Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Tagline Television, the six-year-old production company behind Psych, has signed a first-look deal with Universal Cable Prods., the studio that produces the veteran USA Network dramedy.

Tagline already has 2 other hourlong projects set up at UCP, Faerborne and Under. Faerborne, from writer Andrew Robinson, is for sibling cable network Syfy. It centers on a young Seattle businessman whose life is turned upside down when he learns that he is a “Changeling” –  a fairy left to be raised by humans – and must be trained to fight goblins and other mythical creatures that live among us in disguise. The Kevin O’Hare-written Under, which is yet to be set up at a network, centers on a talented young doctor  who discovers that his gambling father had his college financed by the Mob and is forced to moonlight for the mafia as their “on call doctor.”

Psych creator Steve Franks is behind a new hourlong project about a duo helping a local police department, this time for A&E. Titled Tropical Fox, the project, which Franks is co-writing with Kell Cahoon, centers on a brilliant British detective who goes rogue to track a wanted criminal in Hawaii and ends up forming an unlikely partnership with a local cop on the sleepy side of Oahu to aid the Honolulu Police Department.

Over at Cartoon Network, the company has set up Citizen’s Arrest, a half-hour live-action comedy from writer Jason Ward about a sixteen-year-old boy who acts out his dream of being a cop by using the Citizen’s Arrest rule that allows him to make arrests when felony is involved to fight crime.

On the broadcast side, Tagline kicked off the pilot pickup season with an early order for Christopher Moynihan’s comedy Man Up at ABC. It stems from 100 Questions creator Moynihan’s two-script deal at ABC Studios. Under the pact, Moynihan has another comedy project in contention at ABC, The McLoughlins, which centers on a hard-working blue-collar family that moves into a privileged, upscale neighborhood to give their kids chance at a better life. Tagline TV was founded in 2005 by Thruline Entertainment principals Chris Henze, J.B. Roberts, Ron West, William Mercer who tapped Kelly Kulchak to run it.

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