Obviously pilots are what’s on everyone’s mind these days. I recently spoke to some New York actors who are coming out West soon to perform a play. When I mentioned “pilot season,” they laughed in that condescending way frostbitten (or humidity-drenched) Easterners and Midwesterners do when anyone from L.A. says the word “season.”

Yes, we know: We have heard that in some remote parts of the globe, the word “season” refers to such meteorological phenomena as winter, spring, summer, fall. We in L.A., untroubled by such diversions, instead organize our calendars around certain periods which, though unofficial, are much more reliable than the weather.

There’s awards season, which runs roughly from mid-November through February; pilot season, roughly January to April; hiatus, a nebulous supposed “vacation” time centered more or less around the summer months, though the “fall season”—which naturally refers to the TV schedule, not the changing of the leaves’ color—tends to get rolling as early as late July, depending on the kind of project shooting. (And of course, it’s only a “hiatus” for the unlucky rabble who couldn’t get a movie project to work on.)

I’m not giving away trade secrets when I report that among the TV “names” with pilots in the works are Jennifer Love Hewitt, with a half-hour for ABC, in which she plays a single mom sportscaster (Donna Rosenstein is the casting director); John Goodman, with The Center of the Universe, a half-hour for CBS that, iwht its multi-generational family dynamics, sounds a bit like Everybody Loves Raymond (and which is being cast by Raymond CD Lisa Miller Katz); and Matt LeBlanc, with the inevitable Friends spin-off, Joey, which has the dim-bulb New York actor coming to L.A. to live with his fortysomething sister and her 21-year-old son (Brian Myers is the CD). And though no names are attached, there’s also a spin-off of UPN’s One on One (CDs are Holly Powell and Elizabeth Melcher).

There are, however, some pilots that look more interesting for their subject matter or their casting needs than for the star power attached. I’ve already reported on such groundbreaking programming as a new Mr. Ed, two new Hawaii-set shows, Hawaii Blue and Big Island, the dark comedy Desperate Housewives, the Kennedy Administration-set Camelot (all in my Jan. 16 column), and the unique cooking show Biker Chef (Jan. 31).

One recent Breakdown that caught my eye was for a one-hour called Big Love—not least because that’s the name of an excellent play by Chuck Mee. This isn’t a series based on the play, though it sounds like it will be at least as controversial as anything by Mee: It’s a family drama set in Salt Lake City, Utah, only there’s three families in it. Yes, ladies and gents, this could be the first TV series about an open polygamist of the Mormon persuasion. It’s officially forbidden by the church, of course—not to mention by state and federal laws—but writers Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, who are executive-producing for Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s Playtone, have conceived their lead, middle-aged home-improvement store owner Bill Henderson, to have come from one of the church’s more fundamentalist splinter groups which still countenances what is sometimes delicately called “plural marriage.”

Sounds controversial, indeed—but one measure of how secret the Breakdowns tend to be is that there’s been no public stir about the project. Well, as a journalist, I wouldn’t feel I was doing my job if I weren’t trying to kick up a little dust about it.

I wondered if any Mormons in the industry had contacted Junie Lowry Johnson and Libby Goldstein’s casting office with questions or concerns. Said casting assistant Michelle Levy, “We haven’t heard anything like that.” Does she expect there to be a negative reaction from the church faithful? Yes, she said—but it probably won’t be until the show is ready to air.

“I don’t think it would be something they would like,” she said of the show. “It might be a little bit too true. It’s kind of a dark comedy—not as dark as Six Feet Under,” which Goldstein and Lowry Johnson also cast.

The series lead, she said, “comes from one of the serious, almost culty communities, where the people all live in a compound and the head guy has 18 wives. Obviously [the lead], doesn’t agree with that sort of thing, but he has three wives.”

So would it fair to characterize the tone of the show as not unlike any number of straightforward family dramas, with the twist that Bill Henderson happens to have three families instead of one?

“Exactly,” said Levy. “It’s just normal for them.”

What’s not normal for the CDs is that, in casting three families and a community, they’ll have 18 series regulars. That sounds more like the cast of an Altman film than that of a TV series. Levy said, though, that casting was going well, and that name actors were being considered for the leads.

I guess none of the Osmond brothers will be in the running.

“Blue” Note

Speaking of Hawaii Blue, I noted in my Jan. 16 column the dearth of Hawaiian characters in the two new series. Last week came a kind of redress: Bonnie Zane and Gayle Pillsbury released a Breakdown for a “350-pound Samoan/Hawaiian” to play the “jovial, laidback” partner of the series’ hot young female detective, Linh.

Charisma Gap

I just did a word search through a number of Breakdowns and found that “charisma” and “charismatic” are very popular words for characters. No surprise there, of course.

What was surprising, and a little amusing, was last week’s Breakdown released by casting director Allison Jones for the character of Kevin in NBC’s new pilot spun off the British series The Office. The ethnicity was left open, the age listed as “mid 30s to early 50s.” The main requirement: “He is totally average; no charisma whatsoever; expressionless, fat, thin, doesn't matter—the important quality is the lack of charisma.”

