The original Turkish version of Runner

ABC has been busy this pilot season, picking up five dramas, including crime dramas from both sides of the law, a Biblical epic, and a “dramedy”—which isn’t a real word, and we refuse to find out what it means.


First, the good guys: Quantico is about a group of “young, sexy” FBI recruits being trained in the titular town, which contains the bureau’s real-life training center. The official description says “one of the recruits turns out to be a terrorist [who] created the most severe terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.” It’s nice to know that the FBI’s background check is limited to determining youth and sexiness, and not, for example, “are you a terrorist (Y/N)?”

Now the bad guys: Runner was originally developed by Fox, and is based on a Turkish series called Son. In the update, a woman learns her husband is an arms dealer and gets sucked into the seamy underbelly of weapons trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico. Presumably, she gets stuck at the Mexican border in a long line behind all of the other drug traffickers and human traffickers out there, and shenanigans ensue.


More bad guys in L.A. Crime, which explores a gritty, dangerous world that has run out of titles for TV shows. The series will be a true-crime procedural in which each season focuses on a different real-life crime in a different era of Los Angeles’ history. Season one involves the search for a “Bonnie & Clyde-esque” duo of serial killers operating on the Sunset Strip in the 1980s. Weirdly, that seems like the sort of true story we should have heard about before now, because—at the very least—it would’ve made the perfect Guns N’ Roses song.

Since nothing’s hotter right now than adapting books that have been in the public domain for 6,000 years, the writers of Exodus: Gods And Kings have begat Of Kings And Prophets, a Biblical saga that follows “a battle-weary king, a powerful and resentful prophet, and a resourceful young shepherd.” We just hope the series explores how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego managed to acquire more suits than Jacoby and Meyers.


Finally, Mix, a comedy-drama from remorseless TV-show-developing-machine Rashida Jones. The show centers on a sprawling, multiethnic family as it tries to keep its restaurant afloat, and it will be written by Private Practice’s Jennifer Cecil (but not Jones, who’s busy co-writing Toy Story 4). On the surface, ABC seems to be shamelessly following the other broadcast networks by trying to replicate ABC’s success with Modern Family. If anyone can imitate ABC successfully, ABC just might be the network to do it.