PILOT SEASON: LOOK OUT AHEAD!

Remember the days when Canadian networks ordered a full season of a series before a single frame was shot? Those days are long gone, as we’ve seen this week, with both major private broadcasters, CTV and Canwest Global, announcing either their respective slates of drama pilots or series orders based on already-filmed pilots.

Here’s a look at the projects that have been ordered. Yes, they are all unique but most have something very important in common. Take a guess what that might be...

Canwest Global announced plans for the following pilots:

1) Shattered, a one-hour drama to be directed by Bobby Roth for Force Four Films/Blueprint, with the inimitable Callum Keith Rennie (Californication, Memento) starring as a former cop with multiple-personality disorder. It will be filmed in Vancouver.

2) Clean, will be directed by David Wellington and will star Ben Bass as an addiction counsellor. Tom McCamus and Sonja Bennett will co-star.

3) Lawyers, Guns & Money, will be directed by Ken Girotti (Mayerthorpe, Rescue Me) and has an A-list cast, including Luke Kirby (Slings and Arrows) and Emmy-winner Clark Johnson (The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street). It’s now in production in Hamilton.

4) A project called Lost Girl will directed by John Fawcett (Ginger Snaps), though no cast has yet been announced.

CTV announced the following: Plans to partner with the U.S.-based Fox TV Studios and Vancouver's Omni Film on the new series 1) Defying Gravity.

American actor Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers, Sex in the City) has signed on to play the lead in the drama that will explore the experiences of eight astronauts from five countries....sounds like a very international project.

Defying Gravity's creative team will be led by James Parriott (Grey's Anatomy) and Michael Edelstein (Desperate Housewives), both accomplished veterans of the LA scene. Omni`s Brian Hamilton and Michael Chechik will also share executive produce credits, and fellow Vancouver veteran Ron French (Battlestar Galactica) will produce.

CTV also announced this week that it has ordered 11 one-hour episodes of the series 2) The Bridge, based on, according to a CTV media release, 'the insights of veteran insiders and outspoken former Toronto police union head Craig Bromell.'

The series is produced by Barna-Alper Productions and Bromell's own 990 Multi Media Entertainment. EP Laszlo Barna, who shared producing duties on the acclaimed Da Vinci`s Inquest, teams up gain with writer Alan Di Fiore (Da Vinci's, The Life) to bring the production to TV.

Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica) stars as union head Frank Leo, supported by actors Paul Popowich, Inga Cadranel and Frank Cassini.

Are you seeing a trend yet?

Total Series Announced: Six
Series with Top-Billed Male Stars: Six
Series with Top-Billed Female Stars: Zero
Series with Identified Male Directors: Four
Series with Identified Female Directors: Zero
Series with Identified Male Creative/Production Leaders: Five (Lost Girl is unclear)
Series with Identified Female Creative/Production Leaders: Zero

Much attention is paid to the fact that most Canadian programming and development decisions are made by female development executives, like Susanne Boyce (CTV), Christine Shipton (Canwest Global) and Kirstine Layfield (CBC). Though CBC didn't announce this week, it will debut two series in January, both with female leads.

So, it’s worth looking looking at whether or not their gender in any way influences creative selection. Of course, each of those execs answers to a senior executive, and at every network that exec happens to be male.

Can any conclusions be drawn from what’s been ordered so far this season? That's for you to decide, but it's worth keeping the above in mind.

My take is that we have ahead of us a season that can best described as PILOTS WITH BALLS!! (see photo, Look No Hands!!) Manly men doing manly things!! And in some cases those central characters are supported by female characters/antagonists described in media releases as feisty tomboys.

Sigh, how is that a grown-up female character, a cop no less, is described in a news releases as a tomboy? If we can put Ron Livingston on the moon, or at least have him play an astronaut on the way to it, can't we offer female figures a little more dignity than that?

Cops, union bosses, thugs, lawyers. Thank God for the space cowboys. Lots of women in aviation, so there's hope for realism there, at least with casting.

A female TV development exec (who is not one of the women mentioned above) once told me that male writers and producers were more effective at pitching/selling their ideas and projects, and were therefore more likely to get funding to get them off the ground.

Maybe. But what producer, especially a novice, wouldn't be nervous pitching while knowing that, statistically, if she's a woman, she's less likely to be successful than a male colleague? Makes me wonder what successful women like Christina Jennings (Shaftesbury) & Adrienne Mitchell and Janis Lundman (Back Alley) have overcome, especially early in their careers.

All-in-all, I'm kinda glad I'm not an actor or director in this country. Seeing as how I can't grow a beard, odds are I'd be an actor-director-waitress.