Note - Rob is on vacation this week and will return next week with the January 30/31 edition of Inside Track.

Spotting trends in entertainment is a sucker’s game. No sooner does one pundit proclaim the death of reality TV, for instance, than networks, mutually battered by their rivals’ ratings for stunt TV, order up a fresh new batch of makeover-reunion-competition-dating-etc. programs. Thankfully few seem to remember these quickly outdated predictions, any more than they remember the National Enquirer psychic’s or William Safire’s in The New York Times.

I’m particularly wary of predicting trends in pilot season thus far (two weeks or so and counting), particularly given that most pilots are destined for the shelf—and not the one in your entertainment center.

Still, it’s interesting to note that two pilots released last week are set against the idyllic backdrop of Hawaii—and both, coincidentally, have leads named Danny (an echo of “Dan-O,” perhaps?). The first is a one-hour drama for Fox called Big Island. Cast by Nicole Arbusto and Joy Dickson, it follows the intrigues at a “posh hotel” from the point of view of its head of guest relations, Danny Gordon. Lest we assume this will resemble a landlocked Love Boat, the pilot—slated to be shot in Hawaii, though the series if picked up may opt to shoot in San Diego—also includes a crime subplot.

Crime is the main theme of Hawaii Blue, a one-hour for NBC being cast by Bonnie Zane and Gayle Pillsbury. Writer Jeff Eastin’s pilot script follows the Hawaii PD’s investigation of a grisly series of murders involving decapitation, lava, and ritual execution. Sounds cheery, eh? No word on where it will be shot.

A side note: While I’m not a self-appointed political correctness cop, it’s a little disappointing that each pilot includes just one Hawaiian character apiece. And they’re not exactly stereotype busters: Big Island features a young DJ named Frankie Seau, intended mainly as comic relief, and Hawaii Blue has a “gorgeous,” sassy 24-year-old wannabe detective named Linh Dias who hops in the shower with one of the PD’s more aggressive male players. These may not be all the Hawaiian characters among the regulars, admittedly. But it seems clear that in both these pilots Hawaii is cast in its traditional role: as a beautiful backdrop for the high-jinks and peccadilloes of its mostly white leads—Vegas with beaches.

If I were to name another trend, it would be to note that Hollywood’s tendency to remake old films and TV series as feature films has spread to television: Recently released were Breakdowns for pilots for a new Lost in Space for the WB and a new Mr. Ed for Fox. Both have been updated and tweaked, to varying degrees. Lost in Space’s five available roles don’t include Dr. Smith or the robot, but there’s the Robinson family—John and Maureen, Judy and Will—as well as their hotshot pilot, Don West (referred to, amusingly, in the Breakdown as a bit like Happy Days’ Fonzie –“Not the late-season, family-friendly cuddly Fonzi, but the early one. The dangerous one”). My sci-fi buff friends inform me that in fact the original 1960s series didn’t start out with either Dr. Smith or Robbie the Robot but was instead built around the minor movie star Guy Madison, who played the Robinson patriarch—but that once Jonathan Harris’ memorably creepy Dr. Smith started riffing with Billy Mumy’s Will and the robot, Madison was effectively sidelined. It’s a little reminiscent of the way Familiy Matters, originally conceived as a vehicle for ??????, who played the mother, quickly became the Urkel show—or, come to think of it, the way Happy Days became the Fonzie show. Are the creators of the new Lost in Space—who include Buffy’s Doug Petrie and action director John Woo–hoping for a similar breakout with the Don West character? CDs Nikki Valko and Ken Miller clearly have their work cut out for them.

Meanwhile, plans for a new Mr. Ed continue apace. Rumors that Eddie Murphy was slated for the role of the talking horse remain unconfirmed—and since he’s already the talking mule in the Shrek franchise, why would Murphy want to give voice to another four-legged wisecracker? Said Jason Kennedy, an assistant in CD Greg Orson’s office, “We’re looking for a recognizable, hip, urban voice.” And yes, that means possibly an African-American entertainer. (Indeed, why not Cedric the Entertainer?) And while the series has been updated, it’s still set on a farm in an unspecified state, where the Pope family, headed by hapless city guy Wilbur, are astonished to realize that their horse can, and does, talk. The Breakdown very specifically instructs that the Mr. Ed voice casting will be announced, so “do not submit.” Are the producers looking for names for the Popes, though? “They’re open,” said Kennedy. “We’re looking for the right person.”

Whatever you think of the trends, those are always encouraging words.

