ABC is on a roll, picking up two new comedy pilots from writers Sam Sklavar and Suburgatory and Selfie creator Emily Kapnek. The pilots will be produced by Ellen Degeneres and Aaron Kaplan, respectively. The network has green-lighted slew of pilots and is on track to have the most pilots of the season, in keeping with the twenty-four picked up for the 2015-2016 season.
Kapnek will be working on Splitting Up Together, a single-cam comedy that follows a couple who rekindles their marriage through divorce. The series is based off of the 2016 Danish show of the same name, created by Mette Heeno, who will also serve as executive producer of the American series.
This marks the fourth pilot picked up by ABC that is based off a foreign television series. The network has picked up Raised By Wolves, a UK comedy that will adapted by Diablo Cody, Salamander, a Belgian drama, and The Good Doctor, based off the a popular Korean drama.
This also marks a return for Kapnek to the network. Her series Suburgatory, which revolved around a single father and his daughter moving from New York City to the stifling suburbs. The series ran from 2011 to 2014 on ABC. Selfie also aired on ABC but only ran for one season, with the final episodes airing on Hulu and ABC’s streaming platform.
Aaron Kaplan will be producing Charlie Foxtrot, penned by Sam Sklaver. The show will follow the misadventures of Captain Charlie Taylor, meticulous dentist who is forced into watching over his brother’s impulsive wife and two misfit teens while he is away on deployment in Iraq. Skalver is a writer on ABC’s series American Housewife and produced the Starz comedy Blunt Talk, starring Patrick Stewart as a British news anchor who moves to L.A. to dominate and change the television landscape.
Kaplan currently has the most pilots picked up for a producer this season, with three other comedies picked up by CBS and Fox.