Several Pilots Get Showrunners

Human Target executive producer Brad Kern has been tapped as executive producer/showrunner on ABC’s drama pilot Poe. The crime procedural, from writer-exec producer Chris Hollier, Warner Bros. TV and Dan Lin’s Lin Pictures, follows Edgar Allan Poe, the world’s very first detective, as he uses unconventional methods to investigate dark mysteries in 1840s Boston. Kern previously served as showrunner on the WB’s Charmed.

24 showrunner Howard Gordon will serve as executive producer/showrunner on REM, Kyle Killen’s drama pilot for NBC described as an Inception-style thriller about a cop  living in two different realities. The gig falls under Gordon’s overall deal with 20th TV. In addition to REM, Gordon has the pilot Homeland, which he co-wrote, in contention at Showtime. If the two projects go to series, Gordon could conceivably run both the way Shawn Ryan juggled showrunner duties on The Shield and Lie to Me.

The Cape showrunner John Wirth has joined the CW’s drama pilot Cooper & Stone as exec producer-showrunner. The pilot, from writer-exec producer Laurie Arent and CBS TV Studios, is about two smart young female detectives on Chicago’s North Side who are best friends, equally adept at discussing fashion, music, pop culture as they are solving homicides. Wirth also served as co-showrunner on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Jonathan Groff, showrunner of ABC’s midseason comedy Happy Endings, will serve in the same capacity on the ABC comedy pilot My Frickin’ Family as part of his overall deal with ABC Studios. The project, from writer Erica Rivinoja, ABC Studios and Brillstein Entertainment, centers on two young parents whose lives change after they have a baby and the four grandparents with very different cultural backgrounds descend upon their lives to fight for the soul of their grandchild.