WB Picks First Pilot

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Warner Bros.' Jack & Bobby (but not that Jack & Bobby) is the first pilot to be picked up for the fall season.

The WB gave a 13-episode order to the show, which is from Everwood creator Greg Berlanti, who also will executive produce along with Everwood's Mickey Liddell and Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing, another show about a Kennedy-like President who isn't, but played by an actor who actually played a TV Kennedy).

Network executives all over Hollywood are even now hunkered down in screening rooms picking through pilots.

Jack & Bobby follows the high-school lives of two brothers, one of whom is destined to be president of the United States. Matt Long and Logan Lerman star as the brothers, who sound like they should be Kennedys but the network says aren't. Christine Lahti stars as the boys' single mom.

The show is from Warner Bros. Television, Berlanti/Liddell Productions and Shoe Money Productions.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.