Announced by Deadline, television producer Devon Shepard (Everybody Hates Chris, All About the Andersons) and writer Lina Patel (Firefly, 24) are working together on a new series to be released on BET+. The project so far remains untitled, but both Shepard and Patel would serve as executive producers for this show based on the Mental Evaluation Unit of the LAPD.
Shepard has been on notable projects including serving as a producer and writer for shows and movies including Weeds, Everybody Hates Chris, MADtv, and Damon. His other projects include him being an executive producer for the BET show Bigger, co-executive producer of The Neighborhood, the showrunner for Comedy Central’s Legends of Chamberlain Heights, and Being Mary Jane. Lina Patel has been involved in writing for projects like Krypton, Cherish the Day, Frequency, and The 100. She also acted in 24 and a small role in The Day After Tomorrow.
This new show they will be collaborating on has this logline from Deadline: “After the officer-involved shooting of a mentally ill man, two women – a skeptical police officer and an idealistic clinician – are forced to work together at the razor’s edge where law enforcement meets mental health and the stakes at home and on the job are life and death.”
Many shows have had topics loosely touching this subject such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Chicago P.D. but what’s different here are the specifics and the point of views that would clash. A brief look inside the LAPD shows how this is evident. The LAPD’s Mental Evaluation Unit was created in 1993 under the mental illness project and according to their site serves to, “assist patrol officers with mental health-related calls.”
Listed on their site, the LAPD’s MEU uses a multilayered approach that includes triage by trained dispatchers, a 24-hour triage line, co-response teams, follow-up case managers, and focused community engagement; embedded mental health officials in police agency, comprehensive data collection and information-sharing procedures; a training strategy that includes 40-hour Mental Health Intervention Training and a Mental Health Crisis Response Program Advisory Board for engaging community partners.
With this as a backbone, a promising foundation for the show has begun to take shape in its development. This serves as an interesting study since the show’s main characters are a therapist and an LAPD MEU officer. The show would further be produced by Shepard, Patel and Nacelle Company in collaboration with Paramount Global. More details will come out as production draws closer.