ABC in talks with creator about telefilm

NEW YORK -- ABC pulled the plug on "Commander In Chief" earlier this month, and after the final three episodes run in June, the show won't be back. At least not in its current form.

Although the show remains cancelled, ABC chief Steve McPherson says the network is in discussions with its creator, Rod Lurie, about filming a two-hour movie that would revisit the nation's first female president (Geena Davis).

"It's a fantastic story that Rod has in mind, and there's still a really dedicated audience for the show," McPherson says. "It would give Rod a chance to tell a lot of stuff he didn't get the opportunity to tell and give us another look at it in a reconfigured form."

The project is not a done deal yet; McPherson says he'll continue discussions with Lurie over the summer. Should the project go, McPherson says it may also gauge whether "maybe there's some life after that, pending how we execute it."

"Commander In Chief's" fall from top new show of the season to one-and-done cancellation is well-chronicled. McPherson calls the decline a "frustration."

"Television is a game of execution, and Rod, at the beginning there, just got overwhelmed in terms of executing the show week to week," McPherson says. "Steven Bochco was brought in by the studio [Touchstone TV, a Disney sibling of ABC], and just creatively, the show didn't build to where it needed to be. ...

"It's a frustration when a show doesn't get executed up to the promise of the pilot, and that's always the challenge. That one didn't get executed well."