Recaps

The Weekly Round-Up for April 5 to 9

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Here are the entertainment news items for this week:

CONDOLENCES

Actor Christopher Cazenove, who briefly appeared in the 80’s drama Dynasty and more recently appeared as the father of Heath Ledger’s character in the box office movie A Knight’s Tale, passed away this week at the age of 64. Condolences are extended to his family, friends and fans.

TV SERIES NEWS

Trauma will wrap its season ahead of time with the finale airing on April 26 at 9 PM. Repeats of Law & Order will fill the gap on May 3 and 10.

Alyssa Milano’s new ABC comedy Romantically Challenged has been postponed to April 19 with a start time of 9:32 PM because of that week’s airing of Dancing With the Stars.

Leverage will be back on TNT on June 20 at 9 PM with a two-hour season premiere while Saving Grace will have its 2-hour final episode the following night (June 21) at 9 PM. The medical drama Hawthorne will be back on June 22 at 9 PM with the Jason Lee-led Memphis Beat debuting that same night (June 22) at 10 PM.

ONLINE SERIES NEWS

The 3-part web series (and backdoor TV pilot) “.comEDY”, an original comedy series from Brian Ford Sullivan (the man behind thefutoncritic.com) will premiere this summer on the web. The ½ hour project revolves around the assorted socially inept workers at a fledgling dot-com in the late 1990s, a time when “tweet” referred to birds, “blog” was a typo and “google” dealt with numbers. The web series will star Jessica Collins (Big Shots), Teddy Sears (Raising the Bar) and Kevin Weisman (Alias), among others.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

HBO has picked up the Laura Dern comedy Enlightened about a self-destructive woman whose spiritual awakening inspires her to try to lead an enlightened life. Nine episodes have been ordered on top of the already produced pilot. The cast also includes Luke Wilson and Diane Ladd.

Showtime has picked up the John Wells drama Shameless, starring Emmy Rossum and William H. Macy for a 12-episode order. The series is based on the long-running British series of the same name that revolves around a working-class Chicago clan dealing with the recession. Allison Janney will appear in the series in a recurring role.

Sharon Lawrence has joined the CBS comedy pilot Hitched, which stars Jack Carpenter and Kristin Kreuk as a twentysomething newlywed couple navigating their new life together. She will play the bride’s mother and Kurtwood Smith will be her husband. Eugene Levy co-stars.

Jason Gedrick (Boomtown) has joined the cast of the HBO series Luck. He will play a racetrack gambling degenerate, starring opposite Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina and Nick Nolte.

Tisha Campbell-Martin (Rita Rocks) has joined the comedy pilot Wright Vs. Wrong, starring Debra Messing as Evelyn Wright, a conservative pundit who happens to be one of the most polarizing figures in America. She will play Gail Donart, Evelyn’s clothes, hair and makeup stylist. Carrie Fisher, Cheryl Hines and Patrick Fugit also star.

Sharon Leal (Private Practice) has joined the cast of the CW drama presentation of Hellcats, which is a set in the world of competitive college cheerleading. She will play Vanessa Hodge, an elegant, striking African-American who is a tough but loving taskmistress and former Hellcat star who now serves as the squad’s coach. Aly Michalka, Ashley Tisdale, Gail O’Grady, Matt Barr and Sofia Vassilieva also star.

Lizzy Caplan (Party Down) has scored a role on the CBS comedy pilot True Love about four people in their 20s in New York looking for love. She will play Connie Grabowski, the cynical, gruff cousin and best friend” to Kate (Minka Kelly from Friday Night Lights), one of the aforementioned quartet. Jason Biggs and Tyler Labine also star.

Jill Hennessey (Crossing Jordan) will guest star in the horseracing drama pilot Luck on HBO, where she will play a veterinarian.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) will star alongside Bradley Cooper in the film Dark Fields, which follows a writer (Cooper) who begins taking a drug that makes him intelligent, only to find that it might kill him. Friel will play his go-getting ex-wife.

Christian Slater, Devon Bostick (Being Erica) and Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy) have joined the movie Sacrifice that is set to star Cuba Gooding, Jr. The film follows a tough undercover cop who inadvertently gets involved in a dangerous heroin ring when a young defector of the drug trade leaves his five year-old sister in the cop’s care. Slater’s cameo role is an unconventional priest with a military history in Afghanistan.

Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) will star in action adventure film Battleship (based on the Hasbro game), which follows a massive Naval adventure across the seas, in the skies and over land as the armed forces of our planet fight for survival against an alien water-bound armada. He will play a wildly spirited Naval commander named Alex Hopper who is much more a sailor than a politician. The movie will be directed by Peter Berg.

Kellan Lutz, Mandy Moore, James Brolin and Jane Seymour will star in the movie Love, Wedding, Marriage (which may be re-titled Keep It Together) to be directed by actor Dermot Mulroney. Lutz and Moore will appear as newlyweds with Moore playing a marriage counselor who spirals a bit out of control after she learns her parents (Brolin and Seymour), whose marriage she always thought was golden, are getting divorced.

