Mather Zickel Joins NBC Pilot ‘Bad Judge’, Lilli Birdsell In ABC’s ‘Sea Of Fire’

Mather Zickel (House Of Lies, Masters Of Sex) has been cast opposite Kate Walsh in NBC’s single-camera comedy pilot Bad Judge. The project, from writer Chad Kultgen and producers Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Anne Heche, centers on Rebecca (Walsh), a hard-living, sexually unapologetic woman who plays with the law, and whose life on the edge is constantly in balance as she also happens to be a judge in the criminal court system. Zickel, repped by Abrams Artists Agency and attorney Lev Ginsburg, will play Gary, a psychiatrist who has an on again-off again relationship with Rebecca, often is called into her courtroom as an expert witness — and he often winds up necking furiously with her in chambers.

Lilli Birdsell (The Walking Dead) has joined ABC‘s drama pilot Sea Of Fire, based on a Dutch format. It chronicles the fallout from three teenage girls starring in a pornographic film, which tears their families apart and leads to a disappearance, a murder and host of other secrets boiling under the surface in a small town. It centers on Sheriff Marty Kesowich (Jack Davenport), who is already deeply concerned over his suicidal and befuddled wife, Laura (Birdsell), when he realizes that their seemingly perfect daughter Merel (Isabelle Cornish) may be involved in the disappearance and that his wife may know something about it. Birdsell is with Kazarian/Measures/Ruskin & Associates and New Wave.