The Weekly Round-Up for March 15 to 19

By Rueben | March 19, 2010

Here are the entertainment news items for this week:

CONDOLENCES

The original James Phelps from the 1960’s series Mission: Impossible, Peter Graves, passed away this week at the age of 83 from natural causes.

Actor Fess Parker, who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone in the popular 1950’s TV series also passed away of natural causes at the age 85.

Singer-guitarist Alex Chilton of the bands the Box Tops and Big Star passed away this week at the age of 59.

Condolences are extended to their families, friends and fans.

TV SERIES NEWS

Glee is the word. It seems the show, which has become an international phenomenon, will not only be appearing on Oprah, at the White House and on tour this May but it seems they just might be hitting the Great White Way too. Nothing has been finalized but talk is rampant.

Gregory Itzin will reprise his role of former President Charles Logan on 24 in the April 12 episode.

In more Glee news, it would seem that the show will get 25 episodes next season as opposed to the customary 22 episodes.

The USA Network has picked up the new series Facing Kate, starring Sarah Shahi, Michael Trucco and Virginia Williams. The debut will be 90-minutes long followed by 11 one-hour episodes. The series centers on Kate Reed (Shahi), a top litigator who becomes frustrated with the endless bureaucracy and injustice she witnesses on a daily basis and decides to become the ultimate anti-lawyer: a mediator. After the death of her father, she finds herself at odds with her new boss, her stepmother (Williams). Her ex-husband will be played by Michael Trucco, a lawyer in the DA’s office.

Marsha Thomason has been moved up to series regular on the USA drama White Collar, which returns for its second season this July. Natalie Morales won’t return for the show’s second season, as she will hae a recurring role in Parks & Recreation.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Beau Bridges is set to play the father of Jim Rockford (Dermot Mulroney) in the NBC remake of The Rockford Files. Melissa Sagemiller (Raising the Bar) will also star on the series as a lawyer who Rockford frequently becomes entangled with both personally and professionally.

Jason Clarke (Brotherhood) has landed the lead role in the FOX drama pilot Ride Along, a police procedural set (and filmed) in Chicago.

Skeet Ulrich will appear in the as-yet untitled John Wells medical drama pilot for CBS, which centers on a mobile medical team that travels the U.S. helping those in need get through life-or-death medical crises.

Warren Kole (Mental) has been added to the CW presentation Nomads about a group of nearly broke young backpackers – including Scott Porter – traveling the world, who agree to earn money by working secret missions for the CIA. Michaela McManus (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) has also been cast in this pilot.

Treat Williams has joined and Nia Long (Big Shots) and Goran Visnjic (ER) are expected to appear in the ABC drama pilot Boston’s Finest, which will star Katee Sackhoff as a detective who teams with a disgraced ex-cop to solve crimes and untangle the conspiracy that sent him underground.

Molly Parker (Swingtown) and Dougray Scott (Desperate Housewives) have joined the CBS presentation The Quinn-Tuplets about five adult quintuplets whose entire childhood was documented on TV.

Tom Selleck is in talks to lead and Donnie Wahlberg and Len Cariou (Damages) are set to star in the CBS drama pilot Reagan’s Law about a family of New York cops.

Mia Maestro (Alias) is in talks to replace Roselyn Sanchez in the ABC drama pilot Cutthroat about an upscale Beverly Hills widow and soccer mom who runs an international drug cartel.

Stephen Lang (Avatar) is set to star opposite David Strathairn in the ABC drama pilot Matadors, which is about two of Chicago’s long-feuding families, the Lodaris, which populate the DA’s office, and the Galloways, which run the city’s most influential private law firm.

Colm Feore is expected to star alongside Jeremy Irons in the Showtime drama The Borgias about the infamous Italian Renaissance family.

Carly Pope (Popular) will star alongside Jimmy Smits in the NBC drama pilot Rough Justice about a Supreme Court Justice who excuses himself from the bench to go into private practice and fight constitutional injustices.

Guy Pearce, Evan Rachel Wood, Melissa Leo, James LeGros and Brian F. O’Byrne have joined Kate Winslet in the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce about a wife who separates from her unemployed husband, Bert (O’Byrne), and takes a job as a waitress while struggling to earn her daughter Veda’s (Wood) love during the Great Depression in middle-class Los Angeles.

James Marsters has been cast as the nemesis of Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) in the Hawaii Five-0 pilot for CBS.

Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) has joined the CW drama pilot Hellcats, which focuses on the world of competitive college cheerleading.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Lizzy Caplan (True Blood) has joined the cast of the movie 127 Hours as the sister of the lead character – mountain climber Aron Ralston (James Franco).

Oscar winning composer Michael Giacchino (Star Trek and Up) will do the score the movie John Carter of Mars.

Judy Greer, Beau Bridges and Matthew Lillard have joined the cast of The Descendant based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings about an indifferent attorney (George Clooney) forced to get closer to his daughters after his wife is killed in a boating accident off Oahu, Hawaii.

Amanda Seyfried and Jonathan Rhys Meyers have joined the film adaptation of the Broadway play Albert Nobbs, centered around a luxury hotel in Dublin in the 19th century that will also star Michael Gambon, Orlando Bloom, Janet McTeer and Glenn Close.

Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) will star in the indie drama Puncture about a troubled young lawyer who must tackle his own personal demons while handling a major case against a major healthcare provider.

Paul Bettany and Rufus Sewell will appear in the romantic thriller The Tourist alongside Johnny Depp as an American tourist visiting Italy after a failed romance. He is soon drawn into a web of intrigue by a female Interpol agent (Angelina Jolie) who is attempting to locate a criminal who was once her lover.

Gregory Smith (Everwood) has three upcoming film roles: Dream House with Daniel Craig, which is a psychological thriller about a man who moves his family into what appears to be the perfect home but it turns out to be the scene of the murder of a mother and her two children. Whirligig is about a young man who must return home and live with his parents after hitting rock bottom. And, Conception that follows nine couples who grapple with romance and pregnancy.

Amanda Seyfried will star in The Girl Who Conned the Ivy League, which is based on a Rolling Stone article by Sabrina Rudin Erdely about habitual identity thief Esther Reed who enrolled as a student at Columbia University under the name of a missing girl, Brooke Henson.

Jennifer Lopez is set to star in the remake of the 1987 comedy Overboard about a socialite’s pampered wife who falls off her yacht, developing amnesia and being taken in my a carpenter.

Christopher Gorham (Ugly Betty) will appear in the upcoming movie The Ledge, starring Liv Tyler, Terrence Howard, Patrick Wilson and Charlie Hunnam. The movie is about a man (Hunnam) standing on a high-rise ledge, waiting for the right time to jump. He’ll leap off the building by noon if they don’t manage to convince him to live.

CASTING SCOOP

Marco Sanchez (Dollhouse) will have a recurring role on NCIS starting in May.

Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica) will appear as a new love interest in a multi-episode arch on Castle. He will play a charismatic cop in the homicide division in the final four episodes and could return next fall.

Robert Wisdom (Prison Break) will join the cast of the USA Network series Burn Notice as the latest thorn in Michael’s side. He will play a veteran spy handler who works for the group that burned Michael. Nestor Serrano will also appear in an episode of the series, as a ruthless, ambitious crime boss who runs things in Miami for a New York-based criminal syndicate.

Diane Farr (Rescue Me) will appear in an upcoming episode of Desperate Housewives as a character who interacts with the ladies of Wisteria Lane. The episode is slated to air in late April, but details on her character are available.

Carrie Preston (True Blood) will appear in a multi-episode arch on The Good Wife, playing a member of Peter’s (Chris Noth) legal team.

Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) will guest star in the May 20 episode of Criminal Minds as a detective at the Tallahassee police station.

Louise Lombard will appear on an upcoming episode of the new CBS drama Miami Medical, playing a woman who is rushed to the hospital with her husband Frank (George Newbern) when the balcony of their apartment collapses.

Ashley Scott (Jericho) will guest star in NCIS this May as Dana Hutton, a ZNN reporter who vanishes without a trace.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

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

The Hallmark Channel movie Healing Hands will air on Saturday, March 20 at 9 PM. The movie stars Eddie Cibrian as a janitor with healing powers following a brush with death. Co-stars Lisa Sheridan.

NOTE:  This movie will reair on Sunday, March 21 at 9 PM.

The next installment of the 10-part mini-series The Pacific will air on HBO on Sunday, March 21 at 9 PM.

NOTE:  Check local listings for reair times of this miniseries.

The CBS skating special Thin Ice will air on Sunday, March 21 at 7 PM.

The Disney movie Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars will air on Friday, March 26 at 8 PM and is about Harriet becoming a blogger at her school and wanting to be the official blogger of her class.

NEW EPISODES OF EXISTING SHOWS

Here are the new episodes of the dramas that will be airing this coming week:

Saturday, March 20:
The Guard on ION at 9 and 10 PM
FlashForward on ABC at 8 PM (Two-Hour Return Reairs)

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

Sunday, March 21:
Desperate Housewives on ABC at 9 PM
Cold Case on CBS at 10 PM
Breaking Bad on AMC at 10 PM

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

Monday, March 22:
Castle on ABC at 10:02 PM (Part 1 of 2)
CSI: Miami on CBS at 10 PM
Life Unexpected on the CW at 8 PM
Gossip Girl on the CW at 9 PM
24 on FOX at 9 PM
Chuck on NBC at 8 PM
Trauma on NBC at 9 PM
Law & Order on NBC at 10 PM
The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family at 8 PM
Greek on ABC Family at 10 PM
Damages on FX at 10 PM

Tuesday, March 23:
Lost on ABC at 9 PM
V: The Arrival (Recap Special) on ABC at 10:06 PM
90210 on the CW at 8 PM
Melrose Place on the CW at 9 PM
Parenthood on NBC at 10 PM
Justified on FX at 10 PM
Southland on TNT at 10 PM

Wednesday, March 24:
Ugly Betty on ABC at 10:01 PM
Human Target on FOX at 8 PM
Mercy on NBC at 8 PM
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC at 10 PM
Being Erica on SOAPNet at 10 PM

Thursday, March 25:
FlashForward on ABC at 8 PM
Grey’s Anatomy on ABC at 9 PM
Private Practice on ABC at 10 PM
The Vampire Diaries on the CW at 8 PM
Supernatural on the CW at 9 PM

Friday, March 26:
Caprica on Syfy at 9 PM (Finale)
Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Starz 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!

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