BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — This isn’t your mom’s — or grandma’s or great-great grandmother’s — “Nancy Drew.”
The CW’s reimagining of the sleuth, created in 1930 by the publisher of the “Hardy Boys” mysteries and popularized in a late 1970s TV series starring Pamela Sue Martin, offers a decidedly modern take on the character in the series premiere (9 p.m. Wednesday, WPCW-TV).
Set in 2019, this Nancy sleeps with an ex-con as she mourns the death of her mother and fights with her lawyer dad (Scott Wolf, “Party of Five”) while working at a Horseshoe Bay, Maine, diner during her gap year between high school and college.
The pilot, which introduces a collection of initially disparate characters connected by a murder mystery, is on-brand for The CW (see also: “Riverdale,” the lead-in for “Nancy Drew”) with a cameo tossed in for nostalgia’s sake (Pamela Sue Martin appears as a psychic).
The new series stars 2018 Carnegie Mellon University drama school grad Kennedy McMann. It’s only her third on-camera role following a “Law & Order: SVU” guest spot and an episode of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Gone” as the kidnap-victim-of-the-week, which she filmed during her time at CMU.
“It was extremely overwhelming but so magical as well,” McMann said of her first on-camera role in “Gone.” “I had always seen myself going into theater … I never knew I would be interested in doing stuff on film really until that point.”
An Arizona native, McMann comes from a “super literary family” — her mother is YA fantasy author Lisa McMann (“The Unwanteds”) — and was long a fan of Nancy Drew, growing up reading the books and playing Nancy Drew-themed computer games. She landed the role on The CW series while working as a nanny for a New York family. The “Nancy Drew” casting director had seen her perform in a CMU actors showcase and had been keeping tabs on her career.
“[He] had her top of mind when we started this process,” said “Nancy Drew” executive producer Stephanie Savage (“The O.C.”). “What Kennedy really brought was just this real sense of confidence and maturity and intelligence when she spoke, when she had scenes with the adults she owned them and owned the words, and you felt like this girl is going to be able to solve a mystery.”
McMann said ‘70s “Nancy Drew” star Martin wrote her a “passing the torch” letter.
“It was quite personal, but it had a lot to do with the industry and standing up for oneself and making your own decisions,” McMann said, “and how to kind of transition into a role like this and the repercussions of that in Hollywood and things like that. It was lovely. It was very thoughtful.”
When McMann landed the role, she purposefully did not reread any of the “Nancy Drew” novels because she was confident in her history with the character and she wanted to dedicate herself to playing this new take on the role.
“There is just a little more risk now, especially, regarding women,” said McMann, who shoots “Nancy Drew” in Vancouver where she and her fiance, fellow CMU drama grad Sam McInerney, live. “She's very prim and proper in the 1930s editions of the books, and we're showing her in a more modern context. … There is just a broader market for a lot riskier material.”
Ms. Savage said this “Nancy Drew” is not designed for 12-year-olds but aimed at The CW’s late-teen and 20-something audience.
“It's less a story of Nancy being washed up as opposed to she suffered a terrible personal tragedy [with the death of her mother] and has kind of lost her way,” said executive producer Josh Schwartz (“Chuck”). “The first season, especially, is about her re-embracing that part of herself and finding herself and kind of being reignited to be the Nancy Drew that we all want her to be.”
Next week’s “Nancy Drew” pilot introduces a murder mystery that initially pulls the characters together and will be explored through the course of the season as well as a town story involving a ghost.
“CW viewers, in particular, really want exciting act‑outs,” said executive producer Melinda Hsu Taylor (“The Gifted,” “Vampire Diaries”). “They really want cliffhangers at the end of every episode. We aim to deliver on both those fronts. And I think that the kind of complexity of the world we live in is something that we want to embrace, that we're very proud to embrace on this version of ‘Nancy Drew.’”
Kept/canceled
Netflix renewed “Stranger Things” for a fourth season.
Showtime renewed its acquired-from-YouTube series “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” for a second season.
Amazon Prime Video renewed “Absentia” for a third season.
TNT renewed “Claws” for a fourth and final season.
BET canceled legal drama “In Contempt” after a single season.
Freeform canceled “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists” after a single low-rated season; ABC canceled “Grand Hotel.”
Netflix announced the upcoming sixth season of “BoJack Horseman,” debuting in two parts on Oct. 25 and Jan. 31, will be its last.
Channel surfing
Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will perform during the “Super Bowl Halftime Show” on Feb. 2. … Christine Baranski (“The Good Fight”) and Cynthia Nixon (“Sex and the City”) will star as sisters in HBO’s 1882-set “The Gilded Age,” a long-gestating series from “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes. … The nationally-distributed Create Channel (available on cable and on WQED’s Channel 13.2 over the air) will air a marathon of six documentaries by Pittsburgh producer Rick Sebak, including “A Few Good Pie Places,” “A Few Great Bakeries,” “Great Old Amusement Parks,” “Breakfast Special,” “Breakfast Special 2: Revenge of the Omelets” and “Sandwiches that You Will Like” (6 a.m.-12 p.m. Saturday and repeating in the same order beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday and at 12 p.m. Sunday).
Tuned In online
Today's TV Q&A column responds to questions about “Chicago P.D.,” programming decisions and “The Split.” This week's Tuned In Journal includes posts on “Almost Family.” Read online-only TV content here.
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook for breaking TV news.
First Published: October 3, 2019, 3:45 p.m.
