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The project's genesis deserves a special prize for bringing together a motley crew of boldface names. Brett Ratner, the garrulous director best known for the "Rush Hour" action films, developed the series alongside (sound the gong, please) Joe Simpson, the onetime Baptist minister turned manager to his pop-singing daughters, Jessica and Ashlee.
This unlikely assemblage of testosterone -- Ratner, Simpson, Patterson -- then went out to pitch their show about how a plucky group of women does an end run around the old boys' club.
How much involvement each of the old boys will have in "WMC" going forward is still unclear. Ratner pulled out of directing the pilot, reportedly due to his commitments on "Rush Hour 3." Patterson -- who according to his Wikipedia biography has written or co-authored more than 50 books -- was immersed in developing the series initially. But he's lately pulled back to serve mainly as a sounding board for the writing staff, the producers say.
Meanwhile, Patterson seems to have found a TV producing partner he likes. "We are continuing to work with Joe and have another series idea which we will take out sometime in the next few months," the author wrote in an e-mail.
20th Century Fox brought in Fain and longtime writing partner Liz Craft, as well as executive producer R. Scott Gemmill, late of "ER."
The journey since then has not been without bumps. The producers extensively retooled the pilot over the summer, after it was determined that not enough time was spent developing the lead characters.
"Once we saw the pilot . . . we said, OK, we need to make sure we have the time to let these characters bust out," Craft said.
"WMC's" 9 p.m. Friday time slot is not considered the sexiest of prime-time berths. But that could work to the show's advantage.
There's not much competition. Rivals include NBC's widely praised but little-watched "Friday Night Lights."
"The smartest thing they did was put it on Friday nights," John Rash, senior vice president at ad firm Campbell Mithun, said of "WMC." "It's the land of low TV expectations."
And that's precisely what ABC is praying for, of course: That the show will defy those low expectations and emerge as a surprise hit. Bader said that if the show proves successful, the network has every intention of moving it to a more heavily trafficked spot.
One possibility: 10 p.m. Thursdays, where "Big Shots," the soap about rich guys behaving badly, is fizzling after "Grey's Anatomy."
You can bet your next bikini wax, in fact, that if "WMC" has any model in its bid for prime-time hitdom, it's that other crime show that started on Fridays seven years ago this month.
That show, of course, was "CSI."
The Channel Island column runs every Monday in Calendar. Contact Scott Collins at scott.collins@latimes.com.
This unlikely assemblage of testosterone -- Ratner, Simpson, Patterson -- then went out to pitch their show about how a plucky group of women does an end run around the old boys' club.
How much involvement each of the old boys will have in "WMC" going forward is still unclear. Ratner pulled out of directing the pilot, reportedly due to his commitments on "Rush Hour 3." Patterson -- who according to his Wikipedia biography has written or co-authored more than 50 books -- was immersed in developing the series initially. But he's lately pulled back to serve mainly as a sounding board for the writing staff, the producers say.
Meanwhile, Patterson seems to have found a TV producing partner he likes. "We are continuing to work with Joe and have another series idea which we will take out sometime in the next few months," the author wrote in an e-mail.
20th Century Fox brought in Fain and longtime writing partner Liz Craft, as well as executive producer R. Scott Gemmill, late of "ER."
The journey since then has not been without bumps. The producers extensively retooled the pilot over the summer, after it was determined that not enough time was spent developing the lead characters.
"Once we saw the pilot . . . we said, OK, we need to make sure we have the time to let these characters bust out," Craft said.
"WMC's" 9 p.m. Friday time slot is not considered the sexiest of prime-time berths. But that could work to the show's advantage.
There's not much competition. Rivals include NBC's widely praised but little-watched "Friday Night Lights."
"The smartest thing they did was put it on Friday nights," John Rash, senior vice president at ad firm Campbell Mithun, said of "WMC." "It's the land of low TV expectations."
And that's precisely what ABC is praying for, of course: That the show will defy those low expectations and emerge as a surprise hit. Bader said that if the show proves successful, the network has every intention of moving it to a more heavily trafficked spot.
One possibility: 10 p.m. Thursdays, where "Big Shots," the soap about rich guys behaving badly, is fizzling after "Grey's Anatomy."
You can bet your next bikini wax, in fact, that if "WMC" has any model in its bid for prime-time hitdom, it's that other crime show that started on Fridays seven years ago this month.
That show, of course, was "CSI."
The Channel Island column runs every Monday in Calendar. Contact Scott Collins at scott.collins@latimes.com.
