Transparent creator Jill Soloway working on new MTV comedy series

Fresh on the heels of taking home the Golden Globe for best TV series, musical or comedy, it has been announced that Transparent creator Jill Soloway is currently developing a “feminism comedy” series for MTV along with Upright Citizens Brigade vets Lyle Friedman and Ashley Skidmore.

The news comes via The Hollywood Reporter who describe the show as centering “on two young girls who meet at summer camp and bond over their passion for second-wave feminism. During a wild night in the forest, both girls are struck by lightning and their friendship, power and destiny is fatefully sealed. Now, 10 years later, they romp around town hell-bent on saving all of womankind — if only they could save themselves first.”

The move is a bold (and admirable) one on MTV’s part as the network struggles to find programming success (scripted or unscripted). The network’s once-popular Awkward is currently filming its fifth and final season while Faking It continues to struggle to grow its fan base while finishing the second half of its sophomore season. MTV’s bid to find another hour-long drama to go with their fan-favorite Teen Wolf series has not gone well as their Victoria Justice thriller Eye Candy has pretty much tanked in the ratings with its last two episodes averaging under 575,000 viewers.

The new Jill Soloway project will be joining MTV’s upcoming drama series Scream (based on the popular movie franchise) and Shannara (based on the hugely successful series of fantasy books by Terry Brooks) that are currently in the network’s pipeline.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve extremely excited to see what Soloway, Skidmore and Friedman will do! I don’t know a lot about the UCB duo, but their #HotMessMoves web series is extremely popular and is definitely in my queue now.

As far as Jill Soloway, I’ve been a HUGE fan ever since I listened to her interview with Marc Maron on his WTF podcast. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the frustrated desire for intelligent, non-black-and-white public discourse ever put so earnestly and articulately as she did in that interview. I checked out Transparent immediately upon its release and enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s an incredibly mature and funny show that doesn’t get lazy with ramped-up contrasts, and instead presents an amazing pallet of grays that gives the characters on the show a genuine depth. It will be fun to watch her attempt to capture lightning in a bottle again (almost literally, given the use of lightning in the concept) and give three dimensions to two “second-wave feminists.” 🙂