HBO continues to snap up shows in pursuit of the women’s demographic post-Sex and the City. This time, it’s sex and the newly single girl. She’s coming out of a long relationship — but her husband was Jesus.
HBO has picked up a comedy from Simpsons writer Tim Long and starring Molly Shannon. The as-yet-untitled series will star the SNL vet as a nun who leaves the church and hits the singles scene. She entered the convent as an 18-year-old virgin after her heart was broken. (Because this is why nuns enter the church, naturally.)
“It’s James Joyce meets Judd Apatow — a female 40-Year-Old Virgin with a huge dollop of Catholic weirdness thrown in,” Long said.
If anything, it allows for Shannon to mine her Irish Catholic backstory, which she did most hilariously as Mary Katherine Gallagher on SNL. We can only hope that the show will feature some flashbacks of Shannon’s nun character teaching a Gallagher-like schoolgirl.
HBO has been eyeing female-centered comedies left and right. The Molly Shannon/Tim Long project joins the Armando Iannucci-written comedy Veep, which Julia Louis-Dreyfus in talks to star. HBO also is close to picking up Fall/Spring starring Tea Leoni. HBO also shot the comedy pilot Tilda starring Diane Keaton, and the Mike White/Laura Dern comedy series Enlightened premieres next year.
