The Weekly Round-Up for February 21 to 25

Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:

TELEVISION NEWS

Syfy has gained the syndication rights to all 31 episodes of the short-lived FOX drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and will begin airing episodes on Thursday, April 7 at 9 PM. Its regular time slot will be Thursdays from 7 to 11 PM (Yes, four episodes in a row!)

Syfy has also announced the return of new episodes of Sanctuary on April 15 at 10 PM and the final 10 episodes of Stargate Universe will begin on March 7 at 10 PM.

The ABC Family Channel has picked up the new drama The Lying Game, based on the novel by author Sara Shepard (Pretty Little Liars), which follows Emma, a kind-hearted foster kid who learns she has an identical twin sister, Sutton. Sutton, unlike Emma, was adopted by wealthy parents and is seemingly living an ideal life. After their initial meeting, Sutton talks Emma into stepping into her life for a few days while she pursues a lead on the mysterious identity of their birth mother. After Sutton inexplicably fails to return to the girls’ designated meeting place, Emma must decide whether to come clean about her identity and risk her own safety in the hope of uncovering her twin sister’s whereabouts, along with the truth about why they were separated in the first place. This new show will star Alexandra Chando (As The World Turns) in the lead role along with Andy Buckley (The Office), Helen Slater (Smallville); Blair Redford (90210); Sharon Pierre-Louis (Lincoln Heights); Kirsten Prout (Kyle XY); Alice Greczyn (Lincoln Heights) and Allie Gonino (10 Things I Hate About You). The network has already picked up the following new shows: The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Switched at Birth and The Great State of Georgia.

Actress Amanda Foreman is set to reprise her role of Katie Kent on Private Practice. As viewers of the show will remember Katie was a mentally unstable pregnant patient who lost her baby and then convinced herself that she could get it back by cutting Violet’s (Amy Brenneman) baby out of her belly in the Season 2 finale. Details on here return are scarce, but Katie will reappear in Episode 19.

Actress Chandra Wilson will helm another episode of Grey’s Anatomy, taking to the director’s chair for the 4th time. She will direct the 20th episode of this current season.

Actor Allan Hyde will return (somehow) to his role of vampire sheriff Godric in the HBO series True Blood despite his character meeting his end at the hands of the rising sun in season 2. No details are available on how Godric will return this season, though.

TBS has cancelled their new hour-long comedy Glory Daze after only one season due to low ratings. The series centered on a group of college freshmen in the 1980s, who all pledge a fraternity, starring Kelly Blatz, Matt Bush, Tim Meadows and Drew Seeley.

Actor James Corden – who is best remembered by fans of Doctor Who as Craig Owens (the “chap” who the Doctor roomed with for a short time in the flat that was snuck beneath a downed but hidden space ship in the DW episode called “The Lodger” – will be returning as that character in the series. He may even get to visit the TARDIS with the Doctor.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Patrick Wilson (Phantom of the Opera) will play the lead in the as-yet-untitled CBS drama pilot by Susannah Grant about Michael Halstead, an ultra-competitive surgeon whose life is changed forever when his ex-wife, Anna Lindberg, dies and begins teaching him what life is all about from the hereafter.

Box office star Ashley Judd is nearing a deal to play the lead role in the ABC drama pilot called Missing that will follow a suburban mother who heads to Europe to find her son who has disappeared while studying abroad in Italy. It turns out that she is a former CIA agent who will stop at nothing to bring him back alive. The 10-episode order will begin filming this Summer for either a fall or mid-season launch.

Actor Jason Isaacs (from the Harry Potter franchise) will star in the lead role in the NBC drama pilot called REM from Lone Star creator Kyle Killen. The show has been described as an Inception-style thriller centering on a cop (Isaacs) who wakes up after an accident to find he is living in two different realities.

Minnie Driver (The Riches) is returning to TV in the CBS pilot called Hail Mary, which is a buddy P.I. show set in Atlanta that focuses on a suburban single mom (Driver) who teams up with a streetwise hustler to solve crimes.

Alan Tudyk (Firefly) has been cast in the ABC comedy pilot called Suburgatory that centers on Tessa (Jane Levy), a teenage girl who is moved by her dad George from Manhattan, where she grew up, to her version of hell: the suburbs. Tudyk will play George’s old college buddy who has been living in the suburbs for years.

