The Talk’s Sara Gilbert has signed on for a TV pilot. Despite being very busy with her daytime talk hosting duties, she’s set to join Bad Teacher at CBS. In the pilot, Gilbert will play a teacher named Irene. Usually Irene is calm and fairly easygoing, but when you push her buttons, she will occasionally snap.
Gilbert is not the first TV host that has ever pulled double duties. Ryan Seacrest, for instance, pops up on numerous networks between American Idol and E! duties, as well as hosts a radio show. While he’s got more ambition than most, Live! host Kelly Ripa once pulled very similar double duties, doing daytime and then filming for the comedy Hope & Faith. According to Deadline, if Bad Teacher makes it to series, Gilbert will be able to coordinate her schedule to do both projects since both projects will be at the same network.
Gilbert has acted for a very long time and has popped up in plenty of comedic roles, including Roseanne and more recently, The Big Bang Theory. She seems to be a good fit for the Bad Teacher pilot, which will center on a former wife who becomes a teacher after learning there are “rich single dads” at a nearby school. Since it’s based on the 2011 comedy of the same name, it’s likely Bad Teacher would have a bit of a built-in audience at CBS, and with talents like Ari Graynor, Ryan Hansen, and now Gilbert signed on, I have trouble seeing how this pilot could be bad. We’ll let you know whether or not CBS agrees and moves this one forward to series.
