HBO has stepped up and will be showing 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.'

In a press release sent by the cable network, in addition to the two-hour film, which will serve as the pilot, HBO has ordered 13 one-hour episodes that will begin filming this summer, with HBO obtaining U.S. and Canadian television and home video rights, and the BBC taking UK television distribution. The Weinstein Company, which controls all other international territories, is planning to take the project to market at MIP in April.

HBO has given the green light to three television pilots: a comedy based on a book about the sexual exploits of a Capitol Hill staffer, a look at post-Katrina New Orleans by the creator of "The Wire," and a drama about Atlantic City in the 1920s.

The premium cable channel announced the pilots at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles on Thursday.

"We've ramped up the volume" of pilots, Michael Lombardo, president of the HBO programming group, said. "We're very much in a 'go' mode."

The first pilot was inspired by "The Washingtonienne," a novel written by Jessica Cutler, a staff assistant to a Senator who blogged about her romantic trysts in 2004. Sarah Jessica Parker is executive producing the half-hour comedy.