Legal Drama ‘Doubt’ Co-Starring Laverne Cox Picked Up To Series By CBS, Breaks New Ground For Transgender Actors

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