Guillermo Diaz (Mercy) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot called In Crisis that is about a professional fixer (Kerry Washington) and her dysfunctional staff. Diaz will play Huck, the firm’s lone paralegal who is also an expert hacker.

Toby Stephens (Vexed) has joined the cast of the NBC drama pilot remake of the British series Prime Suspect that will star Maria Bello in the lead role. Stephens will play Matt Webb, the live-in boyfriend of Bello’s character, Jane Timoney, who is fighting his ex-wife to allow their son to stay with him and Jane.

Actor Silas Weir Mitchell (Prison Break) will join the NBC pilot Grimm, which is being described as a fantastical cop drama in which characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales exist. The story revolves around a cop who starts to see some humans for what they actually are — animals/beasts — and realizes it’s his destiny to protect society from them. Mitchell will play the series’ “lead creature.”

Actress Elizabeth Bogush (The Forgotten and October Road) has joined the A&E drama pilot called Big Mike that is about Mike O’Bannon (Greg Grunberg), a plus-sized detective in a world where plus-sized is a minus. Bogush will play his ex-wife, Caroline Hanson.

Actress Christina Ricci is in talks to join the ABC drama pilot called Pan Am that is a period drama about the pilots and flight attendants of the once-dominant airline set in the 1960s. It is believed she will play Bridget Pierce, a stewardess who volunteers for a unique flight.

Actor Leslie Odom Jr. (Big Day) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot called Poe, which is about the 19th century adventures of Edgar Allan Poe, the world’s very first detective. Odom will play Julian “Jupiter” Noble, a doctor at a free clinic who helps Poe.

Adam Goldberg (The Unusuals) is joining the cast of the Robert DeNiro/CBS drama pilot called Rookies, which is about six NYPD rookies who balance their personal lives with learning the beat on the streets of Manhattan. It is presumed he will play Kenny McCormack one of the sext cops. Leelee Sobieski also stars.

Actor Eamonn Walker (Kings) will play Detective Chief Inspector Wilder Banks in the Ron Moore NBC drama pilot called 17th Precinct. The pilot already includes Jamie Bamber and Stockard Channing.

Actress Michelle Borth (The Forgotten and Hawaii Five-0) has landed the lead role in the upcoming ABC drama called Combat Hospital, playing Major Rebecca Kincaid, a trauma surgeon at the aforementioned hospital who was dumped by her fiancé just before she left for Afghanistan.

Tony-nominee Christian Borle (Legally Blonde: The Musical) has booked the lead role in the NBC pilot called Smash that is a show-within-a-show about a group of people who come together to put on a Broadway musical. He will play Tom, a composer who spearheads the effort – a Marilyn Monroe musical – alongside lyricist Julia (Debra Messing). Among the other cast are Jack Davenport (FlashForward), Katharine McPhee (American Idol runner-up) and Broadway star Megan Hilty.

Actress Jennifer Aspen (Glee and Rodney) has been cast in the ABC dramedy pilot Good Christian Bitches based on the Kim Gatlin book that follows a woman who moves back to her Dallas neighborhood after a divorce only to become the center of salacious gossip from the community’s church-going wives.

MADE FOR TV MOVIES NEWS

Here are some made-for-TV movies from Syfy that fans of their D-grade Saturday night movies can look forward to the following:

Battle of Los Angeles – Premieres Saturday, March 12, at 9 p.m. – Hundreds of extra-terrestrial ships swarm Los Angeles, causing death and chaos ahead of an impending alien invasion. A small group of United States military personnel are able to get underground, where they learn the only way to stop the invasion is by destroying the mothership from within. It falls to two determined soldiers to finish the job before the human race is demolished. The film stars Nia Peeples (Pretty Little Liars) and Kel Mitchell (Kenan & Kel)

Scream of the Banshee– Premieres Saturday, March 26, at 9 p.m. – When a college professor opens a strange, ornate box discovered in the basement of her University, she and her students hear the horrifying scream of a bloodthirsty Banshee. Everyone who hears the scream dies a strange and terrible death. Now the professor and a few stragglers must try to stop the Banshee. The film stars Lauren Holly (NCIS) and Lance Henriksen (Alien).

Ferocious Planet – Premieres Saturday, April 9, at 9 p.m. – An experimental device enabling viewing of alternate dimensions goes haywire on its first test, dragging the entire test lab (and its occupants) into a dangerous alternate universe. Led by a resourceful Colonel and a tough female scientist, they have to figure out how to get home. The film stars Joe Flanigan (Stargate Atlantis) and John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings).

