Is ABC Shielding Us by Shelving Weird Desk?

Steve Barton   |  

Dec 12, 2012

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Just a few days ago we brought you news of a new “X-Files”-ish ABC summer series titled “Weird Desk”. A week ago the network gave the supernatural series a 13-episode straight-to-series order. A week later it’s straight to oblivion, and some Marvel superheroes could be the reason why.

Deadline broke the story that ABC has decided to put the paranormal procedural program “Weird Desk” on what may very well be permanent hold. Plans to rush the series into production for a summer launch date have been scrapped and “its status will be revisited after pilot season”, which sure sounds like a polite way of saying “maybe later, but don’t hold your breath.” The difficulty and cost of getting the show into production in time for summer looks to have been the deciding factor to put the series in turnaround.

Or… Deadline tossed out a tidbit that “Weird Desk” may have fallen victim to concern on the part of Marvel and some at ABC (whose parent company is Disney, which also owns Marvel) that the show’s concept – a top secret intelligence unit working well above that of the CIA, NSA, and even the President of the United States tasked with investigating matters of the paranormal – may have been too similar to the premise of the upcoming ABC program “S.H.I.E.L.D.” being spun-off from Marvel’s mega hit The Avengers. Given its ties to the billion dollar Marvel movie franchises and that the pilot is being penned by none other than The Avengers’ writer-director Joss Whedon himself, you can imagine that the “S.H.I.E.L.D.” show is of much higher priority to ABC than a low-budget, Canadian-produced, summer replacement series.

Will “Weird Desk” ever make it to the airwave? Weirder things have happened.

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