ABC has picked up a pair of half-hour comedies to pilot. Pearl, from ABC Studios, comes from former Friends executive producer Andrew Reich. The single-camera sitcom features a larger than life family matriarch who learns she is dying, and becomes intent on controlling every aspect of her family’s life.
Speechless comes from 20th Television and Scott Silveri, who too was a Friends exec producer and co-created the spinoff Joey. The single-camera comedy centers on a family with a special needs child that, as its logline reads, “is good at dealing with the challenges it faces and excellent at creating new ones.”
Jake Kasdan and Melvin Mar are in the executive producer ranks on Speechless.
ABC has had good fortune of late with comedies, as the likes of Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat have won both critical and some commercial acclaim.
