Reba McEntire’s New TV Project Gets Green Light From ABC for Pilot Episode

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Reba McEntire’s new television drama from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry was given the green light by ABC to shoot a pilot of the show.

That means that one episode of the series will be filmed to test whether the series will be picked up. But with Reba in the starring role, they can’t go wrong. The hourlong drama is described as a “Southern Gothic soap opera” set in motion after a suspected act of terrorism happens at a Fourth of July parade in the small town of Oxblood, Ky.

“I play a sheriff in a small town and Marc Cherry is the writer, producer, creator, and I’ve just really enjoyed getting to hang with him and my producers from the Reba show and Malibu Country,” Reba tells Nash Country Daily about the new project.

The Hollywood Reporter states that the drama “revolves around Ruby Adair (Reba), the sheriff of colorful small town Oxblood, Ky., who finds her Red State outlook challenged when a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent is sent to help her solve a horrific crime. Together they form an uneasy alliance as Ruby takes the agent behind the lace curtains of this Southern Gothic community to meet an assortment of bizarre characters, each with a secret of their own.”

After the cancellation of her last sitcom Malibu Country, Reba took some time to focus on her music and is now ready to get back into acting.

“I told Mindy [Schulteis] and Michael [Hanel], my producers, I am ready now to get back into television,” Reba says. “They were thinking a 30-min sitcom and I was too—that’s what I’m used to. So [my producers] shopped it around and said, ‘Can you take some time to come out to L.A?’ So I went out to LA and had a couple of meetings—nothing that was very productive and [my producer] said ‘We have one more.’ I said, ‘Ok, who is it with?’ She said, ‘Marc Cherry.’ I said, ‘Of Desperate Housewives?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Ok,’ so we were going to go over to his house. He sat down and gave us the story of this idea of a TV show—the whole first season. I went ‘Oh my gosh.’ It’s in his head. It’s incredible.”

Fingers crossed that the show gets picked up for a full season and we’ll be seeing Reba on the small screen once again.

Photo courtesy BMLG 

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