Ryan Murphy Sells Another Project... This Time to NBC

Ryan Murphy has sold yet another project to a network this week, landing himself a pilot script deal at NBC for a single-camera half-hour comedy based on Brian Frazer's memoir "Hyper-chondriac: One Man's Quest to Hurry Up and Calm Down," following a bidding war for the project between ABC and NBC.

Frazer's memoir is about his own odyssey to eliminate the stress that was causing his various medical ailments.

Jason Dean Hall (Grand Theft Auto) will adapt the book for television, with the plot revolving around a pharmaceutical salesman who sells his supplies at hospitals and believes he is suffering from various illnesses... the symptoms of which end up being real, rather than imagined, but are caused by other factors.

Murphy is attached to direct and executive produce the pilot for Hyper-condriac, which is expected to shoot next year.

The news comes swiftly on the heels of Murphy's sale of his drama pilot script Glee, which FOX picked up in July and has hopes to put on the air sometime in March.

Glee is about a high school Spanish teacher who becomes the adviser to the school's glee club, made up of a motley crew of eccentrics whom he hopes to mold into a formidable musical force.

I read the script for Glee about two weeks ago and have to say that I was less than impressed. I get that FOX wants to put this on the air at the same time that American Idol is on, hoping that the halo effect will continue over to this dull drama.

Murphy mined teenagedom to far better effect in his shortlived WB series Popular and here the characters are so stock that they seem made of cardboard. I also just don't see where this series is going and the plot seems better suited for a film than an ongoing series, especially given that some of the obstacles facing the glee club are already erased by the end of the pilot script. How very disappointing.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Celebrity Family Feud (NBC); Beauty & the Geek (CW); Wipeout (ABC); Kitchen Nightmares (FOX)

9 pm: Big Brother 10 (CBS); America's Got Talent (NBC; 9-11 pm); Reaper (CW); I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC; 9-11 pm); House (FOX)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS)

What I'll Be Watching

8-10 pm: Britcoms on BBC America.

I don't know about you but by Tuesday night, I'm usually in need of some comedy in my life. Why not stick around on Tuesday nights for BBC America's new comedy lineup, consisting of classic episodes of Coupling, new comedy Not Going Out, and Absolutely Fabulous?

8 pm: Kitchen Nightmares.

'Cause I miss the softer side of Gordon Ramsay.

10 pm: Flipping Out on Bravo.

On the second season finale of Flipping Out ("Back in the Market"), Jeff refuses to be a "doormat" anymore and comes down hard on his crew whilst finding himself looking for a new place to live, with a deal on Commonwealth looking likely to close.

"Pretty/Handsome" is Pretty Dead

Those of you suffering through Nip/Tuck withdrawal might have pinned your hopes on creator Ryan Murphy's drama pilot Pretty/Handsome (formerly known as 4 oz.).

The FX drama pilot project, which starred Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner, Robert Wagner, Christopher Egan, and Carrie-Ann Moss, revolved around Bob Fitzpayne (Fiennes), a married gynecologist who slowly comes to terms with the fact that he wants to have a sex-change operation. Moss played his long-suffering suburban Connecticut wife while Danner and Wagner played Bunny and Scotch, his country club set parents.

As for Egan--who was cast in the upcoming NBC drama Kings while FX passed on Pretty/Handsome--he played Beckett Bromley, a mature teen with the hots for Moss' character who happened to be the best friend of Moss and Fiennes' son (Jonathan Groff)... who had his hands full with his girlfriend's secret pregnancy, which she was going to major lengths to conceal from her deaf ex-military father. Um, right.

Studio 20th Century Fox Television attempted to shop the project, produced by Murphy, Brad Pitt, and Dede Gardner, elsewhere when FX passed on a series order but, alas, Pretty/Handsome is no more as the studio was unable to find another home for the series.

Personally, I had high hopes for the project when I first heard about it last year but after seeing the completed pilot--which, despite the presence of a first-rate cast, sagged under the weight of heavy-handed dialogue and the constant telegraphing of Bob's emotional state--I was entirely of the same viewpoint as FX on the subject.

I also had a hard time envisioning quite where Pretty/Handsome would go over the course of its series, especially as the pilot episode begins with Bob furtively literally wearing women's underwear and ends with him already dressed up as a woman, complete with a transformation scene in which Fiennes sensually shaves his body and applies makeup like an old pro. With a payoff like that in the very first installment, where do you have left to go after that?

FX has always taken a path of creating intellectually stimulating, quirky, and controversial series and while Pretty/Handsome may have had some of the latter, it wasn't enough to sustain a series and didn't take a familiar trope--like the medical or legal drama, the family drama, or, hell, the buddy comedy--and turn them on their heads, like previous series offerings Damages, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, The Riches, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia have done.

No, FX made the right decision to order its other drama pilot this development season, Sons of Anarchy (previously known as Forever Sam Crow) to series.

