Lots of TV news emails have been rapidly piling up in my inbox all week, and it’s about time I unloaded them. It’s that period of the year when networks announce new pilot orders, which typically are accompanied by casting news for those projects. As we’ve seen year-after-year, since this site was launched, many, if not most of them won’t make it to series, unfortunately. We may not even get to see some of the pilots. And those that do make it to series may not last more than 2 or 3 episodes, as studio execs with itchy trigger fingers just might cancel them if they aren’t instant hits.

So, as I’ve done in the past, I’ll revisit the announcements within this post (as well as those before and after it) a year from now, to see which ones survived.

I should note that some of them are casting announcements for already existing TV series, like the first one:

1 – Episode 14 of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC will introduce two new recurring characters. One of them will be played by Bill Paxton and the other will be played by B.J. Britt (Being Mary Jane) who has booked the role of Agent Triplett, an associate of Bill Paxton’s character who’ll first appear in the March 4 episode.

2 – Lucien Laviscount (Episodes, Skins) has been cast as one of the leads in The CW’s Supernatural spin-off, Supernatural: Tribes, which is being described as a sweeping drama about the various mafia-esque monster families that unknowingly-to-humans rule the underbelly of Chicago and who are being tracked by a new Hunter who’s trying to stop them and rid Chicago of the supernatural. Laviscount will play Ennis Roth, a determined police academy trainee whose fiancée is killed in the crossfire of the monster war, which leads him to the truth as he becomes a monster-hunter himself.

3 – Wendell Pierce has booked a recurring role on the second season of the hit Showtime drama series Ray Donovan. Pierce will play Mr. Keith, a down on his luck parole officer who gets a payoff from Ray (Liev Schreiber). Production on the second season’s 12 episodes is currently underway in Los Angeles and is set for a summer premiere.

4 – Derek Webster (Revolution) has landed a role on ABC’s alien drama pilot The Visitors, which centers on the race against the clock to defeat an unseen alien enemy out to destroy the world. Webster has signed up to play Jessup Rollins, an FBI agent with a difficult past that affects his work record.

5 & 6 – Deon Cole (Barbershop) and Rashida Jones are heading to TBS‘ comedy pilot Tribeca, which hails from funnyman Steve Carell and his wife, Nancy Carell. Tribeca is described as a satirical look at a police procedural with Rashida Jones starring as Angie Tribeca, an outspoken veteran of the LAPD’s elite RHCU (Really Heinous Crimes Unit). Cole will play Officer DJ Tanner, head of the K-9 unit.

7 – Edi Gathegi has joined the cast of TNT‘s pilot Proof, which is said to be a supernatural medical drama executive produced by Kyra Sedgwick, which centers on a skeptical female surgeon who is persuaded to investigate cases of reincarnation. Gathegi will play Zed, a Sudanese hospital intern tasked with finding proof of life after death.

8 – Tone Bell has been cast as a regular on NBCs comedy pilot, Bad Judge, which stars Kate Walsh as a woman who lives life on the edge (breaking the law, sexually adventurous), while also being a judge in the criminal court system. Bell will play Edward, the bailiff in Rebecca’s courtroom who gets swept up in her flawed, impulsive and chaotic personal life.

9 – Malcolm Barrett has been cast in NBC‘s comedy pilot Mission Control, as 1/2 of a duo of scientists (Jonathan Slavin is the other) in a project from executive producers Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Said to be in a similar tone to Anchorman, The pilot is set in 1962 and examines what happens when a determined woman butts heads with a macho astronaut in the race to land on the moon. Barrett will play Arthur, an engineer on the woman’s crew.

10 – And finally (at least for now), Amber Stevens has been cast to co-star opposite Romany Malco in Kevin Hart’s ABC comedy pilot titled Keep It Together, which is loosely-based on Hart’s own life and stand-up comedy.The comedy will give audiences a candid look at the life of a couple after their divorce, as they try to rebuild their relationship as friends, for the sake of their children. Hart will actually appear in the pilot, and will recur after that, playing a character tailor-made for him and his personality.

That’s all for now…