Late last summer, Showtime announced that it would be releasing three new pilots, made possible by canceling specials and generally shuffling things around. Among the three listed was
Ray Donovan, the details of which remain shrouded in relative mystery. It's supposed to be about an Irish "fixer" (a life consultant of some kind?) in L.A. whose own personal ife is breaking apart. So basically, a drama. But hey,
Ann Biderman, whose previous writing credits include
Southland and
Public Enemies, will be assuming the role of showrunner. I guess we can assume there will be digitally enhanced grit of some kind. Today,
THR reported that actor
Liev Schreiber will be joining the cast in the pilot. Seeing as the only real modifier we have to go on is "Irish" I suppose he will be taking the lead role. Schreiber, whose work ranges from bloodthirsty mutant to
effeminate hippie, has the capacity to take on both good and bad roles, but he always does fairly well in them. Should the pilot actually be picked up, this would be SchreIber's first foray into television, and potentially in a lead role. That might be interesting. That is, if it weren't for TV networks insistence on announcing everything ass backwards. How about you tell us a little bit about the show other then it will be a "drama" that is slightly "comedic." For all I know, the show focuses on rising class tensions or heavily features vampires (or worse, Robert Pattinson). Showime's original programming has certainly improved with
Shameless under their belt and
Dextervastly improving, but I don't quite have implicit faith just yet. But I digress. The announcement is at least newsworthy so here it is. Shooting for
Ray Donovan will begin early next year, and hopefully we'll have a bit more to go on then.