NBC passing on John Mulaney’s pilot for ‘Mulaney’ was one of the biggest surprises of this year’s pilot season; a sitcom executive produced by Lorne Michaels, created by one of the best rising stars of standup, and with a stacked cast including Martin Short, Elliot Gould and Nasim Pedrad seemed like a slam dunk. But it turns out that the show isn’t dead, as Fox has ordered a new version of the pilot script. If they like it, they’ll pick the series up for a short six-episode season. If it gets picked up there may be some recasting, although both Mulaney and Short will stay on board.
It’ll be interesting to see how much retooling Fox is looking to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they change the show from multicam to a single-cam show - one got the impression that it was initially set up as a multicam to appease NBC, which is trying to make its comedy offerings more broad and accessible. Fox, on the other hand, now has almost exclusively single cam sitcoms such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, and The Mindy Project, shows that Mulaney would presumably fit right in with. This could end up being the best thing that could’ve happened to the show if it ends up working better in that format. We’ll see!
