ABC Adds Five New Series

BURBANK, August 27: Three
dramas—Castle, Cupid and The Unusuals—and two comedies, Better Off Ted and Single with Parents, will join ABC’s lineup of new series for
2008/2009.

Castles is a comedic crime procedural about a mystery
novelist, Nick Castle, who is bored with his own success. When a real-life
copycat murderer begins staging scenes from his novels, Castle teams up with an
NYPD detective to step up and solve the crime. The series is produced by ABC
Studios, with Andrew Marlowe as the executive producer/writer, along with
executive producers Laurie Zaks, Armyan Bernstein and Rob Bowman.

The romantic dramedy Cupid
centers on a man, Trevor, who may
or may not be the Roman god of love sent to bring couples together. Trevor is
in the care of a psychologist who is also a self-help author and is dedicated
to helping lonely hearts find their sole mates. Rob Thomas serves as executive
producer/writer, along with executive producers Jennifer Gwartz, Danielle
Stokdyk, Dan Etheridge and Bharat Nalluri. The show is produced by ABC Studios.

Set in a New York
precinct, The Unusuals follows
a cop with a twisted sense of humor who discovers that her colleagues each have
their own dirty secrets. Produced by Sony Pictures Television, the series is
executive produced and written by Noah Hawley.

The satirical office
comedy Better Off Ted stars Jay
Harrington as a successful by morally conscious man who runs a research and
development department at a questionable corporation. He loves his job, his
boss and his colleagues, but is starting to take a closer look at the company’s
extremely questionable practices. Better Off Ted is produced by 20th Century Fox Television, with
Victor Fresco as the executive producer/writer.

Single with Parents follows Lou, played by Alyssa Milano, a woman in
her mid-30s who is determined to have her own life while dealing with her crazy
blended family. The show is produced by FTP Productions in association with ABC
Studios, and is executive-produced and written by Kristin Newman. Justin
Falvey, Darryl Frank and Matthew Carlson are also executive producers.

These join the other new
series that were previously announced to air on ABC: Life on Mars, The Goode Family, Opportunity Knocks, Untitled Ashton Kutcher/Tyra Banks Project and Scrubs, which heads to the network from NBC.

“It was worth taking the
time to go through the pilot process to really do it right,” said Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment. “We’re
excited about these series and feel they’re perfect additions to our dominant
core slate of shows. These are the initial pickups, but there are a number of
other pilots we feel will also get the go ahead in some form moving forward.”

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski