The ABC pilot Counter Culture, which had assembled an impressive cast including Doris Roberts and Delta Burke, has been taken off the list for this pilot season. The comedy was forced to shut down production after Burke was injured on the set – apparently she wasn’t able to recover in time to get the show on the road.
Deadline says that Burke was injured in a fall on the set that happened only two days before the pilot was set to start filming in front of an audience. Since she wasn’t better in time to shoot the pilot on schedule, the project will be shelved instead. All is not lost for the project, as the actors have been kept on their contracts for now, hoping to get the pilot going again after the upfronts. But it’s not looking good at the moment.
Counter Culture was set to star Burke as one of three sisters, all with very different personalities, running a West Texas diner together. The other two sisters were to be played by Margo Martindale and Kerrie Kenney of Reno 911. Doris Roberts had joined the pilot to play an aunt to the three sisters. The strong casting was looking good for this one, in spite of an unfortunate play-on-words title and a thin plot that sounded a little formulaic. For the meantime, the project still has a slim hope, but it’s probably pretty safe to say that these ladies will be on the hunt for new gigs pretty soon. In the meantime, insurance companies are handling a claim on Burke’s behalf for the fall – no word on how serious it is.
