Recaps
The Weekly Round-Up for August 30 to September 5
Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:
NEWS
Congrats to all the Emmy Award winners!!!
TELEVISION NEWS
The BBC and Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat have confirmed today that the upcoming 13-episode sixth season of the series will be split into two blocks to air several months apart. The split is the result of a request from Moffat to write a new story arc which involves a big plot twist in the middle of the season. Said twist will serve as a mid-season cliffhanger to be resolved in the second half of the season.
Mariska Hargitay will make a guest appearance on the new fall drama Law & Order: Los Angeles in a crossover episode where she visits Los Angeles on a case about the backlog of untested rape kits.
The new AMC series The Walking Dead hasn’t even aired yet (it is set to debut, fittingly, on October 31) and already the network has given the 6-episode series a second season order. This additional season will be extended to 13 episodes and will start filming in February with an as-yet determined airtime.
NOTE: There was some question raised over the end of this week that the above news item about The Walking Dead was not true so please take this with a grain of salt, as it may not be 100% true.
The HBO half-hour dramedy Hung has been picked up for a third season.
TNT has renewed Memphis Beat for a second season.
In the October 12 crossover episode between One Tree Hill and Life Unexpected, singers-songwriters Sarah McLachlan and Ben Lee will be making special appearances. The episode will have One Tree Hill characters Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) and Mia (Kate Voegele) taking the stage at the Sugar Magnolia music festival hosted by the radio station for which Life Unexpected characters Cate (Shiri Appleby) and Ryan (Kerr Smith) work. Haley and Mia will be part of the opening act for McLachlan and Lee.
Lifetime has passed on the Army Wives spin-off that was to star Brigid Brannagh and Gabrielle Union.
The USA Network has slashed the episodic budget for the new legal drama Facing Kate from twelve to ten episodes and pushed the premiere into early 2011, due to scheduling issues.
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Joan Cusack has joined the cast of the Showtime one-hour drama series Shameless, appearing in all 12 episodes of the new series. She will play the role of Sheila, an agoraphobic Chicago housewife with a sexually active teenage daughter who strikes up a special friendship with William H. Macy’s character, Frank Gallagher. The series is based on the long-running hit UK series and the cast includes Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera), Justin Chatwin (War of the Worlds) and Steve Howey (Reba) [among others].
NBC has ponied up a substantial amount of money to secure a new project from Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica). The project is being described as an adult Harry Potter set in a world ruled not by science but by magic. No other details were immediately available, but the sizable commitment (estimated at around 2 million) made by NBC indicates that they were particularly keen to land this project.
JJ Abrams and Lost executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff are about to shop around a drama spec script written by Sarnoff to the networks about Alcatraz. The project, however, is shrouded in secrecy but it is about the San Francisco Bay Island that once housed some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone.
Paul Scheuring (Prison Break) and McG are working on a pilot for ABC. The project is a private investigator drama called I, PI, which revolves around an investigator who learned everything he ever needed to know about being a P.I. from watching shows like Magnum, P.I. and Simon and Simon while growing up. As a result, he tends to subconsciously emulate those TV shamuses while out on the streets.
Marc Guggenheim (Eli Stone) and Jennifer Robinson have sold a pilot script for an untitled event drama to ABC. The project follows the White House Office of Crisis Management as they tackle one huge global crisis per season with the first season chronicling a crisis with a ticking clock on board the international space station.
Sam Raimi (the director behind the Spider-Man movies) has sold a script for the drama pilot Lancaster about a Scotland Yard copper who joins the LAPD.
MADE FOR TV MOVIE NEWS
A new 4-hour made-for-TV movie Neverland, a prequel to author J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan, will start production soon by Syfy with a cast that includes Rhys Ifans (Pirate Radio, Notting Hill) as James Hook, Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) as Captain Elizabeth Bonny, Bob Hoskins as Smee, Raoul Trujillo (Tin Man) as Holy Man and Charlie Rowe (Pirate Radio) as Peter Pan. The movie is slated to air in 2011.
