Showtime is developing “The United States of Tara,” a half-hour single-camera comedy from DreamWorks Television that’s based on an original Steven Spielberg idea.
The show will revolve around an ordinary-seeming wife and mother of two teenage kids — who also happens to suffer from dissociative identity (formerly multiple personality) disorder.
Diablo Cody, the feature writer behind Jason Reitman’s upcoming Fox Searchlight film Juno, wrote the pilot script and will executive produce, along with DreamWorks TV’s Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. As is often the case in TV, Spielberg will decide what sort of credit to take later in the development process.
The series will explore how a dysfunctional family, including Tara’s working-class husband, copes with her various personalities, which emerge when she’s under stress.
The pilot episode is expected to show off at least two of Tara’s alter egos, a lascivious teen girl and a macho adult man. More personalities will emerge throughout the life of the series.
