The Upfronts, the Tony's

Well, I was going to list some of the pilots that seemed more exciting and interesting but I reminded myself not to get involved too early, or else I will get my heart broken like I did last year with Love Monkey and Kitchen Confidential.

I will note that after looking over all the pilots ordered, and based solely on the short premise description, the cast and the producers involved, ABC seems to have the most pilots that look interesting with a total of 21 shows that I would want to watch. ABC is really trying to redefine themselves, with LOST, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy two years ago, but they must have learned an important lesson this year with Commander in Chief, in that, if it ain't broke? Don't fix it. Still, they are giving themselves a LOT to choose from which could only be good.

Another note, very little procedurals this year (yey! enough already!) but a LOT of high concept shows (a la DH and Lost)... which could be interesting, but then again, last year we had Invasion and Threshold and those didn't really make any impact. The comedies are also back, single or multi-camera, but with some interesting casts mashups (Jenny McCarthy and Patricia Heaton? James Van der Beek and Jane Krakowski?) and a lot of NUMBER shows (12th Man, 13 Graves, 20 Questions, 52 fights, 60 Minute Man, The Nine, Six Degrees).

The good news is that it seems any of my favorite actors that deserve a good show, seem to have pilots (Eddie McClintock (DH Crumbs), Matt Long (Jack & Bobby), Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek), Merrin Dungey(Alias), Adrian Lester (Girlfriends), Melanie Lynskie (2 and a Half Men), Sean Bean (Flight Plan, North Country), Rob Corddry (The Daily Show), Zachary Levi (Less than Perfect), Ben Shenkman (Angels in America), Sean Astin (LOTR, 24), Sara Gilbert (Twins, Roseanne), Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar goes to White Castle), Scott Wolf (Everwood, Party of Five), Logan Marshall-Green (The OC, 24), Aaron Stanford (X2), America Ferrera (Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Real Women Have Curves), Alan Tudyk (Firefly), Tom Cavanagh (Ed, love Monkey), Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect), Richard Coyle (UK Coupling), Jason Behr (Roswell), Chris Wiehl (Love Monkey, Playmakers), Alona Tal (Veronica Mars)... amongst many others).

NBC had about 8 interesting shows, CBS 11, Fox 6, and The CW, 1 or maybe 2 at most. So much for the worry of shows making it to next season, because based on the crop of pilots, they need to keep as much as they can from UPN and The WB.

So, if you are fighting as a pilot on ABC, they will have a tough time, since there seems to be SO many interesting shows with good casts and good producers behind them, but I guess we will see this week.

Also, Tony Award nominations out on Tuesday and like I had JUST posted, I seem to be making the right predictions about The History Boys and The Drowsy Chaperone.