Actor Isaiah Mustafa, best known as the guy from the “I’m on a horse” Old Spice commercials, has landed a role in the planned Tyler Perry film adaptation of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which is based on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play. The movie is already set to star Anika Noni Rose, Mariah Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Kerry Washington, Macy Gray, Loretta Devine and Jurnee Smollett.

Maya Rudolph will join fellow Saturday Night Live alum Kristen Wiig in the film Bridesmaids about two women battling to plan their friend’s wedding. Rudolph will play the bride-to-be. Wiig co-wrote the screenplay.

Ashley Greene will join Jennifer Garner in the comedy movie Butter that centers on a group of competitors in a Midwestern town’s annual butter-carving contest. She will play a rebellious high school teenager.

Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) will star in and direct the independent feature Higher Ground based on Carolyn Briggs’ memoir This Dark World, which follows Briggs who became a part of a born-again Christian hippie contingent and later found herself at odds with her faith due to her church’s increasingly dogmatic practices.

Katie Cassidy (Melrose Place), Cory Monteith (Glee) and Andie MacDowell have all joined the comedy movie Monte Carlo, which is based on the Jules Bass novel Headhunters. The story follows three girls visiting Paris where one (Selena Gomez) is mistaken for a spoiled British socialite. They’re soon caught up in a whirlwind of attention and find themselves on a dream vacation in Monte Carlo. Cassidy joins Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) in the roles of the two friends. Monteith plays Cassidy’s football player boyfriend who travels to Europe in pursuit of her. McDowell plays Gomez’s mother.

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIES

Gillian Anderson (The X-Files will appear in British four-part drama called Any Human Heart, based on the William Boyd novel. Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City), Matthew Macfadyen (Pride and Prejudice) and Jim Broadbent also star. Macfadyen and Broadbent both play a novelist whose life ricochets from Paris in the 1920s to 50s New York and London in the 80s.

The Hallmark Channel will debut their new movie You Lucky Dog on June 26 at 9 PM, starring Natasha Henstridge (Eli Stone) as a New York City fashion designer who returns home to her family’s struggling farm. She finds new purpose training a herding dog, and discovering that her four-legged shepherd has the talent to turn an increasingly inhospitable cattle farm into profitable sheep country. Harry Hamlin will play her brother Jim.

Another Hallmark Channel movie, Freshman Father (based on a true story), will debut on June 5 at 9 PM, starring Drew Seeley (High School Musical) and Britt Irvin (Smallville) as a young couple who learn they are going to be parents before their freshman year in college. Annie Potts (Designing Women) and Kim Zimmer (Guiding Light) co-star.

Reid Ewing (Modern Family) has been cast as one of the leads in the upcoming MTV made-for-TV movie The Truth Below.

Mare Winningham has joined the five-hour HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce about a bored housewife (Kate Winslet) who gets into the restaurant business, an enterprise that leads to backstabbing, romance and murder. She’ll play her friend Ida Corwin in the project, which also stars Brian F. O’Byrne, Evan Rachel Wood, Guy Pearce and Melissa Leo.

Diane Lane has been cast in the HBO made-for-TV film Cinema Verite, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the groundbreaking 1973 documentary An American Family. She will play Pat Loud, the mother and main character of the documentary, which chronicled an intimate look at a Santa Barbara family.

CASTING SCOOP

Sources confirm that not only will Alaina Huffman (Stargate Universe) be returning to the world of Smallville but also Michael Shanks, Britt Irvin and Lee Thompson Young will also be back for the season finale set for May 14

Paula Malcolmson (Caprica) will next be seen in the FX series Sons of Anarchy, in an eight-episode arc, playing a character named Maureen. Kenneth Johnson (Saving Grace) will be back in a six-episode arc, reprising his role as the Tacoma chapter’s Kozik, a Sons of Anarchy club member who has some kind of twisted history with Tig (Kim Coates).

Michael Nouri (Damages) will join the cast of All My Children, playing Caleb McGraw, a man who Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) encounters after her airplane crashes into his remote, mountainside home.

Wil Wheaton will make a guest appearance on the July 23rd episode of Eureka, playing the brilliant Dr. Isaac Parrish, head of the Non-Lethal Weapons Lab at Global Dynamics. Parrish’s dry wit and superior attitude make him a thorn in Fargo’s (Neil Grayston) side — with potentially disastrous consequences.

Lauren Bowles will have a major recurring role in True Blood when it returns this summer. She will play Holly, an oddly prescient single mom who gets hired as a waitress at Merlotte’s.

Sara Gilbert will guest star on the TNT medical drama Hawthorne, appearing Malia Price, a pediatric nurse.

Mandy Moore will guest star in the two-hour finale of Grey’s Anatomy, set for May 20, playing a patient being treated by Bailey (Chandra Wilson).

RUMOR PATROL

Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) are being considered for the lead roles in the movie Violet and Daisy, which is described as a Thelma and Louise meets Superbad and Pulp Fiction.

