While there are a number of pilot and series orders worthy of keeping one's eye on during this busy pilot season -- The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Canyons, and The Bionic Woman being the first three to come to mind -- every now and then there's a certain project that comes along that you can't help but root for, especially when it comes from the fertile mind of one of your favorite television creators.

Especially when said creator has let you down a wee bit by leaving the series that made them a mythic name around the Televisionary household after sort of sinking the show a bit.

If you couldn't guess who I was talking about just from that sentence above (or if you don't bother reading the title, I suppose), here goes. Fox has ordered a multi-camera pilot from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino with the working title of The Return of Jezebel James.

First of all, I'm extremely curious to see how Sherman-Palladino will handle a traditional half-hour multi-camera sitcom, albeit it one with a modern twist. The story revolves around two estranged sisters, with a vast age difference, who come together after one agrees to carry the other's baby. Because of the difference in their ages, these two barely know one another and are, obviously, forced into a relationship.

"They never forged any relationship at home, and now they're forced into a situation where they're not only negotiating over the carrying of the baby but also over who they are," Sherman-Palladino told The Hollywood Reporter. "The catalyst of the relationship is them finding out who they are to each other."

Sherman-Palladino will write, direct, and executive produce the comedy, which harkens back to her early multi-cam sitcom days as a writer on Roseanne.

The news of the pilot order comes just a few days after Sherman-Palladino's appearance last week at the Hollywood Radio & Television Society's Hitmakers luncheon at the Regent Beverly Wilshire (where, yes, she was wearing one of her trademark hats, referred to by MC Jimmy Kimmel as a "magician's top hat"). At a panel discussion with fellow series creators Greg Daniels (The Office), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Anthony Zuiker (CSI), Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica), and Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Sherman-Palladino blasted the industry's insistence that the comedy genre was dead.

"I don't begrudge the existence of reality shows," said Sherman-Palladino. "I think it's a shame that their existence has become a crutch and an excuse for not creating great shows."

Sherman-Palladino went on to say that the Big Four Networks should be doing more comedy. "They have the biggest audience and the biggest budgets," she continued. "Comedy used to make money, but everybody turned their back on it because it's just too easy not to trust good writers."

Sherman-Palladino's decision to reinvigorate the traditional sitcom definitely intrigues me, especially as the only multi-cam comedy I can watch nowadays is CBS' Old Christine. (Meanwhile, my TiVo is constantly overflowing with single-cams like The Office, Everybody Hates Chris, 30 Rock, Scrubs, and My Name is Earl. Hell, I still can't bring myself to delete episodes of Arrested Development off of it.)

I do think it's somewhat frightening that a quick glance at the networks reveals less comedy now than, say, five or ten years ago. Even comedy stalwarts like The King of Queens and According to Jim are feeling the burn; both were renewed by their respective networks, albeit with reduced episodic orders. Filling that void is typically cheap-to-produce reality programming, which Sherman-Palladino bemoaned at the panel as being forgotten five minutes later. Say what you want about NBC (I usually do), but they at least seem committed to the idea of the single-cam comedy, anyway, with their reinvigorated Thursday night lineup.

Still, Sherman-Palladino believes she can stem the tide of both networks and viewers switching off comedies. "I'm sorry it's become the wasteland and people are turning their backs on it," Sherman-Palladino told The Hollywood Reporter. "It doesn't have to be this way."

Let's just hope that with The Return of Jezebel James, Sherman-Palladino proves to be as tenacious (and obstinate) as her TV creations Lorelai and Rory. Especially on a network as trigger-happy as Fox.

* * *

Jace is an LA-based television development and acquisitions junior exec who watches way too much television for his own good and would love a TiVo for every room in the house. (He’s halfway there.) His blog, Televisionary, can be found at televisionary.blogspot.com.

Televisionary has been named a finalist for Best Culture Blog in the 2006 Weblog Awards.

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