More Encouraging Words

Among the interesting-looking pilots I spotted was writer Marc Cherry’s Desperate Housewives, a one-hour for ABC about a suburban matron whose suicide inspires reflection and upheaval among her friends and family. The tone was hard to nail down from the Breakdown, so I asked Scott Lairson, an associate in the casting office of Junie Lowry-Johnson, what the prototype for the series was: “It’s in a comic vein—a dark comedy. We say it’s sort of like Stepford Wives meets American Beauty.” If that sounds a bit cable-ish, Lowry-Johnson’s office might be the right choice—Libby Goldstein casts Six Feet Under from Lowry-Johnson’s Paramount digs, though Scott Genkinger is listed as the CD on Desperate Housewives.

The roles are consistently late 30s and 40s, good news for L.A.’s seasoned talent. Even better: When I asked if the CDs were looking more for comic or dramatic actors, Lairson said, “We’re looking for good actors.”

Irish Eyes

Hold your submissions, musical theatre actors: Yes, there’s a new pilot for ABC called Camelot, but it’s about the Kennedy Administration, not King Arthur. Casting director Jason LaPadura (who casts American Dreams with Natalie Hart) is no doubt looking for good actors, too, but he said his main criterion for the pilot—which at this point lists only the roles of Jack, Jackie, and Bobby—is “as close a physical match as possible. We’re looking for that Irish-y look.”

Yes, the producers are considering some of the many actors who’ve portrayed the Kennedys in recent years—Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp, from the excellent feature 13 Days, spring to mind. And while LaPadura said that the crucial role of partriarch Joseph Kennedy will likely be cast with an older name actor, he’s looking less for star power in the three leads than for physical resemblance.

The pilot is set at the very start of Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency, and LaPadura said the producers won’t shy away from relatively recent revelations about JFK’s remarkably poor health—from Addison’s to his bad back—and about his legendary sexual escapades. While the series is likely to run into the presidency itself, the pilot’s early-campaign timeframe rules out a lot of wishful imagining, at least on my part. “There’s no Nixon role so far,” LaPadura told me, to my disappointment. If it’s picked up, surely such plum roles as LBJ, Kruschev, Castro, J. Edgar Hooever, Robert McNamara—not to mention Marilyn Monroe, Sinatra, Judith Exner, etc.—will be called for.

This isn’t the only Breakdown, incidentally, that references the mythical Kennedys. Wendy Kurtzman and Eileen Stringer are casting a new one-hour for ABC called Secret Service, which follows the efforts of a young female agent to protect a fictional U.S. Senator and presidential candidate named Nicholas Taylor, described in the Breakdown as an “attractive man in his mid-40s… a ‘Bobby Kennedy for the new millennium.’ ”

One wonders, though not too much, whether the Bush dynasty will ever reach a similar point of pop-culture ubiquity.

No Bending

We’ve seen many pilots listed as untitled, but we’ve seen few listed simply as “development, 2003-2004 pilot season.” Such was the case with the cryptically headlined “CWM Development” Breakdown last week. Apparently this was a top-secret new series at Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, being cast by Rick Pagano and Debi Manwiller. The wraps are off for this role, though, and it’s the lead: a 15-year-old East Indian girl with great comic chops.

Not an easy order, admitted casting associate Janet Farris, which is why she was happy to talk about it and get the word out.

“I’m looking for an East Indian or Pakistani girl who can carry a show,” said Farris. “She’s got to be cute, funny, hip.” And she’s the linchpin of the series: There are also roles for her father and grandmother, but, said Farris, “I’m not concentrating on them right now, because they’re a moot point if we can’t find the girl.”

It’s set in the U.S.—and no, it’s not spun off the sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham—but Farris said she’s casting her net across borders. “The pool here isn’t very large,” she admitted, “so we might have to move into London.” She has contacted the Bend It CD and has been in touch with talent in Bombay’s bustling film industry. She said it doesn’t matter at this point if the actress is South or North Indian—“She can be from Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay”—but that she definitely can’t use submissions she’s received from Filipinos and Persians.

Also in the hard-to-cast file: ABC’s new Parent Trap, about identical twin girls reunited after being raised separately. The original Breakdown listed them as 11-15; a more recent one, from the casting office of Sheryl Levine, updated the age to 15-18 and mentioned that they could either be “identical… or fraternal twins who look identical.”

As Camelot and Parent Trap prove, sometimes looks are everything in this business. And sometimes, as the words from CDs for Mr. Ed and Desperate Housewives prove, talent is everything. Can actors get by with just one or the other? Not for long.

NOTE: I’ve received a number of emails from actors seeking advice about pilot season, training, etc. My email service is sporadic at present, and I’m not exactly an advice columnist, but I will try to get to your questions in future columns. Keep them coming—and good luck out there.