Showtime Orders Vanessa Bayer/Molly Shannon Comedy ‘I Love This For You’ to Series; Cybill Shepherd Exits

Showtime has picked up the half-hour comedy series “I Love This For You,” based on former “Saturday Night Live” star Vanessa Bayer‘s own story of overcoming childhood leukemia. Bayer co-created the series and will executive producer and star in it.

Fellow “SNL” alum Molly Shannon will also star, while Cybill Shepherd, who had originally signed on to star opposite Bayer and Shannon, has departed the project. Her role will be recast.

Bayer co-created “I Love This For You” with Jeremy Beiler (“Saturday Night Live,” “Inside Amy Schumer”), who will also executive produce. On board to serve as showrunner and executive produce is Jessi Klein (“Inside Amy Schumer,” “Dead to Me”), along with Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick,” “Wet Hot American Summer”).

“I Love This For You” stars Bayer as Joanna Gold, a woman looking to shed her past cancer identity and dreaming of becoming a host at a home-shopping channel. Joanna moves away from her parents, falls in love and befriends Jackie (played by Shannon), the star of the home shopping channel run by an eccentric billionaire (the role originally slated for Shepherd). The series also stars Paul James (“Soundtrack”), Ayden Mayeri (“Homecoming”), Matt Rogers (“Haute Dog”) and Punam Patel (“Special”).

The comedy, originally titled “Big Deal,” first received a pilot order in November 2019.

”I’m so thrilled to be making this show with Showtime and that all of my hours of home shopping as a kid are finally paying off,” Bayer said in a statement. “It’s been an absolute dream, and my co-creator, Jeremy Beiler, and I are so grateful to the entire creative team we feel so lucky to work with.”

Bayer, Beiler, Showalter and Klein executive produce with Megan Ellison and Sue Naegle of Annapurna, Jordana Mollick of Semi-Formal and Allyce Ozarski.

The pickup was announced by Showtime entertainment presidents Gary Levine and Jana Winograde.

“Vanessa Bayer channels her beloved personality into an underdog part that is both close to her heart and universally relatable,” Winograde said. “Combined with the immense talents of executive producers Jeremy Beiler, Jessi Klein and Michael Showalter and a tremendous cast, Vanessa’s comedic brilliance as a performer, co-creator and executive producer have yielded an offbeat, emotional and laugh-out-loud series that we can’t wait to bring to our Showtime audiences.”