Olivia Pope is great and all, but she can't be on TV 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Shondaland has filled our cups to overflowing with no-nonsense heroines who cut through problems like a bunch of corgis through a snow trench.
Now, an upcoming Fox pilot could give us another Pope-like figure. The still-untitled project is from Scandal co-executive producer Judy Smith. Smith herself is the basis for Pope, using experiences from her time as a press aide in George H.W. Bush's administration. The lead fixer will be played by Archie Panjabi, late of The Good Wife. She'll play a character called in to deal with a campus rape scandal.
Deadline, which broke the news of Panjabi's casting, summarizes the show. "It centers on Matt Kincaid (Austin Stowell), the Junior Counsel of a prestigious Illinois university who must deal with an out-of-control scandal when a female student accuses several star football players of sexual assault. He gets to work with Jourdan Price (Panjabi), a crisis management consultant brought in to help with the scandal."
Campus rape is a hot button issue, as high profile cases like Emma Sulkowicz's at Columbia University and the since-recanted Rolling Stone piece put the problem into the national spotlight. So we'll be interested to see how this show is handled, especially if it makes its way to a full-season order.