UPDATED: CBS has given a series order to Doubt, its legal drama pilot from Tony Phelan and Joan Rater. It was one of two drama pilots at CBS for Grey’s Anatomy alums Phelan and Rater, along with Drew, which is now not going forward.
Doubt, from CBS TV Studios and Timberman/Beverly, was originally piloted by CBS last season. It didn’t go to series but CBS ordered a new pilot, with the two leads replaced by Katherine Heigl and Steven Pasquale. With today’s series pickup, Orange Is the New Black‘s Laverne Cox, who was in both the original and the second pilot, is breaking new ground for transgender performance. Doubt will be the first broadcast series featuring a transgender series regular character played by a transgender actor.
The new pilot for Doubt was filmed off-season, and in January, when the network was still gearing up for its pilot season orders, Doubt already was a favorite. It joins newly picked up dramas Bull, Training Day, Pure Genius (fka Bunker Hill) and MacGyver. Most are procedurals, with Doubt and Bull in the legal arena, Pure Genius in the medical, while cop drama Training Day has an underlying serialized storyline. MacGyver is an action-adventure procedural.
Here are more details about Doubt.
DOUBT
EP: Tony Phelan & Joan Rater, Carl Beverly & Sarah Timberman
EP/Director: Adam Bernstein
Studio: CBS Television Studios
Logline: A smart, chic, successful defense lawyer at a boutique firm starts to fall for her charismatic client who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime.
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Steven Pasquale, Laverne Cox, Dulé Hill, Dreama Walker, Elliott Gould, Kobi Libii
Guess this means DREW is their only midseason. JUST GO AHEAD AND ANNOUNCE IT!
YES!!!! I knew it!!!! So happy, yay Katherine!
Well at least she is smart AND chic. What an empowering good wife replacement…
YAY!!!!!!!
I guess Candis Cayne was only a “guest star” on ABC years ago? I think real history would have been hiring a transgender actress (or actor) to play a cisgender character. Cox definitely can pass as a woman ;why is she only getting cast in Trans roles?
From Dirty Sexy Money? Yeah, they casually forgot that.
I so agree with you. I call it “the Superman syndrome”. Being typecast IS NOT a good thing for anyone. She should simply be playing female characters. We all know what happened to the original TV Superman, George Reeves….. 😢
She was a recurring character but not a series regular, which marks the distinction. Trace lysette, a friend of cox’s has played a cis character on svu before living out
She’s only had two roles so far. Why shouldn’t she be a role model for Transgendered people? Would we be complaining about a black actor being hired to play a black role. It’s a bit hypocritical.
The name of the series is confusing considering there was a movie with that name
There will e real progress for transgendered actors when they aren’t playing transgendered characters. Nonetheless, happy for Laverne Cox.
THIS. I seriously doubt transgender people wish to be seen as such. Why the label? She’s a woman. Get over it America.
Don’t blame America. Blame Hollywood. They’re the ones casting Laverne as the token transgender all the time (and making a big deal about it all the time while they await the pats on the back for being oh so tolerant) instead of as just a woman.
Somebody is trying to bring a transgender character front and center in a tv show, on a real network, with real potential. And they go ahead do the right thing, and cast a trans actor for the role. So of course the next step is for people to complain about these actors only being cast as trans instead of cis. You can’t win.
And if Cox had been cast as a woman, then the complaint would be “why can’t she be trans on the show too? Why isn’t ‘the community’ represented on network tv?”. Again, you can’t win.
i totally agree
Yeah that’s a big point though
Interesting. She’s a horrible actress though. Painful to watch on Orange is the New Black.
I disagree. She’s a pretty good actress. Hopefully people won’t judge her by their transphobic bigotry.
I like her, but her acting still average opposite Orange Is the New Black‘s co-stars like Uzo Aduba.
happy for the trans community, and all people too! but i wish it was with a better actress than laverne cox. she and a few others like dashcha polanco and ruby rose and the guy who plays bennett are definitely the weak links on OITNB. but hopefuly she’ll be better in this show. it sounds like a very good show with lots of promise.
I agree. Absolute dreadful actress.
Cant wait to see Dule and Katherine, in another show….have missed you both. Looking forward to another great show.
“Doubt will be the first broadcast series featuring a transgender series regular character played by a transgender actor.”
Wait, didn’t transgender actress CANDIS CAYNE “break new ground” nearly a DECADE ago (circa 2007) playing a series regular transgender character on ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money? Good for Cox – and trans actors in general – but let’s credit Cayne for “breaking ground” first.
Let’s NOT because she wasn’t a REGULAR
Katherine Heigl with Laverne Cox, this is truly “most skip tv” for most of the viewing audience.