French game show crosses pond; NBC eats up 'Serial'

Though the 2007-08 season has yet to begin officially, networks are already stocking up on programming for the future.

New acquisitions by ABC and NBC have a Gallic flavor: ABC has picked up the rights to a French game show called "Duel," while the Peacock will take a shot at adapting "Serial Frank," a French-language comedy from Canada.

The American version of "Duel" will be produced by BermanBraun, the production company run by former network heads Gail Berman (FOX) and Lloyd Braun (ABC). Braun's former network has ordered 10 episodes of the show, Variety reports.

The game combines typical quiz-show elements -- players answering trivia questions head-to-head -- with bets and bluffs a la high-stakes poker. Players bet on each question based on how confident they are in their answers; a wrong answer results in elimination, unless the player has bet enough to cover the loss.

"It's a very tension-filled game," Berman tells the trade paper. "You need to have the smarts to answer the questions and you need to have the smarts to know how to bet."

NBC, meanwhile, has given a script commitment to "Serial Frank," based on a French-Canadian show about a young man who's forced to deal with physical manifestations of the various aspects of his personality -- which only he can see. The show has won critical acclaim in Canada and is nominated for seven French-language Gemini Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmys.

Mark O'Keefe ("Bruce Almighty," "The O'Keefes") will write the pilot script and executive produce with Marc Abrams and Michael Benson ("Entourage"). NBC's sister studio, Universal Media Studios, and NBC boss Ben Silverman's former company, Reveille, are producing along with Abrams and Benson's company Catapult.