Roadkill – Premieres Saturday, April 23, at 9 p.m. – Six young friends on a road trip in Ireland run afoul of gypsies who curse them for accidentally running down an old woman. The curse takes the form of a terrifying flying beast that tries killing them all. The film stars Stephen Rea (The Crying Game).

The ABC Family Channel movie called My Future Boyfriend will premiere on Sunday, April 10 at 8 PM and stars Barry Watson as P-A-X-497/341, aka “Pax”, a curious young man from the well-ordered but loveless future, travels to present day New Orleans in search of romance novelist Elizabeth Barrett (Sara Rue) – whose book he has come upon during an archeological dig in the year 3127. Hoping Elizabeth can explain the concept of love to him, which is now non-existent in his time; Pax embarks on an adventure filled with new discoveries. Elizabeth introduces Pax to life in the year 2011, filled with love, music and of course, destiny. When Pax doesn’t return to the future by the given deadline, Bob (Fred Willard), his fellow scientist, travels back in time to find him. Meanwhile, as Elizabeth helps Pax learn about love, she ends up confiding in her colleague, played by Valerie Harper, about her own upcoming “surprise” engagement. Fred Willard also stars.

Lifetime has announced the made for TV movie William & Kate, about the royal couple, will air on April 18 at 9 PM. The movie stars Nico Evers-Swindell (NCIS: Los Angeles and Law & Order) as Prince William and Camilla Luddington (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Defenders) as Kate Middleton. The film also stars Ben Cross, Serena Scott-Thomas, Richard Reid and Victoria Tennant.

The 7th movie in the Jesse Stone series of movies – this one is called Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost – will debut on CBS on May 22 at 9 PM. Tom Selleck stars as Police Chief Jesse Stone in a story that finds Jesse, once again, on overload, looking into the death of a teenage girl and unofficially involved in the case of a convicted murderer who he thinks may be innocent. He’s also battling his familiar demons, alcohol and his ex-wife. Kathy Baker and Kohl Sudduth reprise their roles as the Paradise Police Force. William Devane, Stephen McHattie, Saul Rubinek and William Sadler also return. And Gloria Reuben will be among the guest stars.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Offers have been given to actors Bradley Cooper and Alex Pettyfer and actress Sofia Vergara to star in the thriller The Paperboy that is based on the novel by Peter Dexter, which follows the story of the slacker son of backwater Florida newspaper editor and publisher who gets pulled into his older, big-city reporter brother’s investigation of a rural sheriff’s murder.

Gerard Butler is to star in the box office film Adaline that is being called a supernatural sort of romance. He will star as a former pro soccer player who finds himself dodging romantic advances from soccer moms after he agrees to coach his son’s youth team in an attempt to bond with the boy. Uma Thurman and Jessica Biel have now joined the cast. Biel will play Butler’s ex-wife while Thurman will play one of the parents.

It looks like plans are in the making for Warner Bros. to remake the 1992 hit movie The Bodyguard. Writers have been hired to do the script and the new version will have the male lead being a former Iraqi war vet. No other details are available.

Ewan McGregor is in negotiations to join the cast of the upcoming box office movie Jack the Giant Killer, which is the re-telling of the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale that follows a farm boy (Nicholas Hoult) who leads an expedition to free a princess taken hostage by a giant, a situation which threatens the uneasy truce between humans and giants. McGregor would play the leader of the king’s elite guard, who helps fight giants. Stanley Tucci, Bill Nighy and John Kassir also star.

The cast of the upcoming box office movie called Prometheus is expected to include Idris Elba (Luthor). The cast already includes Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace. Not much is known about the movie besides this: it will be “a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place.

Peter Stormare (Prison Break) has joined the cast of the upcoming film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which already has Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton and Famke Janssen in the cast. Stormare will play a villainous town sheriff named Berringer in a story that sees the two siblings as full-time killers whose primary targets are witches like the one who terrorized them at such a young age.

CASTING SCOOP

Actress Morena Baccarin (V) will guest star on an upcoming episode of The Mentalist, playing Erica Flynn, a woman who runs a matchmaking business and may have some dark secrets. The episode is set to air in April.

