Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

It’s the start of another week and if you’re living on the West Coast, we’re experiencing a bit of a heat wave something that was lacking over the summer and not all that much appreciated at the end of September.

But, there is a lot of news to share with all of you and good TV to look forward to tonight so hopefully that levels out the playing field. Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Newcomer Darren Criss (who has guest starred on Eastwick and Cold Case) has joined the FOX series Glee as a new gay student named Blaine, who hails from a rival glee club called the Dalton Academy Warblers. He will befriend Kurt (Chris Colfer), but their relationship will remain platonic for now. (Joyce Eng at TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly)

Aimee Garcia (Trauma) will appear in the mid-season series Off the Map, playing a local who falls for Zach Gilford’s (Friday Night Lights) character, who is a plastic surgeon in a remote medical clinic in South America. (Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly)

Jorge Garcia (Lost) will appear on an episode of How I Met Your Mother, playing Blitz a friend of Ted, Marshall and Lily from college who has the uncanny ability to leave a room right before things finally get interesting. Blitz has been cursed with this regrettable phenomenon for over twelve years. (Korbi at Give Me My Remote)

Oprah Winfrey has announced that she is going to reunite the cast of Sound of Music for the first time in 45 years on her October 29 show. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer will be in attendance as well as the Von Trapp kids: Charmian Carr (Liesl), Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich), Heather Menzies-Urich (Louisa), Duane Chase (Kurt), Angela Cartwright (Brigitta), Debbie Turner (Marta), and Kym Karath (Gretl). (Tim Stack at Entertainment Weekly)

Ed Decter and John Strauss have officially signed on as show runners for the USA Network series In Plain Sight. The duo replaces John McNamara, who departed the series due to medical issues. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

TV POLL

Your Turn: Pick Fall TV’s Best and Worst!

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Showtime has signed up some big names for new development projects at the cable network, including Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards, who are working on a drama project together as well as Jeff Daniels and Timothy Busfield, who are collaborating on another project called Happily Ever After, which would star Daniels as a Michigan factory worker who quits his job to pursue music. The as-yet untitled Ruffalo/Edwards project is to be set in the morally ambiguous world of media crisis management and is to be centered on two partners running such a firm. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

CONDOLENCES

Actress Gloria Stuart – best known for her role as the elder Rose Dawson in the box office hit Titanic – has passed away at the age of 100. She started in films in 1932, taking roles in horror classics like Frankenstein and The Invisible Man. She became a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, but retired from the big screen in the 1940’s. (The Washington Post and First Showing)

ME: Rest in peace, Ms. Stuart. Condolences to her family, friends and fans.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

The following are the box office results for the top 10 movies for this past weekend courtesy of Exhibitor Relations at E! Entertainment Online:

1. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, $19 million
2. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, $16.3 million
3. The Town, $16 million
4. Easy A, $10.7 million
5. You Again, $8.3 million
6. Devil, $6.5 million
7. Resident Evil: Afterlife, $4.9 million
8. Alpha and Omega, $4.7 million
9. Takers, $1.7 million
10. Inception, $1.2 million

British actor Stephen Fry (Bones) has joined the cast of the upcoming sequel Sherlock Homes, playing Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr.) and a key power player in the British Government. The movie is expected to be released next Christmas. (The Hollywood News and Dark Horizons)

Jason Reitman (Director of Up in the Air) has a new project called Young Adult, based on a script by Diablo Cody, about a ghostwriter (Charlize Theron) of young adult novels who returns to her hometown to reconnect with high-school friends. Patton Oswalt has joined the cast and Patrick Wilson is negotiating a deal to join the cast as well. (24 Frames and First Showing)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Indie Trailer Sunday: Emily Blunt & Rupert Grint in Wild Target

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIES

Daniel Stern (Home Alone) and Matt Frewer (Eureka) will star as former best friends who are dueling neighbors whose Christmas decorating rivalry gets a bit out of hand in the Hallmark Channel movie Battle of the Bulbs. The movie will debut on December 18 at 8 PM. (The Futon Critic)

Victoria Justice (Victorious) will appear in the Nickelodeon movie The Boy Who Cried Werewolf on October 23 at 8 PM. Justice will star as Jordan Sands, a shy and unpopular teen who, through an accident, is transformed into a werewolf during a visit to Wolfsberg, Romania where her family has inherited an ancient castle. Brooke Shields (Lipstick Jungle) and Brooke D’Orsay (Royal Pains and Drop Dead Diva) co-star. (The Futon Critic)

