NBC Orders 'Ironside' Drama Pilot With Blair Underwood

Blair Underwood

NBC has picked up to pilot a remake of the 1960s drama Ironside.

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Ironside follows tough, sexy but acerbic police detective Robert T. Ironside, who is relegated to a wheelchair after a shooting. He is hardly limited by his disability as he pushes and prods his handpickeded team to solve the most difficult cases in the city.

Blair Underwood, who toplined NBC's high-profile drama The Event, will star. Underwood's casting stems from a holding deal the two-time Golden Globe nominee signed in September.

The one-hour drama hails from Michael Caleo, who will write and executive produce, with David Semel, Teri Weinberg, John Davis and Jon Fox. Universal TV, David Entertainment and Yellow Brick Road will produce.

The original Ironside detective drama ran on NBC for eight seasons and nearly 200 episodes from 1967-75 with Raymond Burr as the lead.

Ironside's pickup comes on the same day one of Semel's other projects, Intelligence, was picked up to pilot at CBS. Semel (No Ordinary Family) will direct that project, set at a U.S. Cyber Command that focuses on a unit created around an agent with a microchip implanted in his brain, as well as executive produce.

Past TV credits for Underwood include In Treatment, Sex and the City and The New Adventures of Old Christine. He recently starred on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire. Underwood is repped by ICM Partners and Thruline.

E-mail: Philiana.Ng@thr.com
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