Matthew Broderick will star in the NBC comedy pilot Beach Lane. That’s worth noting in and of itself, but what makes me actually excited about this one is that it’s created by Paul Simms, the man behind my favorite traditional sitcom Newsradio. He also wrote 18 episodes of The Larry Sanders Show, so yeah, I’m psyched to see whatever he does. Simms has most recently busied himself as a consulting producer on Bored to Death and Flight of the Conchords. On the latter he also wrote two episodes and directed one.
Beach Lane is about a celebrity author (Broderick’s character) hired by an irresponsible millionaire to run a struggling small-town newspaper in the Hamptons. Between the irresponsible millionaire description and being centered around another media organization, maybe it sounds a little too much like Newsradio, but we’ll see. This will similarly be a multicamera sitcom, not a single camera show like The Office or 30 Rock.
Lorne Michaels and his Broadway Video production company will be producing the show.
