Eric Christian Olsen has been a fixture on CBS for more than a decade as a star of NCIS: Los Angeles, but playing Marty Deeks isn’t all that’s keeping him busy with the network. Just under two years after news broke that he was bringing two new shows to CBS via his Cloud Nine production company, he now has four more in the works, and TV veterans with credits like Lost and The Daily Show to their names are involved.
Cloud Nine Productions has sold four projects to Eric Christian Olsen’s longtime network, and Deadline reports that two comedies and two dramas are in development. On the more serious side of television, Peculiar is a crime drama hailing from Lost co-creator Jeffrey Lieber and America 2.0 writer/director/producer JS Mayank as executive producers.
A crime drama seems like a project that would be right up Olsen’s alley, as he’s currently on his thirteenth season as a series regular on NCIS: LA, and Jeffrey Lieber has a stellar credit to his name with Lost. Peculiar would feature a Seattle detective joining forces with a brilliant psychopath to investigate crimes after his former partner goes missing. That hasn't exactly happened in the NCIS franchise, so it sounds like Peculiar would stand out from other crime dramas if it receives a series order!
The other drama in the works is legal rather than crime, although it has yet to receive a title. Few details are available about the project, but a legal drama could fill a vacancy for CBS in the wake of Michael Weatherly’s Bull coming to an end after six seasons. Plus, NBC has the Law & Order franchise that has been going strong for decades, so perhaps there’s a market for a new legal drama on CBS.
With shows like Young Sheldon and Ghosts, CBS already has a strong track record with comedies, and the two other new projects now in development could make the network even more of a destination for laughs than it is currently. The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal is behind a Latinx comedy called Family Insurance about a man who has to go back to work for his family business. Madrigal would star, write, and executive produce the project if ordered to series.
The other potential sitcom bought by CBS Studios is called Mixed Signals and would be a romantic comedy based on the life of writer Liv Thompson and her relationship with her deaf partner. Thompson is set to write and executive produce if Mixed Signals moves forward and joins the CBS lineup.
It’s too early to say if any of these shows will get a series order and make it to CBS, but Eric Christian Olsen’s Cloud Nine production company may have found some recipes for success. Previously, the company produced and developed Woke for Hulu, where it ran for two seasons with New Girl alum Lamorne Morris as leading man.
Only time will tell the future for these four new projects, but you can find Eric Christian Olsen in the NCIS: LA Season 14 fall finale on Sunday, November 27 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. While that will be the last episode of the long-running drama for 2022, the network has already revealed that it will return in the 2023 TV premiere schedule in early January with a special event.
For the first time ever, NCIS: LA will cross over with both NCIS and NCIS: Hawai’i for a three-hour event on Monday, January 2 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. The three-show crossover comes just months after the parent series and Hawai’i spinoff crossed over for the first time, and fans of the franchise have a lot to look forward to in the new year.
