but already ordered spin-off - with James Spader starring - from producer David E Kelley's ABC legal drama The Practice.Beyond the high-profile spin-offs, the line-up of new projects (most still at pilot stage) to be touted to buyers in LA includes the usual range of old standbys, genre variations and off-the-wall hopefuls.This year's crop of cop, doc and lawyer shows offers a few twists on those familiar genres. Warner's drama for Fox features an ex-con trying to go straight as a private investigator while Buena Vista International Television pushes the boat out further with Countdown (produced for ABC by Touchstone, Fremantle Media and Vertikal Entertainment), which takes place in real time as a SWAT-type team of crime fighters handle the climax of a crisis. Buena Vista's Ricochet (for Fox) is a police procedural show which follows its story backwards in time, and its The Service is about a young woman who must balance her new marriage with her career as a secret service agent.Universal's Hollywood Division is one of a couple of shows about youthful cop squads.This year's family shows provide some new perspectives on TV friends and relations. Universal's Savages is a semi-autobiographical comedy, executive produced by Mel Gibson and Mike Scully (The Simpsons), about a single dad with five teenage sons. Twentieth Century Fox's The DeMarco Affairs, another David E Kelley project for ABC, turns around a family-run wedding-planning business. And Buena Vista's Desperate Housewives, with Terri Hatcher heading an ensemble cast for ABC, is told from the perspective of a recently deceased suburbanite.Another family-centric show, Buena Vista's drama The Days, for ABC, is the first project being made under ABC's production deal with ad agency MindShare. Tom Toumazis, BVITV's senior vice-president and managing director for Europe, says that although The Days will have to stand on its own feet as a show, its tie-in with advertisers might be extended to the international market."We'll have to wait and see how the show looks and how MindShare and ABC work together to see whether this could afford other opportunities for advertisers," Toumazis says.A handful of new projects - MGM's NBC cop show Hawaii, Twentieth Century Fox's hotel-set drama for Fox, The North Shore (working title), and Warner's Rocky Point drama for the WB - are set in Hawaii. "Hawaii is the new Vegas," says MGM's executive vice-president of international television, Simon Sutton, whose projects in 2003 included trend-setting hit Las Vegas.Animation is also well represented in the studios' pilot rosters. The Fox network, whose stalwart The Simpsons is currently in its 15th year on air, is considering three new animated projects, including American Dad from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, and NBC has given a full series order to DreamWorks' animated series Father of the Pride.One US industry trend that may not affect international buyers immediately, but might have an effect in the longer term, is the Fox network's attempt to move towards a year-round programming cycle.Traditionally, the US broadcast networks develop most of their projects in the spring, order series in May and launch them in the autumn. The Screenings is timed so that international buyers can sample new shows soon after they are ordered. But this year Fox has ordered four series - The Jury, The North Shore, Method & Red and Quints - early and will launch them in the US only weeks after the screenings wrap up. Buyers will still see the series' pilots at the screenings, but they'll get an earlier idea of how the shows will fare with audiences thanks to the early launch dates (last year, a summer launch helped Fox's The OC become an unexpected hit).Marion Edwards, executive vice-president, international for 20th Century Fox Television Distribution, says The Jury, for one, is a project with real international potential. The courtroom drama from producer Barry Levinson has, she says, "that level of intensity that's been missing from a lot of television lately". And though the backdrop of the American legal system might seem like a potential drawback, she adds: "Our hope is that the international market will perceive it as being more about the human drama of the jury room than about the process of being tried."THE PICK OF THE COMING SEASONONE-HOUR DRAMASCSI: NEW YORK (Alliance Atlantis) The third series, already given a full season order, in CBS' hugely successful crime drama franchise stars film actor Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump) as the head of the New York Crime Scene Investigation unit and Melina Kanakaredes (Providence) as one of his team members. Jerry Bruckheimer produces once again for CBS and Alliance Atlantis. The new series bbegins with a "crossover" episode, directed by Danny Cannon, featuring cast members from CSI: Miami.THE DAYS (Buena Vista International Television) ABC, which has struggled in recent seasons to develop successful dramas, has ordered six episodes of this series, the first to be made under the network's programming partnership with advertising agency MindShare North America. Each episode of the comedy drama - produced by Mike Tollin (Smallville) and Tim Robbins and Touchstone and sponsored by Unilever - follows a day in the life of a busy two-career family.EYES (Warner Bros International) Writer-producer John McNamara (Fastlane, Lois & Clark) is the creator of this drama-thriller about a high-powered "risk management corporation" - a 21st century private detective agency that uses dubious methods to try to influence big legal cases. Tim Daly (Wings) stars in the series, whose pilot is currently under consideration at ABC.HOUSE (working title) (Universal International Television) Hugh Laurie stars in this potential Fox series - dubbed CSI: Hospital by some insiders - as a grumpy doctor called upon to solve medical mysteries. The project comes from writer-producers Paul Attanasio (Homicide) and David Shore (Law & Order).THE JURY (20th Century Fox Television Distribution) Executive producer Barry Levinson's courtroom drama, created by Levinson's regular collaborators Tom Fontana and James Yoshimura (Homicide), has already received a series order and will start airing on the Fox network in June, possibly in the 21.00 Tuesday slot occupied during the regular primetime season by 24 (which returns to the schedule in the autumn). The series follows jury deliberations on a different case each week, though the officers of the court - among them a judge played by Levinson himself - will be series regulars.LOST PILOT (Buena Vista International Television) J J Abrams, creator of Alias, is writing and executive producing this ensemble show that looks at the darker side of human nature revealed when a group of adults are stranded on a desert island after a plane crash.Stories will include mystical, sci-fi and paranormal elements and the cast includes British TV regular and sometime Hobbit Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings). At press time, ABC had ordered a pilot for the Touchstone series and six scripts.THE ROBINSONS: LOST IN SPACE (20th Century Fox Television Distribution) Movie director John Woo (Face/Off) and frequent Buffy The Vampire Slayer writer Doug Petrie are part of the team behind this remake of Irwin Allen's classic 1960s sci-fi series.In the year 2097 the eponymous family are on their way to colonise a new planet when they are ambushed by aliens. The 20th Century Fox project is at pilot stage for the WB network.HALF-HOUR COMEDIESCOMMANDO NANNY (Warner Bros International Television) Reality TV kingpin Mark Burnett takes another stab at a scripted series - last year's Are We There Yet? was not picked up - with this autobiographical sitcom about a British military commando who becomes a Beverly Hills nanny. Burnett is producing the show - which is still at pilot stage - with Warner for the WB network.FATHER OF THE PRIDE (DreamWorks) Making one of its rare forays into series TV, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks has picked up a series order from NBC for this adult computer-animated comedy about a group of lions that perform for Las Vegas showmen Siegfried and Roy.JOEY (Warner Bros. International Television)NBC gave an early series order to its Friends spin-off, but star Matt LeBlanc will have to prove that he can carry his own show. He may well be helped by the prime 20.00 Thursday timeslot previously occupied by Friends. Friends creative team members Kevin Bright, Shana Goldberg-Meehan and Scott Silveri are behind the series and Drea de Matteo, (Adriana in The Sopranos) co-stars as Joey's sister.QUINTS (20th Century Fox Television Distribution) The Fox network is giving this comedy from Frasier writer and show runner Mark Reisman a summer launch, ahead of the traditional autumn start of the primetime season.The sitcom, produced by 20th Century Fox with Imagine, centres on 15-year-old quintuplets.