Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Today’s news isn’t too voluminous, but there are a few interesting items to share. Here goes:

TELEVISION

The death knell just may be ringing for the CBS (sans NBC) series Medium, which had its episode order reduced from 22 to 13 episodes for this TV season. The decrease is likely tied to the show’s decline in viewership (which was at 8.24 million viewers last year, but at 6.16 million this year). A renewal of the show is not looking likely. (The Futon Critic)

Over at ABC, though, they seem very smitten with their upcoming midseason drama Off the Map, as they have ordered six more episodes, bringing the total to 13 episodes. The series follows Tommy (Zach Gilford, Friday Night Lights), Lily (Caroline Dhavernas, Wonderfalls) and Mina (Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep’s daughter) at a medical clinic in South America. The cast also includes Jason George, Martin Henderson, Rachelle Lefevre and Valerie Cruz. Off the Map is slated to debut in early 2011. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

More cast members have been added to the cast of the upcoming time-traveling FOX drama Terra Nova. Landon Liboiron (DeGrassi: The Next Generation) will play Josh, the 17-year-old of Jim (Jason O’Mara) and Elisabeth (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Shelley Conn) Shannon who also finds a father figure in Frank Taylor (Stephen Lang from Avatar). Newcomer Naomi Scott will play his sister Maddy, a bright 15-year-old, while newcomer Alana Mansour has signed on as Zoe, the youngest member of the Shannon clan who is smuggled into the time-traveling portal that takes everyone to the Terra Nova settlement. Other cast members include Mido Hamada (24) and Allison Miller (Kings). (Lynette Rice at Entertainment Weekly)

CELEBRITY BLOG POST

Kristoffer Polaha to Life Unexpected’s Die-Hard Fans: Our Little TV Family Thanks You!

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck and Judd Hirsch have joined the ever-growing cast of the box office movie Tower Heist, which follows a group of employees in a luxury apartment building who attempt to rob the owner of the penthouse, a fraudulent banker (Alan Alda) under house arrest for swindling his employees. The cast already includes Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Tea Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe and Michael Pena star. Broderick will play a successful Wall Street-type who loses his job due to the banker’s actions and ends up joining the gang’s planned heist. Affleck will play a straight arrow who despite being a friend of Stiller’s character, disagrees with the heist and wants to turn him in. There are no details on the part for which Hirsch will play. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)

Q&A SECTION (with Adam and Mickey from TV Guide)

Question: Have you heard anything about Ziva’s storyline on NCIS’ November sweeps episodes? — Carly

ADAM: A special security team will be tasked with protecting Ziva’s father (Michael Nouri) when he attends an NCIS conference. Also at the conference: former NCIS agent Riley McCallister, whose troubled past has given him a bit of a hero complex. It’s probably no accident that McCallister is played by Michael O’Neill, who learned a lot about gunplay as a Secret Service agent on The West Wing and as the gunman who shot the hell out of Seattle Grace in last year’s Grey’s Anatomy finale.

Question: Who does Amber Tamblyn play on House? — Peter

MICKEY: House describes her as the “the love child of Einstein and Mary Poppins.” The brainiac’s bleeding-heart principles of course irk the cranky doc. So he fires her — several times. Imagine if he knew about her past with one of his team members.

Question: I’m so excited to see Timothy Dalton on Chuck. Would you call the role Bond-like? — Miles

ADAM: Dalton’s role is a little more Hot Fuzz than License to Kill. He plays an inept MI6 agent and former handler of Mama Bartowski. He and Chuck search for evidence that will clear his mom’s name, which quickly lands them on the wrong side of Volkov’s men and their hilarious torture devices.

That’s it. Enjoy!

Read Full Post »

Hey All,

Quite a bit of news to share with all of you so let’s get right into all of it:

TELEVISION

ABC has canceled the low-performing new series The Whole Truth; however, they are going to air all 13 episodes. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

Melissa Rauch has been moved up to series regular on The Big Bang Theory. She plays Howard’s main squeeze Bernadette. She will not appear in every episode, however. (Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly)

Balthazar Getty will be back on Brother & Sisters to celebrate the show’s 100th episode. He is also expected to have a new girlfriend in toe, but nothing has been set in stone yet for this milestone episode, which is slated to air sometime in January. (Kristin at E! Entertainment Online)

Alaina Huffman (Stargate Universe) will make a return visit to Smallville again in the role of Black Canary. (KryptonSite)