Actor Bailey Chase (Saving Grace) will appear in a multi-episode arc on the upcoming fourth season of Damages, which will be seen on DirecTV this summer. Details about his role have yet to be released, but it’s believed he will be playing a potential love interest for Rose Byrne’s character.

Actor Donal Logue (Terriers) will make a guest appearance on House in what is being called “ a very juicy role”. He will be in the 20th episode of the season that is slated to air in early May.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

There is a lot of programming to keep track of each, so, the list below covers most of what you can expect this coming weekend and next week (including reairs, new episodes and made-for-TV movies):

Saturday, February 26:
Hawaii Five-O on CBS at 8 PM (Reair)
The Mentalist on CBS at 9 PM (Reair)
Harry’s Law on NBC at 8 PM (Reair)
Law & Order: Los Angeles on NBC at 9 PM (Reair)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC at 10 PM (Reair)
Being Human on BBC America at 8 PM (Reair)
Being Human on BBC America at 9 PM (NEW)
Boardwalk Empire on HBO2 at 10:30 PM (Reair)
Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy movie on Lifetime at 9 PM (Reair)
Area 51 movie on Syfy at 9 PM (Debut)

Sunday February 27:
83rd Annual Academy Awards Presentation on CBS at 5:30 PM
CSI: Miami on CBS at 10 PM
Any Human Heart movie on PBS at 9 PM (Conclusion)
Big Love on HBO at 9 and 10 PM
Big Love on HBO2 at 8 PM (Reair)
The Sunset Limited movie on HBO2 at 9 PM (Reair)
Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story at 9 PM (Reair)
The Tudors on Showtime 2 at 8 and 9 PM (Reairs)
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Starz at 10 PM (Reair)
NCIS marathon on USA Network (check local listings for airtimes)

Monday, February 28:
Castle on ABC at 10:01 PM (Conclusion)
Hawaii Five-0 on CBS at 10 PM (Reair)
90210 on The CW at 8 PM
Gossip Girl on The CW at 9 PM
House on FOX at 8 PM
The Chicago Code on FOX at 9 PM
Chuck on NBC at 8 PM
The Cape on NBC at 9 PM
Harry’s Law on NBC at 10 PM
Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family at 8 and 10 PM (NEW and Reair)
Greek on ABC Family at 9 PM
Being Human on Syfy at 8 PM (Reair)
Being Human on Syfy at 9 PM (NEW)
Warehouse 13 on Syfy at 10 PM (Reair)
The Sunset Limited movie on HBO at 9 PM (Reair)

Tuesday, March 1:
No Ordinary Family on ABC at 8 PM
V on ABC at 9 PM
Detroit 1-8-7 on ABC at 10:01 PM
NCIS on CBS at 8 PM
NCIS: Los Angeles on CBS at 9 PM
The Good Wife on CBS at 10 PM
One Tree Hill on The CW at 8 PM
Hellcats on The CW at 9 PM
Parenthood on NBC at 10 PM
Southland on TNT at 10 PM
Lights Out on FX at 10 PM
White Collar on USA at 10 PM

Wednesday, March 2:
Off the Map on ABC at 10 PM
Criminal Minds on CBS at 9 PM
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior on CBS at 10 PM
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC at 10 PM (Reair)
Being Erica on SOAPNet at 11 PM
Justified on FX at 10 PM
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Starz at 10 PM (Reair)
Big Love on HBO at 8, 9 and 10 PM (Reairs)
The Tudors on BBC America at 9 and 10 PM (Reairs)
Thurgood movie on HBO at 8 PM (Reair)

Thursday, March 3:
Grey’s Anatomy on ABC at 9 PM (Reair)
Private Practice on ABC at 10:01 PM (Reair)
CSI on CBS at 9 PM (Reair)
The Mentalist on CBS at 10 PM (Reair)
The Vampire Diaries on The CW at 8 PM (Reair)
Nikita on The CW at 9 PM (Reair)
Fairly Legal on USA Network at 10 PM
Big Love on HBO at 8 PM (Reair)

Friday, March 4:
The Defenders on CBS at 8 PM
CSI: NY on CBS at 9 PM (Reair)
Blue Bloods on CBS at 10 PM (Reair)
Smallville on The CW at 8 PM
Supernatural on The CW at 9 PM
Merlin on Syfy at 10 PM
Big Love on HBO Signature at 9 PM (Reair)

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

Have a great weekend!