Nellie Andreeva

CBS has handed a series order to Same Name, a new fish-out-of-water comedic reality series about celebrities trading places with total strangers who happen to share the same name, which will air this summer. The network originally greenlighted a pilot for the project (then The Same Name) in October. Each hourlong, self-contained episode of the series, executive produced by Cris Abrego and Eugene Young, will feature a well-known personality who switches places with a person bearing the same name. For one week, the star and their counterpart live in each other’s houses, meet and interact with family, friends and co-workers and experience how the other lives. “They may have the same names, but their lives couldn’t be more different,” CBS head of alternative Jennifer Bresnan said. “Walking in each other’s shoes and experiencing their home life, work and other activities reveals moments of humor, laughter and unexpected emotion.” In the pilot episode, which was also exec produced by Fax Bahr and Adam Small, David Hasselhoff journeys to Lake Jackson, Texas (population: 27,614), to meet and trade lives with a 27-year-old high-voltage power technician/landscaper who shares his name.

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