Here is the premise of the movie: Raised on the streets of turn-of-the century London, orphaned Peter (Rowe) and his pals survive by their fearless wits as cunning young pickpockets. Now, they’ve been rounded up by their mentor Jimmy Hook (Ifans) to snatch a priceless some believe, magical treasure which transports them to another world. Neverland is a realm of white jungles and legendary mysteries of eternal youth, where unknown friends and enemies snatched from time welcome the new travelers with both excitement and trepidation. These groups include a band of 18th century pirates led by the power-mad Elizabeth Bonny (Friel), and the Native American Kaw tribe led by a Holy Man (Trujillo), which has protected the secret of the tree spirits from Bonny and her gang for ages and that has meant war. But as the fight to save this strange and beautiful world becomes vital, Hook, Peter, and the ragamuffin lost boys consider that growing old somewhere in time could be less important than growing up-right here in their new home called Neverland.
Alyssa Milano will star in Lifetime made-for-TV movie called Sundays at Tiffany’s, which is based on the book by James Patterson. She will star opposite Eric Winter (Moonlight and Brothers & Sisters) and will play a “bride-to-be visited by the adult incarnation of her childhood imaginary friend” who “begins to re-examine her life.”
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti have signed on for the next George Clooney directed film Farragut North, adapted by Beau Willimon from his own off-Broadway play, which is based on his own experiences working on the 2004 Howard Dean Presidential campaign. Set in Des Moines, Iowa just before the Democratic caucus, the story revolves around political manipulator Stephen Myers who uses dirty tactics to get his candidate a nomination. Hoffman will play Myers’ boss Paul Zara, while Giamatti will play the campaign manager of the opposing candidate.
Rami Malek (The Pacific, Night at the Museum and 24) has joined the cast of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. He will play Benjamin, a member of the Egyptian coven who stands by the Cullens when they face the Volturi.
Luke Wilson, David Morse (Disturbia) and Riley Keough (The Runaways) have joined the cast of the box office movie Yellow, which is about a young woman with a drug habit and a myriad of other problems. Other cast members include Sienna Miller, Lucy Punch, Ben Foster, Melanie Griffith and Gena Rowlands. Hank Azaria will have a cameo in the movie as well.
Ted Danson and Vinessa Shaw (3:10 to Yuma) have joined Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Kristen Bell and Tim Blake Nelson in the cast of the film Everybody Loves Whales, which is a true story about a small-town reporter (Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Barrymore) who enlist the help of rival superpowers to save three majestic gray whales trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle. Danson will play a win-at-all-costs oilman who has no interest in saving the mammals while Shaw plays a White House staffer who wants the government to help the whales.
Thomas Haden Church, Martin Landau and Ezra Miller (City Island) have joined the cast of The Reasonable Bunch. Few plot details are known, but the indie is supposed to be some sort of wedding comedy which has also already signed Kate Bosworth, Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn and Demi Moore to star.
Australian actress Jessica McNamee (Packed to the Rafters and The Loved Ones) has joined the cast of the romantic drama The Vow, which follows a real-life newlywed New Mexico couple (played by Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum) who get in a car crash. The wife is in a coma, where her husband takes care of her. When she awakes with no memory of her husband, he attempts to win her heart again. McNamee will play Rachel McAdams’ estranged younger sister. Scott Speedman also stars.
John Hawkes (Deadwood), Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), Hugh Dancy (Ella Enchanted) and Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of the Olsen twins) will star in the indie drama Martha Marcy May Marlene, which follows a young woman who goes to live with her older sister after escaping from a cult led by Hawkes’ character.
Paula Patton (Precious) has landed that female lead role in the upcoming Mission: Impossible 4 film that will start Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker).
Monica Bellucci has joined the cast the upcoming comedy movie called Manual Of Love 3, starring as the love interest of Robert De Niro’s American professor character.
