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CBS' new series 'Reckless' is getting ready to steam up Sunday nights

Anna Wood and Adam Rodriguez play lovers in CBS' "Reckless."
CBS/Jackson Lee Davis, with permission

Why do people do reckless things? Why have an affair and have it documented -- cell phones reveal so much -- so that somebody else is going to discover your secret and you lose your job and your marriage? This is the subject matter that CBS' new summer drama "Reckless" will be exploring.

Filmed in Charleston, S.C., "Reckless" will follow Yankee litigator Jamie Sawyer (Anna Wood) as she goes toe-to-toe against charming southern attorney Roy Rayer (Cam Gigandet) in the biggest lawsuit of either of their careers: a sexual harassment case against the Charleston Police Department. Unexpectedly, sparks fly and the two are tempted to take their relationship outside the courtroom.

"If they act on their impulse, they will lose everything," says series creator/executive producer Dana Stevens. "I think resistance is so powerful in a show. So many shows have the push and the pull. When are they going to get together? So I felt like, if you had a sex scandal where the two lawyers, who are opposing counsel, are attracted to each other but have to resist, then you get your cake and eat it too."

The woman who hires Jamie to represent her is Lee Ann Marcus (Georgina Haig), who claims she was forced to have sex by fellow officer Terry McCandless (Shawn Hatosy). Of course, the case is way more complicated than that, and it quickly appears as if Jamie's boyfriend Preston Cruz (Adam Rodriguez) might not be the clean, upstanding guy he appears to be, but rather be part of McCandless crew of dirty cops.

Stevens promises the Southern drama will get soapier as the 10-episode season unfurls, and sexier as the characters from Roy, to Lee Ann, to Terry, and Preston, are all in a tangled sexual web.

"Each episode stretches that out more and more and there is a lot of romance, trying to hide scandals, the character of Dec [Gregory Harrison, who plays Roy's ex-father-in-law] has a mistress [Susan Walters] and a wife [Linda Purl] and they both know each other," Stevens adds. "It is a very Southern sort of way of this happening. Everybody knows he has a mistress and a wife, but they all stay in their separate corners."

With a Southern setting, Charleston became the perfect place to film. "Army Wives" had previously shot there, so there were seasoned crew members to be had, but there is also the charm of the city, which still has buildings from the 1700s standing, which is reflected in how people in Charleston live their lives.

"I think I chose Charleston because it is very cosmopolitan," Stevens said. "It is a bigger city than some other Southern cities. It has a port, so it brings a lot of story in internationally. It has a college, it has the beach, it has the swamp. It felt like I would have a lot of story and a lot of visual interest there. It has a lot of personality. I think a lot of people watch TV because they want to be in that world."

If you want to feel "Reckless," tune in when the CBS drama premieres Sunday, June 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.