Syfy Narrows Field Of Comedy Contenders

Syfy, which is meeting advertisers today at its upfront presentation in New York, continues to be focused on launching a single-camera comedy series. After developing half-hour projects for the past year, Syfy has narrowed the field for a potential pilot order. It includes supernatural comedy In the Dark, which joins Three Inches, a half-hour version of Syfy's hourlong pilot, and previously announced Me and Lee.

In the Dark follows a misfit group of third-tier ghost hunters whose misguided efforts tend to highlight their incompetence rather than paranormal activity. From Universal Cable Prods., In the Dark is being written by Michael Davidoff and Bill Rosenthal, who are exec producing with Dan Taberski through Idiot Box Prods.

In Three Inches, professional daydreamer and underachiever Walter Spackman is struck by lightning and develops a unique "super" power -- the ability to move any object using just his mind ... but only a distance of three inches. He's soon immersed in a world of extraordinarily ordinary people like himself. Three Inches was one of two drama pilots about ordinary people with powers along with Alphas. When Syfy in December opted to pick up Alphas to series, it put Three Inches in redevelopment as a half-hour. The project's studio, Fox TV Studios, extended the cast's options until June. Harley Peyton is the writer/exec producer. Bob Cooper is exec producing through Landscape Entertainment.

Me and Lee, once produced as a pilot for Fox, is about a down-on-his-luck twentysomething who goes in for back surgery, but the procedure doesn’t go well. Enter Lee Majors, who entices the young man into his ultra high-tech lab and makes him bionic. Majors becomes the unlikeliest of mentors helping the young man get his life back together. Weeds creator Jenji Kohan exec produces Me and Lee with the project's writer Matthew Salzberg, Allan Loeb and Steven Pearl. Lionsgate TV is producing.

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