ABC Greenlights Thriller Drama 'Mistresses' for Potential Summer 2013 Launch

ABC has ordered Mistresses with an eye towards filling broadcast’s slower summer months.

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The drama, penned by Gilded Lillys scribe KJ Steinberg, is being targeted for summer 2013. The project, which counts Bob Sertner as an executive producer, is being billed as a provocative thrilling drama that finds four women with scandalous romantic lives, caught in storms of excitement and self-discovery, secrecy and betrayal, and at the mercy of the complex relationships they’ve created.

The move to schedule a summer scripted series comes as ABC chief Paul Lee increasingly looks to tweak the broadcast model, just as he’s done with shorter seasons, lower budget projects and international co-productions. This spring’s The Missing was initially designed as both a co-production and a summer run, but the Ashley Judd drama will now bow in the spring.

"We'll play around on the edges," the former cable chief told The Hollywood Reporter of his plans to experiment with the broadcast formula in an interview last fall.

The Mistresses order brings his network's pilot season total to 12 comedies and 13 dramas.

Steinberg, whose other credits include Gossip Girl and The Nine, is repped by WME.

Email: Lacey.Rose@THR.com; Twitter: @LaceyVRose