Tom Hardy (Inception) has stepped in for Michael Fassbender in the new film adaptation of John le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The movie is to be set in the mid-70’s during the height of the Cold War. Gary Oldman plays a judicious, reserved, middle-aged intelligence expert who is recalled out of forced retirement to hunt down a Soviet mole in the “Circus”, the highest echelons of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Hardy’s character will help Oldman’s character put the pieces of his investigation together. Fassbender is busy with the box office movie X-Men: First Class and cannot participate in this adaptation. Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, David Thewlis and Benedict Cumberatch (who will be seen in the BBC series Sherlock Holmes series) also star in this film.
Olivia Thirlby (Juno) has landed a lead role in the upcoming alien invasion film The Darkest Hour AND has just been cast as Cassandra Anderson in the new adaptation of Judge Dredd, which will star Karl Urban in the lead role.
CASTING SCOOP
Jackson Rathbone (The Twilight Franchise) may have a potentially recurring role on the new fall ABC series No Ordinary Family. He will play Trent Stafford, a high school classmate of Kay Panabaker’s telepathic Daphne. No Ordinary Family debuts September 28.
Debra Monk (NYPD Blue and Grey’s Anatomy) has signed on to Brothers & Sisters as a rival for Sally Field. She will debut in episode five of the new season as Alexandra Kirby. When Nora is offered a job as the host of an Ask Mom radio program, she’ll face some stiff competition from the more experienced and flashy Alexandra.
Lois Smith (True Blood) will guest star on Desperate Housewives in the 5th episode of the new season, as Allison Scavo, who moves in to Lynette and Tom’s home to help son Tom (Doug Savant) get over a unique case of male postpartum depression.
Kevin Sorbo will make a guest appearance on an upcoming episode of Hawaii Five-O.
Eddie Izzard (The Riches) is joining the third season of the Showtime comedy United States of Tara in a major recurring role, playing Tara’s (Toni Collette) brilliant psychology professor who starts as a DID skeptic, but becomes fascinated with Tara as a subject, leading him to explore the condition further. The third season is expected to premiere in 2011.
Gregory Harrison will guest star on CSI: NY in the fifth episode of the new season, as Roland Carson, New York City’s top criminal defense attorney. When a violent heist takes place at Carson’s Manhattan penthouse, the high-priced lawyer must field questions from Mac and his team. The show returns on September 24.
Cybill Shepherd (Moonlighting) and Bruce McGill (Rizzoli & Isles) will guest star as the parents of Julie Benz’s character on the new ABC drama No Ordinary Family. The pilot episode airs on September 28.
Maiara Walsh (Desperate Housewives) will appear as Sarah, a high schooler who likes to party on the October 7 episode of The Vampire Diaries. She has her eyes set on Jeremy and encourages him to party it up at the Lockwood house.
Jack Coleman (Heroes) will play Max Armstrong, described as a wealthy, regal, arrogant, self-important man who becomes the prime suspect in a murder on the October 14 episode of The Mentalist.
Sharon Lawrence (NYPD Blue) will have a multi-episode arc on One Tree Hill playing the never-before-seen mother of Justin (Austin Nichols). She is in town to plan the wedding of her son and Brooke (Sophia Bush). She will first appear in episode 6, which is slated to air at the end of October. The series returns to the CW on September 14.
George Takei (Star Trek) will play himself on the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory. He will appear alongside Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica), who is returning to the series to play Wolowitz’s conscience.
Jennifer Esposito (Samatha Who?) will guest star on several episodes of Blue Bloods, the new drama about a family with deep roots in law enforcement whose cast includes Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg and Bridget Moynahan. Esposito will be featured in several episodes as Wahlberg’s partner in the New York Police Department.
Kevin Rankin (Friday Night Lights) will play the son of a hard line of polygamists on Big Love. No return date has been set for Big Love yet, but the show is expected to premiere on HBO in January.
Stan Lee, the comic book legend, will not only be seen in upcoming episodes of Eureka and The Big Bang Theory, but he will also guest star on the new fall show Nikita, appearing in the October 7 episode.
