Dan Bucatinsky gets pilot deal from CBS

Three years after it was written, Dan Bucatinsky's black dramedy script The Commuters has been green-lighted by CBS for a pilot. Commuters, about the lives of three couples in the New York City suburbs whose husbands commute to the city every day, was developed in 2001 through 20th Century Fox TV. Now that the script has been picked up to pilot, it will be produced by Paramount Television. Talks are under way for 20th Century Fox to come onboard as a producer. Bucatinsky, the project's out writer-executive producer, credits the success of ABC's Desperate Housewives for the networks' renewed interest in character-driven soap operas, which he believes ultimately led to to the Commuters comeback. As for his inspiration to create Commuters, Bucatinsky said, "More than anything, this show is inspired by growing up in the suburbs and watching what a commuter mentality in a small suburban community is like and, with the double lives the people lead, what secrets they leave back in the suburbs and what secrets they leave in New York City." Because Commuters was developed before Bucatinsky struck his current partnership with Lisa Kudrow, their Warner Bros. TV-based Is or Isn't Entertainment banner is expected to receive credit on the pilot, but Kudrow will not serve as a producer. Bucatinsky is perhaps best known as the writer and star of the romantic-comedy feature film All Over the Guy.