Voices

Forensic Accountant Show Heads to Network TV

Coming to the TV schedule later this year is a new series about a fraud investigator who finds out that her fiancé is trying to defraud her, and she is determined to turn the tables on him before he devastates her forensic accounting career.

The series, called “The Catch,” is set to debut on ABC TV for the 2015-2016 TV season, so it will probably premiere sometime this fall. According to an article on the New York State Society of CPAs’ site, the show could turn out to be the CPA version of “Grey’s Anatomy,” as it was made by the same producer, Shonda Rimes of Shondaland.

Mireille Enos, who starred in HBO’s “Big Love” and AMC’s “The Killing,” plays Alice Vaughan, a fraud investigator who is considered to be amazing at her job. She gets to say things like, “I can look up what someone does with their money and know what that means.”

A few weeks before her wedding, she uncovers her husband-to-be’s financial deceit when he fails to return home. Checking her banking records online, she learns he has drained her account and is forced to ask herself, “A woman who uncovers fraud for a living gets taken for everything she’s worth?”

However, the creator and executive producer of the series have already departed, citing creative differences with ABC and Shondaland over the future direction of the show, according to Variety. Perhaps Alice will be specializing in tax in future episodes.

Accountants have been getting a higher profile in the media lately, with Ben Affleck set to star in a movie called “The Accountant” next year playing an accountant who moonlights as a hit man (see Ben Affleck Will Star as ‘The Accountant’! What?). Two years ago saw the release of Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Bleeding Edge,” a dazzling detective story about a “defrocked” former certified fraud examiner who uncovers trouble on the Deep Web in a scheme involving dotcom startups, VC investors and terrorists. But we could use more TV series about accountants, and we have some suggestions in our slideshow Accounting TV Shows We'd Like to See.

You can watch a teaser for "The Catch" here in the official trailer, which ABC has posted on YouTube and its own Web site, or you can click on the video below.

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