Nellie Andreeva

The CW got on the board today with its first pilot orders this season. The network has picked up 4 drama pilots, including Awakening, the spec script the CW bought just last week.

CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff had made launching medical, legal and cop franchises on the network a priority and her pilot picks reflect that. Three of the 4 pilots are procedurals – one medical (Hart of Dixie), which comes from Gossip Girl co-creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, one police drama (Cooper and Stone), and one legal (Heavenly), which has supernatural elements. Additionally, zombie drama Awakening has a legal drama element, as the central character is a public defender. Here are descriptions of the 4 CW pilots, which join legal dramedy pilot Danni Lowinski, which was ordered in October:

Awakening, written on spec by William Laurin & Glenn Davis, centers on two sisters who come of age and face off against one another amidst the beginning of a zombie uprising. In centers on the older one, who is a public defender. Reveille is co-producing the pilot with Warner Bros. TV, where the script has been laid off. Laurin, Davis, Howard T. Owens, Carolyn Bernstein and Todd Cohen are exec producing.

Hart of Dixie, from WBTV and Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire, is a comedic drama centered on a young New York City doctor who inherits a medical practice in a small Southern town inhabited by an eclectic and eccentric group of characters. Leila Gerstein penned the script and is exec producing with Schwartz, Savage and Len Goldstein. This is Fake Empire’s second pilot this afternoon, along with Georgetown at ABC.

Heavenly, written by Richard Hatem, is from CBS Studios and Fineman Entertainment. It centers on a dedicated young female attorney and a former angel, Dashiel Coffee, only recently turned human, who tackle cases together at the attorney’s legal aid clinic – she saves clients’ butts while he saves their souls.  As an angel, Dash never experienced feelings or emotions, and his “awakening” is a big part of the series, sometimes to hilarious effect. Hatem and Ross Fineman are exec producing.

Cooper and Stone, from writer-exec producer Laurie Arent and CBS TV Studios, is about two smart young female detectives on Chicago’s North Side who are best friends, equally adept at discussing fashion, music, pop culture as they are solving homicides.

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