From football to family life and now flirting, celebrated creator Jason Katims is taking another stab at a new TV show. Showtime today ordered a pilot from the man behind Friday Night Lights and Parenthood from a comedy project called Mating, The Wrap reports.
Mating is unusual in its premise; unlike Katims’s previous shows, which only incorporated aspects of love into the overall plot, Mating focuses solely on the intricacies of dating itself. It brings to question whether this lost act of romance is maybe the television jewel of the day, as a primary scope on love and dating is the main focus of Aziz Ansari’s Master Of None as well, now working on its second season.
The show, however, will devote each season to a specific set of characters and then throw them to the wind, starting fresh for the following season (if it’s lucky enough to be renewed for one). Like in the style of American Horror Story, each season of Mating will also completely change the setting–moving around the map, altering up city versus surburbs, and so on–to display how dating can be so different, making every season new. The only thing that will last across seasons, according to plan, is the theme: love.
The first season, according to The Wrap, is set to revolve around the dragged life of a man, still unnamed, who is currently reeling from the trials and tribulations of divorce. The commencing plot will focus on how this guy will attempt to keep dating with the shattered glass of his former marriage cutting his feet with each step towards love and happiness.
While Jason Katims now has proof through an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for his work on Parenthood, he will only play the executive producer role for Mating‘s pilot. Instead, Katims brought on The Americans‘s writer Stu Zicherman to craft the show’s premiere episode.
Katims has also drawn in Michelle Lee, best known for her work on NBC’s About a Boy, to help pioneer this new project as executive producer.
The show may be Showtime’s attempt to try and step back into the spotlight, as it has lately been completely overshadowed by its competitor HBO at awards ceremonies like the Emmys.
If Mating makes it past its first episode, it will join the Hulu Original The Path, CBS’s Bunker Hill, and HBO’s Us on the list of Jason Katims’s current list of ongoing projects.