Favorite Parenthood actor Jason Ritter has landed himself a lead role in a Fox pilot. He’s set to play Gavin in the network’s Friends & Family pilot, which is based on a BBC program called Gavin & Stacey that ran between 2007 and 2010. The project focuses on a relationship between two co-workers who also happen to have very different family lives.
Fox made the announcement on Thursday, also noting that Ritter’s character will be both cute and somewhat neurotic. While Fox hasn’t cast the female lead in Friends & Family, yet, Deadline is reporting that the comedy pilot will follow the first date between Gavin and Stacey, who met via a very modern medium—the Internet, where the two Skyped and Facebooked prior to signing up for a live date. Writer David Rosen is set to pen the pilot.
Ritter has spent the last several TV seasons recurring on NBC’s Parenthood. Last pilot season, he gave an NBC drama pilot a shot, signing on for the medical drama County. That program didn’t end up getting a series order on NBC, but luckily, the Parenthood writers were able to find reasons to bring the actor back into the fold. At this point, Ritter would probably rather have a leading role than recur in a series, and besides, his role on Parenthood has been fleshed out nearly as far as it could possibly go. Here’s hoping Friends & Family will be a good fit for Fox’s comedy block and will get a series order at the network.
