'B.J. Fletcher' Inks TV Development Deal

The creative team behind Bee Charmer Productions‘ B.J. Fletcher: Private Eye, an online show about a witty, self-identified lesbian P.I. who gets tangled up in all kinds of relationship issues, announced a deal with Matter of Fact Media to develop a proposal for the web series to be brought to broadcast television.

Matter of Fact Media, based out of Toronto, Canada, is a production company that usually specializes in mostly factual and documentary-type programming. The deal seems like an attempt by MoFM to diversify their entertainment portfolio with episodic, fictional content.

The series stars Lindy Zucker as B.J. Fletcher, a private investigator looking for excitement who recruits her best friend, Georgia Drew (Dana Puddicombe), to become her assistant on a quest to solve some less-than-ordinary cases. Rochelle Dancel, one of the show’s producers, said in an email with us that the Private Eye team will benefit from the company’s experience in broadcast television.

“We have taken the show as far as we can go, so we are looking forward to learning from, and being mentored by, our new team at MoFM,” said Dancel.

Regan Latimer, creator, writer, and producer of Private Eye, will work with MoFM to write a pilot based on the characters of the web series. The length of series will also switch up from 8-12 minute episodes to the typical 22-minutes called for broadcast television. Still, if the pilot takes off in Canada, will it be viewable in the U.S.?

“Our new pilot script will form part of the package that we will be pitching to broadcasters. If they like it, they’ll fund a pilot, and it will be up to them as to whether or not it is made available in the US. We very much hope it is, as a recent survey that we conducted of our viewers found that over 40% of them live in the US,” said Dancel.

But U.S. viewers need not worry for the moment. According to the Private Eye blog, those who put the web series together will continue to create content for the show’s website and blog during “the development period.”

“It is still very early on in the development of the show in what will be its new format. We will be blogging about each stage as it happens on our website,” said Dancel.

The web series, which has been chugging along for two seasons and is produced in Toronto, has its roots in a contest for AfterEllen.com. Latimer entered the site’s Web Series 2008 contest and won the big prize, a special spot to showcase the series on the GLBT site. Since its launch, the show has developed a strong fan-base with more than 10,000 regular viewers, Dancel said, and can be found both on Dailymotion and AfterEllen.com.

Photos by Jonathan Thomas.