How To Survive Without Me just went from pilot to full series at HBO Max, and the streamer wants fifteen episodes of it, the same episode count it used for its Emmy-winning medical drama The Pitt.

The family drama comes from Greg Berlanti, working here with writer Bash Doran and, on story, his husband Robbie Rogers. It stars Ray Romano, Kaley Cuoco and Joshua Jackson, with Rita Wilson playing the family matriarch whose death sets the whole show in motion. Warner Bros. Television produces, and Deadline reports the studio is trying to replicate The Pitt's model in more ways than one: a modest budget, a yearly release rhythm, something closer to the old network schedule than the binge-and-vanish habit streaming trained everyone into.

The project isn't rushing in from nowhere. HBO Max handed it a pilot order back in November, and its odds firmed up in March when California's Tax Commission signed off on tax credits for the production. Deadline reported that the network asked Berlanti for two backup scripts before it would commit to a full pickup, which tells you HBO Max wanted to see the family's story hold up past the first hour before it wrote the cheque.

The show follows the De Angelis family after matriarch Beverly, played by Wilson, dies. According to the official logline carried by Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap alike, the family drifts without her, unsure how to run their lives on their own, until it turns out Beverly left behind one more piece of unfinished business for them to work through together. Julia Schlaepfer, Jack Ball, Kylar Miranda, Julian Grey, Scarlett Abinante, Tommy Dewey, Matthew Kellison, Colette Porch and Ella Rubin round out the family. Daniel Minahan directs and executive produces alongside Berlanti, Doran, Rogers, Sarah Schechter, Leigh London Redman and Ryan O'Connell.

This marks the first series Berlanti and Rogers have created together, and Berlanti didn't hide how personal that felt. "The first show I ever created was a family drama, almost exactly 25 years before this one was picked up," he said in a statement, thanking HBO Max executives and his cast by first name, from Romano to Wilson. "To also co-create it with Bash and my husband, Robbie, and draw from our own families' experiences of love and loss has made the whole show the most personal thing I've worked on in years."

HBO Max's Sarah Aubrey called the cast a "dream" fit for the material, while Warner Bros. Television Group chairman Channing Dungey said the network was "thrilled" to keep working with Berlanti. Trade coverage has already reached for comparisons to Brothers and Sisters and Everwood, both Berlanti shows, and to Six Feet Under, which isn't his but clearly shares DNA with a story built around a family working through grief.

The pickup makes it Berlanti Productions' fourth series sale across platforms in twelve months, after Stillwater at Amazon, Afterlife With Archie at Disney+ and a live-action Scooby-Doo at Netflix. Not every pilot from that HBO Max batch survived, though. American Blue, the other drama pilot the streamer ordered alongside this one, didn't get picked up at HBO Max, and Warner Bros. Television is reportedly still shopping it elsewhere. No premiere date has been set yet for How To Survive Without Me.