Nellie Andreeva

The Tudors alumna Natalie Dormer is set as the female lead opposite Chris Egan in ABC’s drama pilot Poe. The project, from Warner Bros. TV and Lin Pictures, is a crime procedural following Edgar Allan Poe (Egan), the world’s very first detective, as he uses unconventional methods to investigate dark mysteries in 1840s Boston. Dormer, repped by ICM and U.K.’s United Agents, will play Celeste, a beautiful spitfire, with a firm moral center – the logical yin to Poe’s wildly theoretical yang. She owns the newspaper for which Poe writes, having inherited it from her fiancé who died in mysterious circumstances.

Judith Light has been tapped for a regular role in ABC’s half-hour pilot Other People’s Kids. The multicamera comedy, written by Hunter Covington and directed by Michael Fresco, centers on Adam (Jesse Bradford), a 32-year-old guy with no responsibilities who suddenly finds himself with an insta-family when he falls in love with an older woman, Michelle (Bonnie Sommerville) who has two kids, an ex-husband, and ex-in-laws. Light, repped by Gersh and TAO Management, will play Michelle’s ex-mother-in-law, an eccentric older woman living with her lover who likes to keep all 10 fingers deep in family matters.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.