Even with the service’s continued success in producing new and original programming, Amazon insists on sticking with its trusty Pilot Season model, which is this: every few months, pilot episodes of a handful of prospective series are premiered on Amazon. Viewers get to watch them and vote on what gets taken to series. Generally, this has resulted in some pretty good programming: Transparent, Red Oaks, and Mozart in the City are but a few. Well, the newest slate of pilots has just been announced, and they’re going to premiere June 17.
This season’s offerings are oddly skewed toward children. My impulse says that’s because it’s summer, and kids need TV to watch in summer, but the shows previewed now probably won’t be produced until at least six months from now, so who knows what the motivation is. Anyway, as far as “adult” offerings go, there are two pretty solid ones: The Interestings, based on the Meg Wolitzer book of the same name and starring Lauren Ambrose and David Krumholtz; and The Last Tycoon, an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unpublished last novel that will star Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer. (A film of the same name was released in 1976, starring Robert De Niro and directed by Elia Kazan.)
The kid offerings, which are probably more exciting to children, or people with children, or people who enjoy animals who are also instruments: Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Little Big Awesome, Morris and the Cow, Toasty Tales, The Curious Kitty and Friends, and our personal favorite, Jazz Duck, which stars a duck that is also part saxophone.