Mekhi Phifer is out and Monique Gabriela Curnen (The Unusuals) is in at Lie To Me, as The Lightman Group is severing ties with the FBI. Curnen will play a “bent cop” by the name of Woloswky. The series will be back on FOX on November 10.
Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica and Dark Blue) will guest star on a Season 3 episode of Lie to Me this fall, playing Naomi, who’s attracted to Lightman (Tim Roth) despite being frustrated by the inability to hide anything from him. But when she calls on Lightman for protection from a violent ex-boyfriend, it’s Lightman who begins to wonder if her beauty has impaired his lie-detecting skills. Lie to Me wraps its second season on September 13 at 8 PM and it returns for Season 3 on November 10 at 9 PM.
Thomas Calabro (Melrose Place) will guest star on an upcoming episode of CSI: NY, playing a man who is searching with his wife (Helen Slater) for their missing son. Together, they follow clues left for them from a mysterious caller. CSI: NY returns on September 24 at 9 PM.
Nicholas Brendon (Buffy) will guest star in an episode of Private Practice this fall.
RUMOR PATROL
There is talk that Warner Bros. TV is in talks with several writers-producers about adapting the award-winning 1990s comic series “The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman into a feature film. At the top of the list of writers-producers is Eric Kripke (creator of Supernatural). The story of The Sandman follows Dream (aka. Morpheus), the Lord of the dream world who is held captive for seven decades by an occult ritual. Having escaped, his kingdom has fallen into disrepair in his absence and he sets about changing his old ways – hard for a being who has been around for billions of years.
Looks like Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper are teaming up for an as-yet untitled buddy cop action comedy. They are to play two San Francisco cops and friends, whose fathers were once partners on the police force. Things get interesting when they have to bring their fathers out of retirement to help crack a new case.
Dwayne Johnson is in final negotiations to star in the sequel to the box office movie Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D entitled Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (loosely based on the Jules Verne classic). Johnson will play the boyfriend of Sean’s mother (Josh Hutcherson), who is forced to come along on a trip with Sean to find his missing grandfather on a mythical and monstrous island. Three other characters will be introduced and cast in the next few weeks.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
The following new movie will air this weekend and throughout next week:
There will be a marathon of episodes of Leverage on TNT on Sunday, September 5 in preparation for the summer season finale set for 9 PM that night.
Friday Night Lights will be featured on the ABC Family Channel, starting with the pilot episode on Tuesday, September 7 at 6 PM. Check back each night of the work week for the season that started it all.
Sons of Anarchy is back on FX at 10 PM on Tuesday, September 7.
The new CW series Hellcats will debut on Wednesday, September 8 at 9 PM.
Terriers, the new FX series, will premiere on Wednesday, September 8 at 10 PM.
The Vampire Diaries is back for season 2 and the new show Nikita will debut on the CW on September 9 at 8 and 9 PM respectively.
The televised fund-raiser Stand Up to Cancer will air on most of the major networks and some of the cable channels on Friday, September 10 at 8 PM.
Here are the new episodes of the comedies and dramas that will be airing this coming week:
Sunday, September 5:
The Gates on ABC at 10 PM
The Glades on A&E at 10 PM
Rubicon on AMC at 9 PM
Mad Men on AMC at 10 PM
My Boys on TBS at 10 PM
Monday, September 6:
The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family Channel at 8 PM
The Closer on TNT at 9 PM
Rizzoli & Isles on TNT at 10 PM
Tuesday, September 7:
Melissa & Joey on ABC Family Channel at 8 PM
Warehouse 13 on Syfy at 9 PM
White Collar on USA at 9 PM (Finale)
Covert Affairs on USA at 10 PM
Wednesday, September 8:
Psych on USA at 10 PM (Finale)
Dark Blue on TNT at 9 and 10 PM
Thursday, September 9:
Rookie Blue on ABC at 9 PM (Two-Hour Finale)
Friday, September 10:
Eureka on Syfy at 9 PM (Finale)
Haven 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 safe and wonderful holiday weekend!
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