Tyler Perry to write, direct and executive produce new drama for TLC
Tyler Perry presents the foreign film award during the 86th Annual Academy Awards on March 2, 2014. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Meredith Blake Contact Reporter
The network that brought the world the Duggars, the Gosselins and Honey Boo Boo is now going into business with Tyler Perry.
In news first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, TLC has ordered eight episodes of a drama to be written, directed and executive produced by the prolific Perry and slated to air in the second half of 2016.
With a working title of "Too Close to Home," the series will follow a young woman whose successful political career is derailed by an affair with a married senator that forces her to return to her "trailer park beginnings."
TLC is the latest cable outlet primarily known for its reality fare to dabble in scripted series, following sister network Discovery Channel, History, National Geographic and A&E, among others.
Though it's best known for unscripted shows about little people, polygamists and psychics with questionable hairdos, TLC may be eager to diversify its programming, particularly coming after a scandal-plagued period in which two of the network's most popular shows, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and "19 Kids and Counting," were canceled amid sexual abuse allegations.
Multihyphenate Perry has been known to work miracles, helping reverse the fortunes of Oprah Winfrey's once-floundering OWN Network with successful shows like "The Haves and the Have Nots" and "If Loving You is Wrong."
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