CBS has completed most of its pilot season pickups and passes.
Three series with black leads or primarily black casts have been picked up, including:
The Red Line — Written by Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss, the series “explores what happens after a white cop in Chicago mistakenly shoots and kills a black doctor.” It will follow “three different families that all have connections with the case as the story is told from each perspective.” DuVernay executive produces with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, as well as Parrish and Weiss. Stars include Emayatzy Corinealdi, Howard Charles and Aliyah Royale.
God Friended Me — Described as “a humorous, uplifting series, which explores questions of faith, existence and science,” God Friended Me centers on Miles, an outspoken atheist whose life is turned upside down when he is ‘friended’ by God on Facebook. Unwittingly, he becomes an agent of change in the lives and destinies of others around him. Brandon Micheal Hall toplines the series as Miles, and Joe Morton will play his father.
Fam: Clem (Nina Dobrev) dreams of an upstanding life with her new fiancé and his upstanding family (Brian Stokes Mitchell and Sheryl Lee Ralph), but she must deal with her younger train wreck half-sister (Odessa Adlon) who comes to live with her to escape their train wreck of a father. Tone Bell will play the fiancé, Jay, “a sophisticated NYU history professor who comes from old money, but is refreshingly unaffected and down-to-earth despite his refined background. Deeply in love with Clem, he proposes to her — much to the delight of his parents, Walt and Rose, who think Clem is a real catch. But he learns that Clem has not been completely honest about a few key elements in her life… for example, her father isn’t actually dead… and it drives a wedge of mistrust between them that may not be easily mended.”
Network schedules will be announced over the next week during upfronts.