NBC Orders Pilot Episodes

Canceling The Jay Leno Show opened five hours on NBC's broadcast schedule, and the network has ordered several pilot episodes to be shot to fill the timeslots. New drama projects will include work by J.J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer, David E. Kelly, and David Shore—all of whom have had previous television success. Abrams will direct and produce Undercovers, a Mr. & Mrs. Smith-esque drama about a husband-and-wife pair of CIA agents, and David Shore, along with Steve Carell and the co-creator of House, will make a re-imagining of the 1970s classic The Rockford Files. NBC is also hiring Howie Mandel to replace David Hasselhoff as a judge on America's Got Talent, and dropping another of the network's recent projects, Infront.