the call

The networks have added a few new faces to their pilots, because, well, otherwise the shows would just be shot after shot of empty sets, and that's not very exciting. Here's what's goin' on:

Jeffery Tambor (The Larry Sanders Show, Arrested Development) has joined the cast of the CBS comedy The Captain. The series stars Fran Kranz as a writer who moves into an apartment building where Tambor, a retired TV writer, also lives.

Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (which is actually a much funnier movie than it has any right to be) will star in The Call, a comedy from ABC about a group of paramedics in Los Angeles.

Comparing it to the mix of comedy and drama MASH was known for, 24 creators Joel Surnow and Bob Cochran are developing a real-time comedy for ABC about two paramedics who are great at their jobs but always screw up when it comes to one another. The two men created the series with the help of writer Dave Hemingson, creator of the short-lived Kitchen Confidential. While the series is set in real-time like 24, it will not be a continuing story from week to week, Instead, each episode will be self-contained. I think that's probably a good idea, as good as 24 is, I think some people haven't watched it for the simple fact they wouldn't know what's going on. Though maybe a serialized comedy show would be fun, too. Eventually the entire show would just be inside jokes that only the people who have been watching since the beginning would understand.