Road to the 2021-2022 U.S. TV Season

A quick glance at the pilots that have already been commissioned for the 2021-2022 season is enough to show that the Development departments at both the networks and production companies still haven’t returned to their usual pre-2020 workloads. As it stands right now, the networks have only commissioned 16 new pilots, but they have rolled over 21 pilots commissioned last year, and many new projects have just received script commitments.

At the virtual Upfronts, which will start on May 17 in New York City (see calendar below), international TV buyers will learn exactly which pilots have been picked up by the networks and which companies are going to distribute them.

After the Upfronts, the U.S. studios will stage their own virtual presentations, the dates of which are not yet known at this preliminary stage.

In terms of pilots, ABC tops the list with nine new ones, followed by The CW with seven. NBC leads the number of rolled-over pilots with seven. The complete list of new pilots will be published in VideoAge‘s April edition.

The new pilots so far are:

ABC Comedy: Bucktown, Harrity Elementary, Maggie, The Wonder Years, Untitled Alec Baldwin (straight-to-series), Untitled Regina Hicks.

ABC Drama: Act of Crime, Epic, Queens.

CBS Drama: True Lies.

The CW: The 4400 (straight-to-series), Naomi, The Powerpuff Girls, Untitled Urman, All American: Homecoming, Painkiller.

In terms of holdovers from last year, there are three for ABC, six for CBS, five for FOX, and seven for NBC. One holdover, Work Life, has already been passed on by ABC, meaning that it could still be picked up by another net.

The complete holdover list can be found at this link: