What is it with ABC Family attempting to revive the careers of 80s starlets? First, they dug Molly Ringwald out for the surprisingly deep Secret Life Of The American Teenager and now they've dusted Marty McFly's mother off for a new ludicrous one hour scripted series. The program, entitled Switched At Birth, will follow two families who decide to move in together after discovering their daughters were mistakenly swapped at the hospital.
According to Zap2It, Lea Thompson will star as one of the girls' mothers, while Constance Marie, best known for playing the wife on George Lopez, will co-headline as the other mom. No word yet on who might play the daughters. As you probably have inferred based on knowing the general framework of how television story arcs work, one of the families is poor, while the other lives in the comforts of suburbia. There's also a hearing disability that'll factor in.
I have to say, despite the groan-worthy premise, I'm all for giving these two women work. Lea Thompson had the looks and acting chops to be an A-list actress and Constance Marie actually provided a new foil to George Lopez on their halfway decent sitcom.
Lizzy Weiss of Blue Crush fame has also signed on to write and produce. Look for Switched At Birth to make it onto the ABC Family line-up next Fall.
