Hot pilot news: One of Gothamist's favorite TV producers, the brilliant Tom Fontana, will be headed to the WB with a drama series set in a "small liberal arts college in NYC" that will center around a human behavior class. Fontana said, "The show specifically centers on a human behavior seminar where (the students) openly talk about their sexual lives or the lack of sexual lives and come to understand themselves and the world they live in better." It'll film in NYC (we guess the pilot will probably get a Made in New York logo), and Gothamist found this tidbit in the Variety story (unfortunately, subscription necessary) a hoot:
Because Fontana and [co-producer Julie] Martin are setting their pilot at a New York City college campus, project will no doubt invite comparisons to "Felicity," a signature WB skein from the net's early days. Fontana, while respectful of his predecessor, said that simply because the new pilot is set in post-9/11 New York, the show will probably have "more edge to it" than the J.J. Abrams skein.
What's more, "In the same way we tried very hard in 'Homicide' not to shoot a gun, I'm determined to avoid as many scenes in a dorm room as I can," he said. "That's been done to death, and not just by 'Felicity.' "
Hilarious. No offense to J.J. Abrams or Felicity (we luv Felicity, even after she cut her hair, even when she straightened it, even with that dream sequence-spell thing in the last episodes), but Fontana has more edge in his pinky than Abrams, even in spite of The Jury.
Columbia University, which actually has a tiny liberal arts college inside the big university, has health Q&A service, Go Ask Alice, where many people ask human sexual behavior questions. And wonder how Tom Fontana will tackle college life, by watching DVDs of Felicity and Fontana's own Homicide and Oz.
