TV Land Understands Your Dream of Leaving the Big City, Dying Slowly With Your Parents

In an attempt to become a parent-friendly, mall-brand version of AMC, the rerun-contingent TV Land network has given pilot orders to two original sitcoms: Hot in Cleveland, a project from Sean Hayes's production company about women from LA who crash-land in Cleveland and start their lives anew, and Retired at 35, about a man who quits life in New York to move in with his parents at a Florida retirement community. It's no surprise that both of these scenarios likely entail a new life devoted to regular TV Land viewing. More peculiar, however, is that TV Land still hasn't updated its most renewable classic as a reality series.

Though sitcoms remain a new venture for TV Land, the network is not new to original programming. The Joan Rivers reality series How'd You Get So Rich and the Bachelorette/Cougar Town hybrid The Cougar hold down TV Land's primetime block. But how has TV Land already jumped to producing new sitcoms if it hasn't even aired six episodes of a potentially excellent Beverly Hillbillies reality series?

Think about it. The show would fit in with TV Land's new commitment to "urban misfits" and finally strip away the irony of the "riche" Real Housewives series. It would be better than that weird Fantasy Island update. Show us a nonplussed Elly May sorting through the racks at Fred Segal. Show us a hollerin' Jethro as he wows patrons of L.A.'s Saddle Ranch with his mechanical bull riding expertise. Show us a conniving, real-life Mr. Drysdale as he tries to make sense of the bumpkin quartet. Not only would this be eminently watchable, it would make more sense for TV Land, whose viewership is old enough to enjoy Bravo and the epic output of Irene Ryan. Plus: Eligible titles include both The New Beverly Hillbillies and my much-preferred pitch Californ'y Dreamin'.

TV Land Orders Up Pilots [Variety]