Witches and nurses are headed for your television

There's (potentially) good news on the television front this week, as both NBC and ABC have announced that they've picked up two pilots with a significant amount of female characters.

NBC has acquired the pilot Mercy, described as "a drama with comedic elements that revolves around three nurses bound together in friendship by the highs and lows of their personal and professional lives."

I'm not a big fan of medical shows, but if being "bound together in friendship" is anything like hugging a woman with your legs in friendship, then I will definitely tune in.

The script was written by Liz Heldens (Friday Night Lights), who will also be the executive producer on the show. No news on casting or the premiere date yet.

Also, ABC has acquired Eastwick, "loosely" based on the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick (based on the book by John Updike), which starred Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jack Nickolson in The Witches of Eastwick

According to Zap2It.com, the ABC show will follow the basic plot of the film in that it "centers on three women who discover otherworldly abilities when a mysterious man enters their lives." The pilot will be written by Maggie Friedman (Once and Again, Dawson's Creek).

This isn't the first time television executives have attempted to shrink the film down for the small screen. In 1992, NBC picked up the pilot The Witches of Eastwick, which starred Julia Campbell, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Ally Walker.

Then, in 2002, Fox developed the show Eastwick, based on the same film and starring Marcia Cross (Desperate Housewives), Kelly Rutherford (Gossip Girl), and Lori Loughlin (Full House). That version focused on the teenaged sons of the three witches. Yeah, I don't remember it either. Let's hope that ABC's new Eastwick fares better than its television predecessors.

No casting information is available on the show yet, but why not help ABC out with some casting suggestions of our own? When I first saw the subject, I immediately thought of the amazing 1990 film, Witches, starring Anjelica Houston.

Anjelica Houston

In it, she played an all-powerful (and surprisingly sexy) witch who heads up an entire witch convention. She definitely chewed the scenery in that film, so I'm thinking it would be completely appropriate to cast her in the devilish role of "Daryl Van Horne" that (her ex) Jack Nicholson made famous.

A mysterious woman could just as easily enter the three women's lives, right?

So I'm casting Houston as Horne. Who would you cast as the modern television versions of the no-nonsense Alexandra Medford (Cher), the musical and passionate Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon), and the fertile Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer)?