It looks like the 1985 college comedy Real Genius, which starred Val Kilmer as a teenager who joins a think tank of young geniuses building a laser for a class project, may be coming to a movie theatre near you soon.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The following movies, specials and series will debut and/or air this weekend and throughout next week:

The Lifetime movie At Risk will air at Saturday, April 10 at 9 PM. Based on the Patricia Cornwell best-selling crime novel, the story is set around a high-powered and glamorous District Attorney (Andie MacDowell), who seeks to further her political aspirations by solving a decades-old murder. Not convinced of the purity of his boss’ motives, Monique’s colleague, Win Garano (Daniel Sunjata, Rescue Me), grudgingly takes on the assignment. Co-stars include Diahann Carroll, Annabeth Gish (Brotherhood) and Ashley Williams (Good Morning, Miami).

NOTE: This movie will reair on Sunday, April 11 at 9 PM and on Monday, April 12 at 9 PM.

Army Wives will be back for another season on Lifetime starting on Sunday, April 11 at 10 PM.

The Tudors will be back on Showtime for its final season starting at 9 PM on Sunday, April 11.

The new series Treme will debut on HBO at 10 PM on Sunday, April 11. The series is set in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina and stars Wendell Pierce (The Wire), Khandi Alexander (CSI: Miami), Clarke Peters (The Wire), Steve Zahn (Sahara), Kim Dickens (Friday Night Lights), Melissa Leo (Homicide: Life on the Street) and John Goodman (Roseanne).

The ABC Family Channel movie Dr. Doolittle 5: Million Dollar Mutts will premiere on Sunday, April 11 at 8 PM and features Kyla Pratt as Maya Doolittle, who gets showbiz fever after helping a celebrity’s depressed dog.

NOTE: The movie will reair that night at 10 PM.

Glee will be back on FOX with all new episodes starting on Tuesday, April 13. The series will run from 9:28 to 10:30 PM.

NBC is attempting to bring back Friday Family Night with the introduction of their made-for-TV movie (and possible backdoor pilot) Secrets of the Mountain, which will debut on Friday, April 16 at 8 PM. The movie focuses on Dana James (Paige Turco from Big Shots), a public defender and single mother, who takes her family to visit a mountain cabin they inherited from their eccentric Uncle Henry (Barry Bostwick), only to find themselves embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.

Here are the new episodes of the dramas (and a few others) that will be airing this coming week:

Saturday, April 10:
The Guard on ION at 9 and 10 PM

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will air in syndication this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Sunday, April 11:
Brothers & Sisters on ABC at 9 PM (Two-hour special flashback-filled episode)
Cold Case on CBS at 10 PM
Breaking Bad on AMC at 10 PM
The Pacific on HBO at 9 PM

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will air in syndication this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Monday, April 12:
Castle on ABC at 10 PM
CSI: Miami on CBS at 10 PM
Life Unexpected on the CW at 8 PM (Season Finale)
Gossip Girl on the CW at 9 PM
House on FOX at 8 PM
24 on FOX at 9 PM
Trauma on NBC at 9 PM
10 Things I Hate About You on ABC Family at 8 PM
Damages on FX at 10 PM
Saving Grace on TNT at 10 PM

Tuesday, April 13:
Lost on ABC at 9 PM
V on ABC at 10:02 PM
90210 on the CW at 8 PM
Melrose Place on the CW at 9 PM
Parenthood on NBC at 10 PM
Survivors on BBC America at 9 PM
Justified on FX at 10 PM
Law & Order: Criminal Intent on USA at 10 PM

Wednesday, April 14:
Ugly Betty on ABC at 10:01 PM
Criminal Minds on CBS at 9 PM
CSI: NY on CBS at 10 PM
Human Target on FOX at 8 PM (Season Finale)
In Plain Sight on USA at 10 PM

Thursday, April 15:
FlashForward on ABC at 8 PM
CSI on CBS at 9 PM
The Vampire Diaries on the CW at 8 PM
Supernatural on the CW at 9 PM
Bones on FOX at 8 PM
Fringe on FOX at 9 PM

Friday, April 16:
Miami Medical on CBS at 10 PM
Smallville on the CW at 8 PM
Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Starz at 10 PM
Stargate Universe on Syfy at 9 PM
Merlin on Syfy at 10 PM

NOTE: Please check your local listings for the correct air dates and times for all of the above.

Have a great weekend!

Please note that I will feature a weekly round-up of sci-fi based (and similar genres) news items at our sister site located at http://scifitvzone.com/. Please visit there as often as you can. Thanks!

Using her favorite online handle, Rueben is an East Coast-bred gal who is now a permanent Californian and a lifelong tv-oholic. She watches at least 25 TV shows a week, goes to the movies as often as possible, listens to music every waking moment, reads every day and “plays” on the internet every chance she can. Some of her current favorite TV shows are Outlander, Sweet Magnolias, Wednesday, The Mandalorian, The Equalizer, Fire Country, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, The Rookie, Cobra Kai, Virgin River, The Witcher, Leverage: Redemption and School Spirits.  She is looking forward to the season premieres of Hudson & Rex on UPtv and Skymed on Paramount+ as well as the return of fall TV albeit starting in February. Follow her at @ruebenrambling or contact her at rueben@nicegirlstv.com.