'Abby's' shakes up the typical sitcom setting by shooting in the great outdoors

LOS ANGELES - On a chilly hilltop just footsteps away from the suburban idyll of what was once Wisteria Lane on "Desperate Housewives," the NBC sitcom "Abby's" is working into the night.

Or, at least it would like to work, once a lone truck on one of the streets below stops its repeated beeping every time it shifts into reverse.

"Stop," groans someone in the crew, watching as the truck continues executing what sounds like a 10-point turn in front of a production building on one of the streets below. "It's like a drivers ed class," mutters Franco Bario, a co-executive producer on the series.

But this is where the series creators opted to shoot their story of an unlicensed backyard bar, so there are no red lights