
‘Mad Men’ Writer-Producer Sells Medical Drama to CBS – by Lacey Rose (Hollywood Reporter)
Dahvi Waller’s 20th TV doctor drama, “Guinea Pigs,” centers on a group of trailblazing doctors who run clinical trials in a Philadelphia hospital.
Mad Men’sDahvi Waller is heading back to broadcast.
Her medical project, titled Guinea Pigs,nabbed a put pilot commitment from CBS. The drama centers on group of trailblazing doctors who run clinical trials at a hospital in Philadelphia. The twist: The trials are risky, and the guinea pigs are human.
The Canadian-born Waller is set to write and executive produce the 20th Century Fox TV project, alongside EPs PeterChernin and Katherine Pope of Chernin Entertainment. Pigs joins such entries as Hart Hanson’sBackstromcrime drama and a Brady Bunch comedy reboot in CBS’ development coffers.
Prior to AMC’s Mad Men, the Emmy-winning TV writer spent time on ABC dramas Eli Stone, Desperate Housewives and the short-lived Commander in Chief.
Hey, we have no axe to grind here, and certainly nothing against Dahvi Waller, or even Peter Chernin and Katherine Pope. But, c’mon. The “Twist” here is that clinical trials are on humans and they’re risky? What’s unexpected about that? If that’s what network executives think a twist is, no wonder most of TV is so straight-lined.
Unless…could it be that the twist is supposed to be that those bastard doctors endangering poor people forced to take part in clinical trials because they can’t afford treatment otherwise are the heroes instead of the villains they ought to be?
Nope, still not a twist. A kink, maybe, in the practices and ethics of medicine in our culture. And of entertainment as well.
Sweetheart, can you pass us the comics section? We’re tired of TV…