Jennifer Weiner encourages fans to petition ABC to pick up pilot

Could author Jennifer Weiner bring us the next Ally McBeal? (Only, as she notes on her blog, with “no starving cast members.”) If her devoted following has anything to do with it, she might.

The Best Friends Forever author has taken to her popular blog to encourage fans to petition ABC to pick up her pilot. And right about now, I’d bet Weiner is now dancing like a McBeal baby: Over 1,000 folks — and counting — have signed it since 9 a.m.

So what have they signed up for? On Friday, Weiner informed her followers that she was working on jumpstarting a series called Jane and Dick, which is “about a smart, funny female attorney who’s turned her father’s law firm into a version of career Utopia — an all-female, kid-friendly law firm where the formerly mommy-tracked lawyers can have it all…Into this paradise comes the man she’s secretly loved since she was an awkward, insecure fourteen-year-old — her beautiful big sister’s old boyfriend Dick. Now a cutthroat litigator with an active social life, Dick’s been hired by Jane’s Dad to bring a little balance into the firm.” Weiner even boasts a co-writer, Michael Reisz, who has written for Boston Legal.

To me, this series sounds like a lock going into pilot season. (The Deep End got picked up, right?) And Weiner’s plenty smart to use grassroots support to back her pilot — even if her name alone would seem enough to guarantee success. After all, this is the same woman who has penned best-seller after best-seller, right?

Does this seem like something you’d want to watch, Shelf Lifers?