A gripping Shakespearean drama, Sons of Anarchy deftly blends together family drama and the underpinnings of 1940's biker noir and features Charlie Hunnam (Undeclared), Katey Sagal (Lost), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Drea DeMateo (The Sopranos), Maggie Siff (Mad Men), and cast of dozens in a riveting story of rivalry, revenge, and regrets, set against the backdrop of the nation's most notorious biker gang.

Sons of Anarchy premieres in September on FX and I'm anxious to see the completed pilot, given how much I enjoyed reading an early draft of the pilot script prior to the start of production during the writers strike last year. Fingers crossed that it lives up to expectations.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Celebrity Family Feud (NBC); Beauty & the Geek (CW); Wipeout (ABC); Moment of Truth (FOX)

9 pm: 48 Hours Mystery (CBS); America's Got Talent (NBC); Reaper (CW); I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC); Hell's Kitchen (FOX)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Primetime: The Outsiders (ABC)

What I'll Be TiVo'ing

8-10 pm: Britcoms on BBC America.

I don't know about you but by Tuesday night, I'm usually in need of some comedy in my life. Why not stick around on Tuesday nights for BBC America's new comedy lineup, consisting of classic episodes of Coupling, new comedy Not Going Out, and Absolutely Fabulous? You'll thank me in the morning.

10 pm: Flipping Out on Bravo.

Season Two continues tonight with a brand-new episode ("Closer Inspection"), Jeff's suspicions of his employees intensify and he sets up a hidden camera, hoping to catch one of them performing some indiscretion... or failing to perform their work duties.

Casting Couch: FX Snags Three for Ryan Murphy's New Series

Ryan Murphy's latest FX drama--about a man who discovers that he's a transsexual--has locked three A-list actors as its leads.

The untitled project (formerly known as 4 oz.) from executive producers Ryan Murphy, Brad Pitt, and Dede Gardner and co-writer Brad Falchuk, has cast Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner, and Robert Wagner. The cabler has ordered a pilot and three additional scripts for the drama.

Joseph Fiennes ("Running with Scissors") will play a married man with two children who decides to begin the arduous process of transforming himself into a woman. Blythe Danner ("Huff") will play Bob's mother Bunny, while Robert Wagner ("Hustle") will play Bob's father Scotch, a doctor who shares a gynecology practice with Bob.

Production on the pilot, from studio 20th Century Fox Television, will start at the end of October.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Survivor: China (CBS); My Name is Earl (NBC); Smallville (CW); Ugly Betty (ABC); Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (FOX)

9 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); The Office (NBC); Reaper (CW); Grey's Anatomy (ABC); Don't Forget the Lyrics (FOX)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); ER (NBC); Big Shots (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Ugly Betty.

It's the second season premiere ("How Betty Got Her Grieve Back") as Betty attempts to put Henry out of her thoughts, Amanda distracts herself with junk food after discovering that Fay Sommers was really her mother, and Wilhelmina plots to use the recent events involving the Meades to her advantage.

9 pm: The Office.

Season Four of The Office begins tonight with a one-hour episode ("Fun Run"), in which Michael believes the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton offices are cursed after a freak accident in the parking lot and hosts a charity 5K run to draw attention to a, er, lesser publicized illness. Will the writers have listened to my Office Season Four wish list and downplayed Jim and Pam? Find out tonight.

10-11 pm: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX.

FX's hilariously subversive comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia continues tonight with two back-to-back episodes. On the first ("The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation"), the gang decides to declare war on a Korean restaurant owner who threatens to remove Paddy's from its spot on the annual pub crawl. On the second ("The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty McGoo"), Dee is horrified to learn that a loser from her highs school class is now a successful fashion designer.

10 pm: Tim Gunn's Guide to Style on Bravo.

See the style maven make it work on his own fashion series, where he and supermodel Veronica Webb take on one hapless fashion victim and make them over into a sartorial superstar. On tonight's episode, Tim and Veronica take on the challenge of remolding a a pediatrician.

Ryan Murphy and Brad Pitt to Wrangle "4 oz." for FX

Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy and producer Brad Pitt have sold a new drama, 4 oz., to cabler FX that will chart the ongoing metamorphosis of a married sportswriter and father of teenage sons who decides that he wants to live his life as a woman.

According to Murphy, the series will have a natural five-season arc for the series that will also focus on the married transsexual's teenage sons. Says Murphy: "The first season deals with the revelation of his secret. In the second season, he begins dressing like a woman. The third covers the surgery, and his inherent doubts about going through with it, and by the fourth season, he's living as a woman and attempting to find love."

And in case you couldn't figure out that wacky title, the measurement refers to the average weight of a penis, according to Murphy. Hmmm, given the surgical subject matter, think there's any possibility for a crossover with the gang at McNamara/Troy?