Detroit not thrilled about homicide drama

Landing on ABC's fall schedule, accorded Most Anticipated status - thanks in part to lead Michael Imperioli - "Detroit 1-8-7" has also drawn unanticipated flak. Detroit officials don't like having the city's name linked to standard cop (and gang) code for murder. And as originally conceived, the show about Detroit homicide detectives would have embraced the faux documentary style seen on "The Office" and "Modern Family." Producers Sunday confirmed the doc style was 86'd. The city of Detroit banned doc crews from following cops after a 7-year-old, Aiyana Jones, was killed May 16 while A&E was filming "First 48." Officials were concerned police may have overreacted because of the presence of cameras, and "Detroit oddly became the one city where documentary film crews could not follow the police," said producer Jason Richman. The premise of the show was "immediately undermined at that point." Of the name, "we think it's cool and represents the visual identity of the city - it wasn't meant to mirror [its troubles.] We're sticking with it."

PERRY IS "MR. SUNSHINE." Matthew Perry returns to a network series comedy this fall for the first time since that last little network series comedy went off the air (in 2004.) Since "Friends," Perry was in the NBC dramedy "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," and starred in a couple of films. "You can tell how successful the movies were by my being here," he quipped Sunday, as he introduced the new ABC comedy, "Mr. Sunshine." Perry wrote the pilot - about a manager of a dysfunctional sports arena called "The Sunshine Center," - noting, "my character is selfish because I knew someone for whom that was the case for a long time." And who would that be, Matty? "If you want an answer to that, just pick up any newspaper from 1996, or look on any magazine cover. They say write what you know. It's an interesting road for someone to take to change terrible behavior and become a better guy."

CHIKLIS AS FAMILY MAN. Of his high-concept ABC show, "No Ordinary Family" (about a regular family endowed with superpowers after crashing in the Brazilian jungle on a vacation) Chiklis says, "at its core this is a family drama about a family that is somewhat dysfunctional. . . . I submit that people who aren't interested in sci-fi would be interested because it's innately relatable on a familiar level. This isn't 'Heroes' and it isn't 'The Incredibles.' "

TIERNEY NEWS. Cast late in ABC's Jerry Bruckheimer courtroom drama, "The Whole Truth," Maura Tierney was asked about her battle with breast cancer - which forced her to bow out of "Parenthood:" "I'm healthy."

MEET THE BOSS. Paul Lee is the new president of ABC Entertainment - replacing Steve McPherson, who resigned abruptly last week preceding a report that ABC was investigating sexual harassment charges. But Lee and everyone else associated with the network, from showrunner to the guy who mans the coffee carts at TCA - was told to say nothing about Steve. "I don't want to talk about Steve," Lee said. OK, how about ABC? "It's a great honor [but] I am super unprepared and have been in the job for 36 hours. I apologize if I don't have all the answers." Lee, former head of ABC Family and a veteran BBC executive, added, "I'm certainly going to spend some time getting into the [ABC] brand and figuring out how it lives and breathes." And no plans to change anything that guy named Steve put in place.