Fox Orders New Show From ‘Last Man Standing’ Producers to Pilot

Fox has ordered a pilot for a new comedy series from two of the executive producers of Last Man Standing, the cancelled Tim Allen sitcom that so many fans have been mourning.

The new pilot is titled Dan the Weatherman, according to Variety. It follows a meteorologist as he gets fired from his all-too comfortable job at the local TV station. Once he’s back in the job market, Dan discovers that it’s no longer enough to be a charming white man in this world. He reluctantly accepts a job at the local Spanish-language TV station.

Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements, both of whom worked on Last Man Standing, will executive produce Dan the Weatherman through their company, Tomorrow Studios. In addition to the controversial sitcom that was cancelled early in 2017, the two have long resumes in Hollywood.

Since they teamed up, the two of them have worked on Cristella, Aquarius and Prison Break. They’re also in pre-production for a TV series adaption of Snowpiercer, which is expected some time in 2018 on TNT. Tomorrow Studios has also announced a TV series titled Trump: It Happened Here, though few details have been made public about the project so far.

Adelstein and Clements are collaborating with Steve Dildarian, who will write and executive produce the pilot. Dildarian is best known for creating HBO‘s animated series The Life and Times of Tim. He also did the voice of the main character on the show.

Dan the Weatherman is one of only two single-camera comedies ordered by Fox this season — the other being Our People, by creators Vali Chandrasekaran and Lee Daniels. Our People, incidentally, boats an equally topical premise. It follows a newly engaged couple comprised of a man from a big African family and woman from a big mid-western family.

Fox appears to be hedging their bets as they attempt to fill the void left by Last Man Standing. The sitcom ran six seasons — a respectable lifespan for any TV comedy, yet fans took its cancellation personally. They saw it as an attack on conservative values, since the main character, Mike Baxter, was a staunch conservative. Petitions cropped up to try and bring the show back, some with close to 15,000 signatures. Petitioners felt that Last Man Standing was one of the few “family-oriented” shows available.

The show’s star, Tim Allen, also perceived the cancellation as a political move. He made so much noise in the entertainment news world that ABC was forced to make a public statement explaining why the show was no longer their most profitable option. So far, there’s no word of Allen having any involvement in Dan the Weatherman.