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Kat Dennings is eyeing a return to broadcast television. The 2 Broke Girls star has been cast opposite fellow sitcom vet Tim Allen in the ABC comedy pilot Shifting Gears, Deadline reports.
As previously reported, the network responsible for Home Improvement and Last Man Standing is behind Shifting Gears. The potential multi-cam centers on Allen’s Matt, “the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop,” according to the official logline. “When Matt’s estranged daughter and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.”
Dennings, who will also serve as a producer, has been cast as the aforementioned daughter, Riley. Per Deadline, Riley “butted heads with her father growing up and left to marry the boyfriend he hated. Now divorced, Riley’s forced to move back home with two kids, hoping she and her dad can make it work this time.”
Duncanville creators Mike and Julie Scully are writing the pilot and executive-producing alongside Allen and Last Man Standing EPs Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Richard Baker and Rick Messina. If it moves forward, Shifting Gears would air during the 2024-25 TV season.
Dennings is best known for her starring role as Max Black on the CBS comedy 2 Broke Girls, which wrapped its six-season run in 2017. She went on to headline the short-lived Hulu series Dollface, which ended in February 2022.
Earlier in her career, she played daughter to another famous ’90s sitcom dad, starring opposite the late Bob Saget in the short-lived WB comedy Raising Dad (which also featured a young Brie Larson).
Allen, meanwhile, is best known for his breakout role as Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on ABC’s Home Improvement, which ran for eight seasons and ended in 1999. That was followed by Last Man Standing, which ran for a combined nine seasons across ABC and Fox, and ended in 2021.
More recently, Allen reprised his big-screen role as Scott Calvin in the Disney+ sequel series The Santa Clauses, which thus far has aired two seasons. There’s been no decision on a potential Season 3 renewal, though the earliest it is expected to return is 2025.
Should Shifting Gears receive a series order, Allen will be able to do both shows; Shifting Gears and The Santa Clauses are produced by the same studio, 20th Television.
Ugh, I’m really torn on this one… LOVE Kat Dennings! Tim Allen? Not so much.
Totally agree. Tim Allen isn’t funny and just recycles what he’s done before into the same, tired schtick. Kat Dennings deserves better.
Nobody forced Kat Dennings to take this project so she must like it
LOL.
.
Or she has bills to pay.
.
Or do you think everyone loves their job?
In the case of actors, yes, they generally do love acting. You have to to keep putting up with the audition process. If you hate it or are only interested in the money, then you’re not going to be sticking with it because it takes time to get to be more than a background actor.
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People who make comments like yours really don’t know much about what it takes to be an actor for a career.
It’s fair to say your response was really very far off the mark. You entirely missed the point and engaged in a totally different conversation with yourself.
You can love playing guitar but hate playing in the band you are in. You can love being an accountant but hate your current job.
Good choice. KD is a good actress.
Do we know if this is single camera or multi-cam?
Multi-cam!
Who cares? There is literally no difference. If the show is funny that is all that matters.
So… Big Bang and Young Sheldon look and sound and feel the same to you? And even if they do to you, to a lot of people they don’t… there’s definitely a lot of differences 😂
I bet their fantastic snarkiness will def complement each other. I’d watch it.
Nice, excited about this project! But dang, I feel old now in my 30s, I do fondly remember Raising Dad watching The WB back in my teens! With this, Reba, and Joshua Jackson coming to broadcast, there seems to be a throwback theme going on! The legacy of “The Frog” lives on!
Now there just needs to be an announcement of Sarah Michelle Gellar having another series, since Wolf Pack folded.
they both have the same birthday june 13th
God, how many times can they do a variation of this tired premise? At least one more, I guess. I, too, remember Kat from Raising Dad and I do think she’s an appealing actress but this is probably a pass for me.
It will be fun to see Kat playing a mother to teenagers after watching her practically play a teenager on 2 Broke Girls!
Tim Allen always makes me giggle
Two Broke Girls was one of my all time favorite shows. Everybody was funny!!
Oh Kat, honey, no! You deserve so much better than hitching your wagon to Tim Allen. The man is a pox.
They’re equally terrible actors, so i think this will be a hit with the CBS audience.
CBS????
Um this is abc and she has also been working with Disney as Darcy in the Thor movies Wanda vision and then recently reprised the role in season 2 of marvel’s what if in what if happy hogan saved avengers tower
Actually I know Cat Denngins from the Thor movies, which how she got her gig on Two Broke Girls.
You mention Brie Larson but breathe no word of Kat’s Marvel work (which I’m guessing more people know her from than 2 Broke Girls), including her significant role in WandaVision?
This is a TELEVISION news site, and NO people would NOT know her more for a supporting role in a few movies than a co-lead role in her a long-running TV show.
Can’t think of anything that could make me watch this.
Yikes. Isn’t Tim Allen supposed to be a huge jerk on set?
I liked So Help Me Todd, but it seems the story line is a little foggy right now.
I hate that this is Young Sheldon’s last season.
I’m glad Flower is back on Ghosts. I like this show.
Anything with Tim Allen in it will be GREAT! Looking forward to watching it!