After making Castle a hit for ABC for several seasons, the network is looking to the creative minds behind that series to give them their next procedural breakout, with Rachel Bilson & Eddie Cibrian set to star.
The straight-to-series order is for Take Two, which revolves around Ella (Bilson), the former star of a hit cop series who is fresh out of rehab following a bender to end all benders. In a desperate attempt to revive her career, she talks her way into shawdowing a private investigator by the name of Eddie (Cibrian) as research for a potential comeback role. Although he isn’t too keen on babysitting the former starlet, she becomes valuable to his team due to her acting skills and 200 episodes of playing a detective on her former series. When Ella plays a role in cracking a high profile case, Eddie begins to receive a flood of work from people who want to hire the pair.
It’s no surprise this comes from the creators of Castle since the plots are very similar. On Castle, a homicide detective was paired with a best selling mystery novelist to solve various crimes. The series was a big hit for many seasons on ABC and was a huge moneymaker in many territories internationally. The hope is for similar success as Castle ran for eight seasons.
Fans will remember Rachel Bilson for playing Summer Roberts on four seasons of The O.C. and also running her own series on The CW called Hart of Dixie for the same length of time. Eddie Cibrian’s TV credits include Rosewood, Third Watch, CSI: Miami and Sunset Beach.