NBC has The Wizard of Oz on the brain. The channel has already signed on for a live production of The Wiz and now it seems that the formerly defunct Emerald City project has been picked up a second time with a straight-to-series order. The move comes a year after NBC and the producers could not agree on where to take the series in 2014. Here’s what the new version of Emerald City will look like.
Emerald City will follow Dorothy Gale, a 20-year-old with a K-9 police dog. She and the pup will get sucked into a tornado, similar to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and will be taken to Oz, a magical place with wicked witches and much, much more. While there, she will be the key to the kingdom. As originally conceived, Emerald City looks to be a modern version of the tale. David Schulner will write, executive produce and be the showrunner on NBC’s 10-episode series.
Normally, a straight-to-series order is great news, but we’ve already gone down this rabbit hole …err yellow brick road… once before. A year ago, the network picked up Emerald City to series at the same time it picked up The Slap. Last spring, Josh Friedman was set as the showrunner, and he and Matt Arnold were writing the script for the series. The original project didn’t turn out as expected and NBC dropped the series, which doesn’t exactly make me super excited about the new Emerald City. Now, a brand new team is on board.
That’s not to say Emerald City won’t be fixable with a different team in place. Obviously, NBC saw potential in the pitch and premise when the network decided to pick up the show straight- to-series originally, and assumedly, the network feels Emerald City will be much improved this time around. I’m a little more skeptical about the revival, but it certainly feels like a fresher project than this season’s Allegiance or State of Affairs.
THR reports Emerald City is the fourth series NBC has picked up straight-to-series for the 2015-2016 TV season. The other shows include the revival of Coach starring Craig T. Nelson and Eva Longoria’s Telenovela series. Jennifer Lopez’s Shades of Blue has also been picked up. So, we should be seeing them all on the schedule next TV season; then again, NBC has already proven it doesn’t have the best track record with that.
