The Weekly Round-Up for May 24 to 28

Here are the entertainment news items for this week:

CONDOLENCES

Art Linkletter, who hosted the popular TV shows People Are Funny and House Party in the 1950s and 1960s, passed away this week at the age of 97. Condolences are extended to his family, friends and fans.

Actor Gary Coleman passed away today after he suffered an intracranial hemorrhage from a fall at his home; he was only 42. Condolences are extended to his family, friends and fans.

NEWS

A Paley Center for Media special, counting down the 30 Biggest TV Surprises, will air on June 16 at 8 PM on CBS. This one-and-a-half hour special will be hosted by Jeff Probst (Survivor) and will include moments from I Love Lucy, NCIS, ER, The Sopranos and much more.

TV SERIES NEWS

Glee has been renewed by FOX for a third season before the second season has even aired.

Unaired episodes of the canceled CBS medical drama Three Rivers will be aired, starting on Saturday, June 5 at 8 PM.

The Good Guys will get encore airings on FOX on both Friday, May 28 at 9 PM as well as on Monday, May 31 at 9 PM. The show will start its summer run at 9 PM on Monday, June 7.

The short-lived, canceled FOX drama Past Life will have its remaining episodes aired on May 28, June 4, June 11 and June 18.

The ABC Family Channel has acquired the syndication rights to air all five seasons of Friday Night Lights starting this fall.

The new Canadian series The Bridge will be aired on CBS starting on Saturday, July 10 at 8 PM. The series chronicles a charismatic union leader who is working parallel campaigns in a big city police force – battling criminals on the street and fighting his own bosses, and sometimes corruption in the ranks, to protect his fellow officers. It stars Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica), Paul Popowich (Angela’s Eyes) and Ona Grauer (Stargate SG-1).

The new fall series The Whole Truth on ABC just might be getting Maura Tierney (ER) as the lead actress, taking over for Joely Richardson who dropped out of the project earlier this month. The show is to chronicle the building of a case from the perspective of both the defense and prosecution and co-stars Rob Morrow (Numb3rs).

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar will write the pilot script for the new ABC’s Charlie’s Angels pilot, which may air during mid-season. The pilot is executive produced by (among others) Drew Barrymore.

NOTE: There is more information on Charlie’s Angels in the Rumor Patrol section.

Brett Davern (Desperate Housewives) and Beau Mirchoff (Case 219) have been cast in the MTV drama pilot That Girl, which is about a high school student who becomes the center of attention when she’s involved in an accident that everyone believes was a suicide attempt.

Diane Keaton and Ellen Page will appear in the HBO comedy called Tilda about a powerful and much-feared Hollywood blogger (played by Keaton) and the morally conflicted creative assistant caught between following the corporate culture of the studio she works for and following Tilda (played by Page).

USA has given a script order to the comedy Driven, from Linda Bloodworth and Harry Thomason, which will star Ron White as an unemployed Texan who starts a limousine business.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Kevin Zegers will appear in two independent movies. One, the college drama A Great Education about an ambitious but poor man from Indiana on a Harvard scholarship who begins dating a society girl (Emma Roberts). William Mosely and Ben Kingsley also star. The second movie is called Entitled and he will play the ringleader of a ransom plot with several other college students. Ray Liotta also stars.

CASTING SCOOP

Natasha Henstridge (Eli Stone) will appear in a multi-episode arc on the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva playing the heretofore- unseen partner at Harrison & Parker. Also, Leelee Sobieski has been tapped to guest star as a lab tech who Deb’s mom Bobbi (Sharon Lawrence) takes a special interest in. In addition, Jasmine Guy and Lauren Stamile will appear in an episode slated for August. Guy will play a judge presiding over a case and Stamile is a pharmaceutical rep who sues her employer when she learns she’s being phased out for the company’s younger reps, even though she’s only in her 30s.

Hilarie Burton (One Tree Hill) will appear in a six-episode story arc on the USA Newtork series White Collar, playing Sarah Ellis, a new love interest for Neal (Matthew Bomer).

Gregory Itzin (24) will appear in a multi-episode arch in the new USA Network series Covert Affairs. Eriq La Salle (ER) will also guest star in the series, which stars Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham.

RUMOR PATROL

It looks like ABC may be moving Castle to Wednesdays at 10 PM for repeat episodes over the summer; but the move is supposed to be only temporary. (We shall see).

It appears ABC may be moving forward with several more dramas. The dramas in contention for a possible mid-season airing include:

Edgar Floats, which stars Tom Cavanagh, Robert Patrick, and Alicia Witt;

Charlie’s Angeles, which is based on the 1970’s hit series; but which does not have a cast yet; other details are above in the Development News section;

Behind the Blue, which is produced by Taye Diggs, is a family cop drama set in Austin which follows a family of police officers – a female Chief of Police and her four adult children – all of whom are in some facet of politics and/or law enforcement;

Ghostworld about a ghost on the other side who helps an ambitious young female homicide detective solve crimes in the hopes of uncovering clues to his own life and death;

Island of Women, which revolves around three male surgeons who share office space but nothing of their personal lives with each other until a perfect storm of romantic catastrophes and a lot of alcohol makes them finally turn to each other for support; and,

Department Zero, based on the best-selling Joe Ledger novels, is a high-octane techno-thriller, which centers on the Department of Military Sciences – a special unit that fights enemies armed with cutting-edge technology.

The news is official: ABC will not be picking up the recently defunct Ghost Whisperer despite the rumors that the network might rescue the series from cancellation.

Paula Patton (Just Wright) is in talks to head the wedding-themed comedy movie called Jumping the Broom set around a weekend wedding in Martha’s Vineyard that follows the class struggle between two quite different African-American families.

It looks like CBS may have offered the drama pilot Chaos an eight-episode order for mid-season; but a final decision has yet to be made.

Rumor has it there is talk that ABC just might be looking to reboot the network’s former hit series Alias; but this is speculation at best.

Actor Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is currently the top candidate for the remake of the 80’s classic movie Footloose.

Bruce Willis is in early talks to star in the prison drama movie The Tomb, playing Ray Breslin, a world-famous structural engineer and security expert, who designs escape-proof prisons. He soon finds himself framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed and must find a way to escape and track down the person responsible.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The following shows and specials will air this weekend as well as next week:

If you missed the series finale of Lost last weekend you can watch it on Saturday, May 29 at 8 PM followed by the one-hour Jimmy Kimmel celebration of the show at 10 PM that features a number of the cast in attendance.

A marathon of all of the first season episodes of Drop Dead Diva will air on Lifetime on Sunday, May 30, starting at 10 AM. Check your local listings, though, for run time.

Saving Grace returns for its final episodes on TNT, starting on Monday, May 31 at 10 PM.

Repeat episodes of The Vampire Diaries and repeat episodes of the short-lived CBS series Moonlight will start airing on The CW on Thursday, June 3 at 8 and 9 PM.

Burn Notice and Royal Pains will return for new episodes, starting on Thursday, June 3 at 9 and 10 PM on the USA Network.

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

NOTE: Due to the holiday and the finales of most of the network shows having aired, much of the regular programming will not be seen this weekend or next week.

Tuesday, June 1:
Glee on FOX at 8:59 PM
Justified on FX at 10 PM
Law & Order: Criminal Intent on USA at 10 PM
Ashes to Ashes on BBC America at 10 PM

Wednesday, June 2:
In Plain Sight on USA Network at 10 PM

Friday, June 4:
Friday Night Lights on NBC at 8 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!