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Sarah Shahi mediates in 'Facing Kate' for USA

By April MacIntyre Mar 15, 2010, 17:39 GMT

Sarah Shahi - Arrivals - ArcLight Theater - Hollywood, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Characters welcome channel USA announced a new female lead series "Facing Kate" today.

The series stars Sarah Shahi, Michael Trucco, Virginia Williams and Baron Vaughn.

USA Network has announced the pickup of its newest original series in a first-ever co-production between Universal Cable Productions and Universal Networks International. 

Shooting on location in Vancouver, "Kate" will debut with a 90-minute premiere followed by 11 one-hour episodes.

The announcement was made today by Jeff Wachtel, president, original programming, USA Network, and co-head, original content, Universal Cable Productions.

"The combination of Michael's and Sarah's unique talents gives this funny, energetic and iconoclastic law show a completely fresh voice,” said Wachtel.  “We see 'Facing Kate' as the perfect complement to our character-based series line-up."

Background:

The series centers on Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi), a top litigator who became frustrated with the endless bureaucracy and injustice she witnessed on a daily basis and decided to become the ultimate anti-lawyer:  a mediator. 

Using her knowledge of the law, along with intuition and a whatever-it-takes approach to resolving conflict, Kate finds the middle ground for a wide variety of adversaries -- from  Fortune 500 corporations to bitter divorcees.  After the death of her father, she finds herself at odds with her new boss, her stepmother (Virginia Williams) ... and in bed with her ex-husband (Michael Trucco), himself a lawyer in the DA's office.  Helping her keep all of this chaos at bay is her trusted, geek chic assistant Leonardo (Baron Vaughn).