Q&A SECTION (with Matt Roush at TV Guide)

Question: I was deeply upset to learn Lone Star was a ratings flop. Pretty much every TV critic out there absolutely raved about it and declared it the best new drama of the fall, and the must-watch show of the new season. I was impressed, though not blown away, and ready for the show to grow on me some more. But with such abysmal ratings — only 4 million people watched? Really? That would have been bad even for Heroes last year — is the show that critics were declaring fall’s best new drama going to fall victim to being the first new show of the season to be canceled? How long is it likely going to stick around? A couple of weeks, or a few months, or a full season? If Fox does decide to cancel it prematurely, is there a chance that it might find a new home somewhere on cable, where it would feel much more at home? I really did enjoy the show, but I just don’t feel like getting too attached is a very good idea at this point. — Alex

Matt Roush: You weren’t the only one upset. Anyone with a stake in networks continuing to attempt quality, non-formulaic programming has a right to be discouraged at the low numbers for Lone Star, which seemed to fulfill a self-fulfilling prophecy about the most challenging work only being done on cable. Lone Star has the feel of an AMC or FX show, in part because it’s built around an anti-hero (albeit a charming and sympathetic one). It’s original, it’s intriguing, and it very well may be doomed. A lot depends on what happens this week. And while the show’s new-to-TV creator Kyle Killen makes a valiant plea to viewers in his blog, and while I’m tempted to make a comparison to another Texas-set series — Friday Night Lights — to get people to tune in to this underdog, it’s pretty clear this is going to be an uphill battle. Mondays are murder — possibly even tougher than Thursdays, which no longer has a reality juggernaut on the night like Dancing With the Stars presents on Mondays.

I would like to think Fox would keep the show on the air a few weeks to see if word of mouth helps build a slightly healthier cult audience, but it’s a cutthroat ratings environment and I won’t be surprised if it’s benched quickly if the numbers stay this low. (It would take a miracle for the show to make it until sweeps, although stranger things have happened.) Fox has the option of trying to relaunch it on a less treacherous night, but I’m not sure how they get any momentum for that. And where to put it? Fridays? The likelihood of a cable network picking it up is next to nil. FX, the most logical candidate, has a pretty full stable of shows and isn’t in the business of picking up castoffs. And the show doesn’t seem established enough yet to earn a save from DirecTV (although I didn’t see the Damages rescue coming either). With Lone Star, I’m hoping against hope for the best and fearing the worst.

Question: I enjoyed reading the letter and your comments about relationships on shows and the “Moonlighting curse”. So many shows seem to fall into the same tired story line. One show that has been refreshingly different is Warehouse 13. The main characters of Myka and Pete seem to actually enjoy each other’s company. So many shows either have the character flirting with each other, like on Castle, or begrudgingly working together, as in The Mentalist. Myka and Pete almost have a sister-brother relationship that is so different than most other shows. If the show is doing well and comes back for another season, I hope the writers don’t mess up the best aspect of the show. — J.C.

Matt Roush: Totally agree. The characters on Warehouse 13 actually seem to root for each other to be happy with other people. Rarely turns out well, but the show’s young still, and as we learned with Pete and his veterinarian girlfriend, the job tends to get in the way. (And not to worry. Warehouse 13 will be back next year. That’s a no-brainer.) The affection Myka and Pete have for each other is as genuine as their exasperation over their clashing personality traits. Their sparring is part of the fun of the show, and it’s refreshing to not have it be clouded by the question of when they’re going to fall into bed together.

Question: Don’t you just love how on Terriers, they have a happy, healthy couple like Britt & Katie? Sure there is conflict in the relationship, but because the characters are fully fleshed-out people who have different opinions from time to time. Writing is NOT centered on “will they or won’t they”, or how dumb he is/how shrill-bitchy she is. — Liz

Matt Roush: Again, couldn’t agree more. Even when Britt revealed he burglarized Katie before he actually knew her, she eventually took that in stride. Terriers looks at all of its flawed characters with such affection, it’s part of what I admire about this show — and, for that matter, it’s a tone that distinguished Justified, making these my two favorite FX dramas at the moment. But the Britt and Katie relationship is a winner, no question.

That’s it. Enjoy!