Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Welcome to another work week (or week of school or whatever applies to each of you). I hope your Monday is going well so far. There is quite a bit of news to share so let’s get right into it all.

TELEVISION

First, there were some casting items from Twitter, including Annie Wersching (from 24) who is joining NCIS. And, Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse) will guest star in an episode of Hawaii Five-0. I don’t have any other details on either of these casting tidbits, though. (Twitter)

At the end of last week, it looked like Enver Gjokaj (Dollhouse) or Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill) may be landing a role in the Americanized version of Torchwood that will be coming to Starz this coming summer. Meanwhile Amber Stevens (Greek) is up for one of the new female characters in Torchwood. (Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly)

The CW has given full-season orders to rookie dramas Nikita and Hellcats, as well as long-running soap One Tree Hill. Unfortunately, missing from the pickup list is Life Unexpected. The sophomore drama did, however, receive an additional script order. (Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly)

Lea Thompson (Back to the Future trilogy) and Constance Marie (the George Lopez comedy) have been cast in the ABC Family Channel pilot Switched At Birth, which is about two teen girls who were switched at birth. The ladies will play the mothers of the teen girls in question. (Jethro Nededog at Zap2It)

Keith Carradine (recently seen on Dexter) will guest star in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. (Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly)

James Marsden (X-Men and Enchanted) will appear on Modern Family, playing a neighbor of Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who causes the boys’ temperatures to rise every time he whips off his shirt. (William Keck at TV Guide)

Judith Light will be taking over for Blythe Danner on Nurse Jackie as one of the lesbian moms of Peter Facinelli’s character due to Danner being unavailable because of shooting a movie. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Robert Knepper (Prison Break and Heroes) will guest star in a two-episode arc on the upcoming drama Shameless on Showtime. He will play a goon who is chasing William Macy’s alcoholic partiarch character because of a scam they had going together. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Skyler Samuels (The Gates) has landed the lead in the ABC Family pilot Nine Lives, which is based on the Celia Thomson novels Nine Lives of Chloe King, which centers on Chloe King (Samuels) a teenager with heightened abilities (super speed, agility, hearing…claws) who discovers she’s being pursued by a mysterious figure. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Jane Badler has extended her visit to the ABC series V for the entire 10-episode season, which premieres January 4 on ABC. (William Keck at TV Guide)

AUCTION NEWS

Syfy Invites Fans to Own a Piece of Their Favorite Syfy Shows With a Weekly Auction on Syfy.com

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

NBC has picked up two more projects for development: One is Tommy’s Little Girl (from Executive Producer Jamie Foxx0, which centers on a young girl raised in a Mafia family who is hidden away in an orphanage after her family is murdered by a rival crime boss. Now an attorney, she has a double life as an assassin avenging her family’s murder as she attempts to locate her last living relative. Second is Life Is Good, which is about a husband and father of two young girls learns he has a 19-year-old mixed-race son that throws his mellow suburban family world into chaos. (James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporter)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIES NEWS

Here are details on two upcoming November movies to air on Syfy:

The Lost Future, which stars Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings), debuts November 13, at 9PM and is set in an exotic and dangerous future world where an isolated tribe battles for survival in a landscape overrun by mutated beasts carrying a mysterious and deadly illness. Annabelle Wallis (The Tudors) co-stars.

Triassic Attack, which is directed by Colin Ferguson (Eureka), debuts November 27, at 9PM and is about the Native American owner of a kitschy roadside museum who accidentally brings to life three dinosaur fossils. Now really annoyed, the giant dinos wreak havoc on the small town and the local university. The film stars Raoul Trujillo (True Blood, Tin Man) and Steven Brand (Scorpion King). (TV By the Numbers)

Sara Rue (Eastwick, Popular and Less Than Perfect) will be starring in an ABC Family Channel movie with Barry Watson (7th Heaven and What About Brian), but no other details are available at this time. (Twitter)

NBC has also picked up a new comedy series called The Happiness Project, based on the best-selling memoir by Gretchen Rubin that will star Kristin Davis (Sex and the City). The memoir chronicled the New York-based writer’s account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. It also spawned a popular blog whose fans included Davis, which is how the actress got involved in the TV project. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE MOVIES

Here are the top ten box office results for this past weekend according to Dark Horizons:

1 Paranormal Activity 2 – $41.5 million
2 Jackass 3D – $21.6 million
3 Red – $15.0 million
4 Hereafter – $12.0 million
5 The Social Network – $7.3 million
6 Secretariat – $6.9 million
7 Life As We Know It – $6.2 million
8 Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole – $3.2 million
9 The Town – $2.7 million
10 Easy A – $1.8 million

Kristin Davis (Sex and the City) will co-star opposite Dwayne Johnson and Michael Caine in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, in which she will play love interest to Johnson and mother to Josh Hutcherson. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Indie Trailer Sunday: Sally Hawkins Stars in ‘Made in Dagenham’

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

Question: I was watching Undercovers and wondering why you think it has not captured an audience the way other J.J. Abrams shows have? My theory is that maybe a lot of his cult fans (I count myself as one of them, finding Alias a masterwork, even in the unpopular later seasons) tuned in or recorded but then found themselves lost, no pun intended, when there were seemingly none of the signature Abrams high concepts and mysteries we are accustomed to. I think the only reason I watch it is for the spi-fi I love, like Alias. I don’t find the stories particularly engaging in the same way Lost or Fringe is, but it’s at least an entertaining hour of TV, which makes me curious why other shows with an escapist nature like CSI or NCIS are hits and Undercovers is not. I’m curious to hear your thoughts. — Matthew

Matt Roush: Your question came in while I was catching up with the last few episodes for a column I’m working up for the magazine. (Look for it in next week’s issue.) The more I watch Undercovers, the more disappointed I get. It’s almost shocking to me that the minds behind Alias and Lost are responsible for this drab, derivative show that lacks spark, sparkle or suspense. It goes out of its way to avoid the dense, dark layers of an Alias, and that would be OK if the show worked as an engaging caper, but it doesn’t. The leads are attractive but banal, and the supporting characters (with the exception of Gerald McRaney’s amusingly gruff boss) are uniformly annoying and forgettable. The show’s a dud. Many critics likened the show to the sort of thing you tend to see on USA Network, but even their more formulaic shows are kickier than this. It’s a real shame.

Question: What did you think of The Gates and will we be seeing more of it? I thought the season finale was awesome, and thoroughly enjoyed all the different characters and the interactions between them. There were also plenty of twists and turns to keep viewers interested. — Bob

Matt Roush: ABC has finally confirmed that The Gates won’t be back next summer. Even though I didn’t make it all the way to the end of the season — the numbers weren’t promising, and when the episodes bled into September, I got too busy — I found it to be the most original and intriguing of all of ABC’s scripted summer shows. While I found the execution often sketchy, I liked some of the suburban supernatural mash-up and would have liked to see where it went next.

That’s it. Enjoy!