It’s been nearly 30 years since Meg Ryan had her own show on the small screen. But now she’s back. The star of When Harry Met Sally is set to take the lead in an as-yet-untitled comedy for NBC.
The half-hour, single-camera show was created by Marc Lawrence (Family Ties). Ryan will serve as executive producer alongside Jane Berliner for Universal Television and Lawrence’s Reserve Room Productions.
The last time Ryan was a lead on TV was in 1982, when she co-starred in One of the Boys, a comedy with Mickey Rooney, Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane. In 1985 she appeared on a show called Wildside that was cancelled after a month. More recently she appeared on a number of episodes on Showtime’s Web Therapy.
The new NBC project finds Ryan playing an upbeat single mother who decides to go back to work for a New York publishing house, where long ago she was a well-respected editor, only to find that her new boss, 30-year-old Brenda, is her former intern – and is highly neurotic to boot.
The news of Ryan’s return to show business is welcome news to fans who were disappointed to read an October cover story in People magazine that said that Ryan wanted to stay out of Hollywood to be with her family, which includes her boyfriend John Mellencamp and her 8-year-old daughter, Daisy.
