John Lithgow and Sherri Shepherd are set for co-starring roles in The Trail, NBC’s docu-style single-camera comedy pilot from Jeff Astrof, Matt Miller and Warner Bros. TV. The serialized comedy, a spoof of such documentary series as The Jinx and Making a Murderer, follows Josh Simon, a young big-city lawyer, and his oddball defense team during a high profile murder trial in a small southern town.
Lithgow will play the suspect, Larry Henderson, a smart but slightly clueless poetry professor at a South Carolina community college who is accused of murdering his wife. Henderson finds the whole notion of being charged with murder absurd…but he’s got a couple of secrets that could really derail his defense.
Shepherd will play Anne Flatch, the well-meaning and enthusiastic assistant/receptionist at Josh Simon’s makeshift law office in East Peck, South Carolina, Anne suffers from facial blindness — the inability to recognize people by their faces — along with a host of disorders that makes her job as one of the members of the defense team much more difficult.
Former View co-host Shepherd returned to the ABC daytime talk show this season as a contributor. As an actress, she has been recurring on Fox sophomore drama Rosewood and on TV Land’s comedy series The Soul Man. She also was recently seen in movie hit Ride Along 2. Shepherd is repped by ICM Partners and Darris Hatch Management.
This marks 3rd Rock From the Sun alum Lithgow’s return to comedy series. In TV, his most recent major role was a season-long arc on Showtime drama Dexter, which earned him a fifth Emmy award to date. He is repped by UTA, Anonymous Content and attorney Walter Teller.
SOURCE: Deadline – Nellie Andreeva
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