NBC Ordered A Whole Series Of J. Lo

She’s a singer, a clothing designer, an entrepreneur, a scent-maker (remember her perfume Glo?), a dancer, and let us not forget that she’s also an actress. The networks are confirming that, too, as Jennifer Lopez is set to star in a straight-to-series show for NBC. The channel ordered 13 episodes of the new series, Shades of Blue, which means the channel is thoroughly invested in the project.

The series will star the multi-talented Lopez as Harlee McCord, a single mother who pays her bills as a cop. Harlee gets recruited to work undercover for the FBI’s anti-corruption team, and bad luck strikes her when she gets compromised by her otherwise close-knit cop team. She ultimately has to test her moral compass (and mother her daughter, no less) while working against her team to save herself. Sounds dramatic and worthy of 13 episodes!

Adi Hasak, the writer behind 3 Days To Kill, will pen the show's script while also serving as one of the show’s many executive producers, who include Ryan Seacrest and Lopez herself. The show will begin production in 2015, and it will air in fall 2015 for the 2015-16 season, so if you're getting really amped about this already, you'll have to sit tight for a year and a half til you get your J. Lo-on-the-small-screen fix.

The project is already getting ample support, and the folks at NBC are thrilled to have Lopez back in action on the screen. Jennifer Salke, NBC’s entertainment president, has said:

“Whether it’s producing, acting, singing or any of her other many entrepreneurial activities, Jennifer is an extraordinary talent and life force, and we’re delighted to be in business with her and Adi Hasak on this sophisticated show [...] we’re especially excited that Jennifer is returning to her acting roots from such great movies as Out of Sight, and we know that she will create this complicated character in a vivid way that will breathe new life into the cop show genre."

Certainly a change of pace from Monster-In-Law and Gigli, right? The woman is mega-talented, so good for her for landing a project that sounds worthy of her chops.

Shades of Blue is actually part of a growing trend in network television, in that straight-to-series orders are becoming increasingly popular. While it's true that they’re a bigger investment, in that an entire season must be filmed as opposed to a single pilot, it remains one of the few ways that network television can compete with Netflix. It's a good concept, but you can’t binge watch new network shows in bed like you can with House of Cards. Still, knowing an entire season is coming is an easy way to get an audience hooked and committed to watching the entirety of the season, and it sounds like that’s what NBC is aiming to do with this new series.