Bobby Moresco

There are a lot of initial discrepancies about NBC's The Black Donnellys from the moment you watch the show.
If you are a born and raised New Yorker, you might find it initially hard to relate to the creators insistence on piecing together different but real geographical areas and their claim that it's one fictional neighborhood, unlike other shows using a New York backdrop such as The Sopranos, Law and Order or even Sex and the City.

If you are Canadian, you might be even more confused by the creators choice of the title, which until recently has been a famous historical reference to one of the most gruesome murders in Canadian history.

Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis, the Oscar winning team behind Crash and the creators of The Black Donnellys implore you to throw pre-conceived notions out the window when you watch the premiere Monday night and want to remind us that although the show is heavily based on their personal experiences growing up in New York City's Hell Kitchen, the story and places are indeed fictional and should feel timeless.

While the upfronts are still a few weeks away, NBC has placed early orders for two new dramas, Kidnapped and The Black Donnellys. Kidnapped stars Dana Delany and Timothy Hutton as parents whose son is abducted. The show is in the same style as FOX's Prison Break, where it's meant to stretch out only one season. It will be told from three views: the family, the FBI agents, and the kidnappers.

Perhaps Crash's win at the Academy awards solidified NBC's love for The Black Donnellys. It is written and created by Crash screenwriters Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco. The Black Donnellys is about four Irish-American brothers involved in the Irish mob.

Each drama received a 13-episode order from NBC.

NBC is banking on gritty writer Paul Haggis for one of its new fall dramas, called The Black Donnellys. Haggis wrote the screenplays for Million Dollar Baby and Crash, and has also won two Emmys for his writing on Thirtysomething. The new series, created by Haggis and Bobby Moresco, is about four Irish brothers in New York's Hell's Kitchen and their lives in organized crime. It's one of those "they keep pullin' me back in" kind of things. The series will actually be shot in New York.

With The Sopranos concluding next year, NBC must be hoping that we'll still want our violent mobster fix.