No, they're making room for the plainer, funnier Janes-- even the fugly ones. The only catch is that men are behind both new projects.
Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn, who created Two and a Half Men are working with a woman-and-a-half-- six-foot tall Allison Janney-- on a new half-hour sitcom.
The series would give Janney her first TV series role since she played CJ on The West Wing. CBS has had her on hold most of the year, but it still sounds like they're not too sure what the series will hold. It's described as being about a "successful woman who's re-examining the relationships in her life"-- which sounds like a generic holding pattern for any comedy featuring a forty-something actress.
And speaking of plain Janes, CBS has ordered up another pilot that's sure to undergo a name change: Fugly (as in "f--in' Ugly") is about three homely siblings--identical twin sisters and a brother-- who pool their savings to buy one of the sisters an extreme makeover, then move to Hollywood to cash in on her good looks.
There's promise in this one. The pilot script comes from Greg Garcia, who created My Name Is Earl. It's been sitting around for two years, since Fox passed on it. Fox also rejected Earl, which sat around for two years before NBC rode it to success.