New Orleans Ghost Series in Development

NBC has given a green light to a drama called Nola Rising about crime solvers who interact with ghosts.

Nola Rising, from producer Teri Weinberg (Ugly Betty, Kath & Kim) and writer Diane Ademu-John (Medium, Crossing Jordan), is about the partnership of an unlucky private eye and a charismatic ex-con who allows ghosts to inhabit his body as they solve crimes in New Orleans. (For those who don't know, "Nola" is an abbreviation for New Orleans, Louisiana.)

I'm game for a new supernatural series set in New Orleans--there hasn't been much genre activity there since Heroes abandoned its ho-hum Monica Dawson storyline a year ago. Before that, you go back to--what, Joseph Sisko's restaurant on Deep Space 9? But for some reasons New Orleans-based series are hard to make stick especially since Katrina, as K-Ville amply demonstrated season before last.

The N.O. detective duo premise will also remind people of Chief Wiggum, P. I. ... but maybe in a good way.

Meanwhile, New Orleans bloggers are wondering whether Nola Rising will be shot there--surely the development announcement would have included such an attention-getter if it were?--and if not, why not.