Nellie Andreeva

UPDATE: Medium executive producer Craig Sweeny has come onboard Common Law as executive producer. He will serve as co-showrunner on the series alongside co-creators/exec producers Cormac & Marianne Wibberley through his overall deal at CBS TV Studios.

EXCLUSIVE 5 PM: I hear USA Network is finalizing a series pickup of comedic buddy cop drama Common Law starring Michael Ealy. The project, from CBS TV Studios and Jon Turteltaub’s Junction Entertainment, centers on polar-opposite LAPD homicide detectives Travis Marks (Ealy) and Wes Mitchell (Warren Kole), whose nonstop bickering and acrimony prompts their no-nonsense captain Phil Sutton (Jack McGee) to send them to a couples therapist. The role of the therapist, played in the pilot by Amy Acker, will be recast, along with another, smaller part. There will be some reshoots, and I hear the action quotient on the show will be pumped up. With the series order for Common Law, expected by the end of the week, USA will maintain its perfect pilot-to-series batting average. Common Law was one of three cast-contingent pilots ordered by USA last summer, along with Necessary Roughness and Suits (formerly A Legal Mind). The other two have already been picked up to series. Of the three pilots from USA’s second batch, Eden has been completed, while Over/Under and Wild Card are still casting. Common Law was written by Cormac & Marianne Wibberley, who are executive producing with Turteltaub.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.