Cbs Postpones Parton Series For New Script

Just two weeks before production was scheduled to get under way on Dolly Parton’s new series, “Heavens to Betsy,” CBS has temporarily called a halt to the project. Shooting has been delayed for at least three weeks until scripts can be rewritten.

Sources close to the series, in which Parton plays a woman who has a near-death experience and returns to her small Southern town determined to do good, on Friday said that production has been rescheduled to begin in mid-September, three weeks after its scheduled Aug. 26 start date.

“It was a group decision on the part of Dolly and Disney and (CBS Entertainment president) Peter Tortorici,” said Dean Valentine, executive vice president of Walt Disney Television. “I think everybody felt that Dolly’s story in the script needed to be beefed up a little more. We just felt the script had one more draft to get through before we felt 100 percent comfortable getting it to the table.”

Other sources, however, speculated that the last-minute shift was a result of diminished enthusiasm at CBS, where Tortorici and his new team - including Executive Vice President Larry Sanitsky and David Himelfarb, vice president of comedy development - inherited the project from former CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky.

“The concept and script were put into development by Sagansky before Sanitsky and Himelfarb arrived and Tortorici took over,” said one production source. “This was originally developed with Sagansky’s fervor and blessing, and the new regime has a very different take.”

“That’s not true,” said a CBS spokeswoman. “We have enormous faith in this project, but we want to do it right, and we’re taking the extra time to make sure that we get the best pilot possible.”

With only three weeks to change the script, it is unclear who will be doing the writing and what will be the status of David Babcock, who wrote the most recent draft of the pilot.

Babcock, who was functioning as a consultant, did not have a title but was effectively serving as executive producer of the pilot. After that, Don Seigel and Jerry Perzigian had been expected to take over the project once it started filming in Orlando, Fla.

“Babcock was only going to stay briefly (with the project) because the show was produced in Florida and he has a large family in Los Angeles and wanted to stay here,” Valentine said. “The idea was that responsibility would devolve to Perzigian and Seigel.”

Now, Valentine said, it is uncertain whether Babcock will write a new draft or whether Disney and Sandollar will turn to another writer.

Valentine said actors Doug Sheehan, Connie Ray, Boyd Gaines and Connie Schulman will remain. He also said production delays would not affect plans to bring the series, which has a six-episode order, on the air as a midseason replacement.