I asked how a casting director, who’s usually on the lookout for camera-busting charm and “presence,” locates such a colorless type? And what kind of submissions does one get for a role described so bleakly?

“Oddly enough, they’re out there,” said casting associate Phyllis Smith with a laugh. “I had a couple of agents call and say, ‘That’s my guy—he’s got no charisma at all.” The key thing she and Jones have looked for is someone who’s “very low-key in energy.”

Smith put down the phone for a second to get a quote from Jones, and reported this: Like beauty, she said, lack of charisma is “in the eye of the beholder. She knows it when she sees it.”

Boys Keep Swinging

With the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow gay marriage, we’re just waiting to see a Breakdown for a gay-marriage reality show pilot—something called, say, Queer Aisle for the Straight Institution.

Until then, we’ll have to settle for wondering about Bravo’s new Straight Dates by Gay Mates. The “mates” part of the title is a little misleading—a spin-off of a UK hit, it’s used in the British sense to mean “pals”—but it’s essentially a matchmaking show. Because, after all, we all know (don’t we?) that gay men don’t just have an eye for décor and fashion; many are also first-class yentas, looking out for their friends, gay and straight, and setting them up on dates.

The Breakdown from casting director Barbara Barna has an underlined note reading: “This show is entirely personality driven. All submissions must include a note from the agent or client proving they're a latter-day Dolly Levy.” See, now, that’s pretty brilliant: The reference to Dolly Levy (a role Carol Channing owned, even if Barbra got the movie role) efficiently leaves behind any number of clueless straights.

And no trying to pass, all you metrosexuals out there who actually get the Hello, Dolly name check. Save your misleadingly sparkling personality for NBC’s Gay, Straight, or Taken? This is essentially The Bachelorette with gay-dar: Our intrepid heroine must sort her way through a bevy of seemingly available men and pick one, hoping he swings her way. Casting director Billy Kemp is seeking attractive, outgoing straight males who are “Ryan Seacrest” types, and attractive, outgoing gay males (no prototype is given, but we’re assuming, given the show’s premise, that it would not be Carson Kressley). We liked this note, though: “DO NOT SUBMIT FOR BOTH MALE ROLES—YOU ARE ONE OR THE OTHER.”

Decisions, decisions.

A Great Role

“It’s strange to have a non-union project everybody’s calling on,” marveled Richard DeLancie, who was recently deluged with submissions for The True Story of Alexander the Great, a History Channel documentary with enough reenacted scenes to call for more than 14 roles.

“I got tons of submissions, probably 600,” said DeLancie, who will soon begin casting the next season of Lifetime’s What Would You Do? The reason, of course, is probably the interest created in the subject by a competing pair of epic films about the Macedonian conqueror: Oliver Stone’s Alexander, for release later this year, with Colin Farrell in the lead, and Baz Luhrmann’s as yet untitled Alexander project, to star a couple of unknowns named Leo and Nicole. DeLancie had many submissions from Greek actors and assorted performers of Mediterranean origin, but the lead has gone to Michael Cardelle, who’s of Cuban descent but, according to DeLancie, looks “just like Alexander.”

The best things about casting the project, said DeLancie, were the educational value—“I learned so much about Alexander,” he said, including details about the leader’s famously bisexual proclivities—and, of course, the snake women.

“We had ladies bring snakes in,” he recalled. Indeed, the Breakdown for Olympias, described as a “belly dancer type,” was quite explicit: “Must bring in her own snake.” It was, um, explicit in another sense: “Has scene making ‘love’ to snake.”

Say what?

“Actually, Greystone Television was going to cut that,” said DeLancie, referring to the film’s producers. “But then they looked at the History Channel’s demographics, 18-35 men, and they said, ‘A hot lady and a snake? We’re putting it in.’ ”

So to speak.

Secrets and Lies

The Breakdowns aren’t just for actors anymore. Recently commercial casting director Sheila Manning was seeking “good baby wranglers.” And the NBC reality show Who Wants To Marry My Dad? sent out a Breakdown a few weeks ago for a Licensed Polygraph Examiner.

Said casting contact Kirsten Valkingburg, “I did get a few submissions from the Breakdown, but the most success we had was getting online to the association for polygraph testers. We called every state. Some were receptive, some were not—we got a lot of ‘click’ when they heard ‘reality TV.’ We’ve not cast anybody yet; we’re looking for the real deal—more of a feeling than a look, not necessarily any particular sex or ethnic origin.”

Valkingburg did let me in on a trade secret of sorts: “In reality, you can only ask a few questions on a polygraph for it to be legit, and being under lights with a camera is not the best circumstance. So we’ll do a polygraph test on camera, but the man would have to do it behind closed doors, as well. What ends up on TV, of course, is just what’s most entertaining.”

Now, ain’t that the truth?