Last week, NBC announced that David Boreanaz would be its new Jim Rockford, and now his one-time Bones compatriot will be joining him in pilot season. Emily Deschanel has been cast in a new procedural pilot that could reunite the duo on the prime-time schedule, 21 years after Bones debuted and 9 years after it made its final bow.
According to reports, Deschanel has been cast in an as-yet untitled drama about a criminal profiler, loosely based on the life of Dr. Ann Burgess, the pioneering researcher who was the inspiration for Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) on Netflix‘s late, lamented Mindhunter. According to the show’s logline, Deschanel will play Professor Georgia Ryan, “a trailblazing psychologist who challenges the field of criminology by shifting the investigative focus to the victim rather than just the perpetrator in order to uncover the crucial clues that more traditional methods leave behind. Alongside her team, this pioneering expert consults with the FBI to solve the most baffling and elusive cases.” It will be Deschanel‘s first leading role on network television since the conclusion of Bones, where she played forensic anthropologist Temperance “Bones” Brennan opposite Boreanaz‘s FBI Agent Seeley Booth; she has subsequently guested on The Rookie, recurred on Animal Kingdom, and led the Netflix miniseries Devil in Ohio.
What Series Is David Boreanaz Leading On NBC?
Boreanaz, meanwhile, is filling the shoes of the late James Garner on The Rockford Files. In this revival of the classic 1970s crime drama, Boreanaz will star as Jim Rockford, a con man who was sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Once he’s back on the streets, he turns his life around, becoming a hard-luck private detective with a modest fee and a weakness for a sob story. With the help of his lovable dad and a pal on the police force, he’ll do his best to help the helpless…if his criminal past doesn’t catch up to him and land him right back in jail. Could his series cross over with Deschanel‘s, if they’re both picked up to series? Stranger things have happened…like that time the decidedly grounded Bones crossed over with the supernatural Sleepy Hollow for a Halloween special.
Deschanel‘s profiler pilot comes from writers Dean Georgaris (Meg 2: The Trench), who recently served as an executive producer on Quantum Leap, and John Fox, who produced series like The Blacklist and The Equalizer. It is a production of Universal Television.
A criminal profiler drama starring Emily Deschanel is in development; it has been given a pilot order, but no release date has yet been announced.
via Collider