Nicole Sullivan heads Lifetime comedy

TV's pilot season, such as it is this year, is starting to grind back into gear, with ABC greenlighting a comedy project and former "King of Queens" regular Nicole Sullivan landing the lead on a Lifetime comedy.

NBC has also added to the cast of its comedy "Zip."

The ABC pilot is called "This Might Hurt" and comes from writer-director Jason Winer, the showbiz trade papers report. It takes place at a family medical practice owned by a middle-aged pediatrician, who's at odds with his colleague and son, an internist who wants his dad to shed some of his old-fashioned ways.

The show was originally set up at FOX (and will be produced by 20th Century Fox TV), but the network changed its mind. Winer ("Carpoolers," "The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend") and fellow executive producers Matthew Weinberg Todd Komarnicki put the project back up for sale after the writers' strike ended, and ABC picked it up.

On the casting front, Sullivan has signed on to the title role in "Rita Rocks," a Lifetime comedy about a wife and mother who's in the midst of an identity crisis. Her solution: Start a band with her mail carrier (Tisha Campbell Martin, "My Wife and Kids") and a neighbor. Richard Ruccolo ("Two Guys and a Girl") will play Sullivan's husband.

In addition to her time on "The King of Queens," Sullivan was a regular on "Mad TV" and co-starred in NBC's "Raines" last season. She also had a recurring part on "Scrubs."

NBC, meanwhile, has cast Kay Panabaker ("Summerland," "Phil of the Future") in "Zip," a comedy about a guy (Steven Weber) who runs a series of cons to give his three kids a good life in Beverly Hills. Panabaker will play Weber's jaded oldest daughter.