As network Upfronts start to kick off next week, NBC is making early announcements about pilots they are ordering to series. Up first is Council of Dads from Doubt creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan, Jerry Bruckheimer Television and Universal TV.
It’s no surprise that the show has made it to series. It had been an early standout for NBC all pilot season since it has a similar sensibility to This Is Us. Council of Dads, inspired by Bruce Feiler’s best-selling memoir, is considered a potential companion for the hit family drama.
Feiler’s memoir The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness and the Men Who Could Be Me was first adapted for TV eight years ago as a half-hour comedy by Peter Tolan, which went to pilot at Fox starring Kyle Bornheimer. The new take stars Sarah Wayne Callies, Clive Standen, Tom Everett Scott, and J. August Richards & tells the story of Scott and his family, whose lives are thrown into upheaval when he gets a potentially terminal diagnosis. Facing his mortality, he and his wife assemble a unique group of carefully chosen friends to support his family and guide them through the ups and downs of life’s many challenges.
