pickups

Another 'Friends' alum is headed to ABC.

According to EW.com, ABC has officially picked up the comedy series 'Mr. Sunshine,' starring Matthew Perry as the manager of a local sports stadium who has a midlife crisis on his 40th birthday. Allison Janney co-stars.

The news should come as little surprise, as it was reported last week that the pilot had tested well in screenings.

Perry will join former 'Friends' co-star Courteney Cox ('Cougar Town') on the network, though no word yet on whether 'Mr. Sunshine' will air on ABC's Wednesday-night lineup.

NBC has said yes to three more shows for the 2010-2011 season, the Live Feed is reporting.

First up is the high-concept drama 'The Event,' starring Jason Ritter as a man who, in an attempt to find his missing fiance, exposes one of the biggest cover-ups in American history.

Laura Innes ('ER'), Zeljko Ivanek ('Damages'), Sarah Roemer ('Disturbia') and Scott Patterson ('Gilmore Girls') co-star, with 'Dirty Sexy Money's' Blair Underwood set to play the U.S. President.

Earlier this week, one of the big honchos at NBC was kvetching to the media about how the company hates being in fourth place. Well, the only way out of the bottom is better programming. I don't know if the network will succeed with this news, but at least it's committing to its programs. Three shows got full season pickups, Community, Parks and Recreation and Mercy. That means nine episodes more each.

Some interesting news coming out of ABC today, one of which is a surprise, the other of which isn't:

First the non-surprise: Both TV Week and Kristin Dos Santos at E! Online are reporting that Pushing Daisies has been picked up for the rest of the season. That means 22 episodes of non-contact cuteness from Ned and Chuck. Ratings for the first three episodes have been solid, and -- at least based on the fun third episode -- worries about how the show might operate with budget restrictions have been so far unfounded.

The surprising ABC news: The former Ms. Veitch is also reporting that three more scripts have been ordered for Bruce McCulloch's Carpoolers, bringing the total order to 12 episodes. Despite the pedigree, the show hasn't been all that impressive so far either in quality or in the ratings. This makes me wonder if ABC is ordering more scripts in case there's a writers' strike.

Here's a piece of news from our "Networks Have Run Out of Ideas" department:

Reuters and The Hollywood Reporter are reporting that NBC has picked up a one-hour pilot for a remake of -- hold on to your artificial knees -- The Bionic Woman. You remember The Bionic Woman, right? Basicially it was The Six Million Dollar Man with girl parts. Lindsay Wagner played Jamie Sommers, a woman who's life was saved by bionic transplants after an accident and is recruited by the government to work spy missions. It ran from 1976-1978, not exactly the world's most successful run. But, for some reason, NBC thinks it's worthy of a revisit, maybe due to the success of Heroes. According to the article, the pickup is contingent on casting, so I'd imagine we won't be seeing anyone older than 30 in the role of Jamie.