D.L. Hughley, Gina Gershon and Michael McKeon will make guest appearances in the new TBS comedy Glory Daze. Hughley will play Coach Franklin, a man desperate to be a father, and McKean will play the quirky and passionate head of campus maintenance. Gershon plays a tough-as-nails military instructor determined to whip her students into fighting machines. The series is a 1980s-set college comedy that centers on four freshmen — Joel (Kelly Blatz), Eli (Matt Bush), Brian (Hartley Sawyer) and Jason (Drew Seeley) — as they try to navigate life on campus. The series also stars Tim Meadows as one of the guys’ professors. The series debuts on TBS on November 16 at 10 PM. (Adam Bryant at TV Guide)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Looks like NBC is developing a new pilot called The Crew, a testosterone-heavy underdog family drama set in the world of NASCAR. The ensemble series is to revolve around the family of distinctly different brothers on a NASCAR racing team who, as individuals have their own lives and dreams, opportunities and problems but as a team share a singular goal – to be the best. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

The new FOX project Locke & Key has been greenlit as a pilot. The project comes from Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the men behind Star Trek and Hawaii Five-0) and is based on the graphic novel, which tells the story of Nina Locke and her three children, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, who survive an unspeakable horror and attempt to rebuild their lives at Keyhouse, their family home in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. It is a mysterious New England mansion, with fantastic and transformative keys hidden inside its walls that are also being sought by a hate-filled and relentless creature with ties to the Locke family’s past who will stop at nothing to accomplish his sinister goals. The series is being eyed for a potential summer run. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

HBO has landed a character-driven drama from Clyde Phillips (the man behind Dexter for 4 years), which is based on the Israeli series The Naked Truth. This version will be set in a major East Coast metropolitan precinct and follows the officers investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl from a prominent family in the pressure cooker atmosphere of an explosive high-profile case that has implications not just for the family of the victim, but for the cops themselves and the political infrastructure of the city. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

DVD RELEASE

Greek

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Sandra Bullock has signed on for the female lead in the space action thriller Gravity, while Robert Downey, Jr. may have to drop out because of scheduling conflicts. If Downey stays, he and Bullock will play astronauts from an orbital space station who are out in a shuttle conducting repairs when an exploded asteroid wipes out the station. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)

ONLINE SERIES NEWS

The BBC has commissioned the online series Becoming Human to be written by four of the writers from the series Being Human and created by Toby Whithouse (the creator of Being Human). The online series will follow events that unfold on Being Human, with a vampire played by Craig Roberts going to college to get himself back on the straight and narrow. There he meets a werewolf played by Leila Mimmack and they strike up a friendship with a third character played by Josh Brown. Then the three of them become embroiled in a mystery that will provide the storyline for the series. The really unique part of the concept is that the show’s production company, Touchpaper Wales, will work with the team behind the Being Human blog and website to create an interactive experience beyond watching the show online. (Anglotopia.net)

Q&A SECTION (with Maureen Ryan from AOL TV, Kristin from E! Entertainment Online and Matt Mitovich from Fancast)

Question: Patrick: In a world where there’s too much good TV to watch, should I spend my time watching BBC America’s ‘Luther’? The 23-minute preview On Demand was not enough for me to make a decision.

Maureen Ryan: Yes, you should watch it. The season’s only six episodes total, but you need to give it more time. ‘Luther’ seems like a fairly standard-issue cop show at first, but the cases get more interesting as the season progresses, and it becomes clear at the end of season 1 that this is actually a serialized character drama, not just a procedural with London accents. Not all the twists and turns of the season make sense, but I enjoyed the ride overall and I think Idris Elba’s performance was worth the price of admission.

Question: When are we going to see more of my favorite ‘Castle’ couple? No, not Castle and Beckett – Det. Ryan and his girlfriend! – Marin

Matt Mitovich: Persistence pays off: After weeks of checking into this for you, Marin, I can now report that Jenny will return in Episode 12, which will air sometime in January. That of course reunites the off-screen husband-and-wife team of Seamus and Juliana Dever.

Question: True or false: ’24’s Annie Wersching is joining ‘NCIS’? – Alan

Matt Mitovich: True…ish. As we speak, Wersching is filming a guest-starring role as Deputy District Attorney Gail Walsh. But at this point, she’s on board for just the singular episode. My take: Any gal who can handle the likes of Jack Bauer surely should catch the eye of the similarly issues-laden Gibbs. Keep her around, I say!

Question: Just wondering – will we ever see Wo Fat on the new ‘Hawaii Five-0′? – Bill via Facebook

Matt Mitovich: Yes, the CBS reboot will introduce its take on the classic villain later this season, TV Guide Magazine reports. (As it turns out, Wo has ties to James Marsters’ series premiere baddie, who is on his way back.)

Question: Any scoop on ‘Human Target’? – DullyEL via Twitter

Matt Mitovich: I’m now three episodes into the new season (which premieres Wednesday, Nov. 17), and the third hour finds Chance going undercover as a goon in order to assist newcomer Ames (played by Janet Montgomery) on a heist she really, truly should not be a part of. (Old habits die hard and all.) As the action unfolds, watch for Jackie Earl Haley’s Guerrero to uncork some mad moves.

Question: Jamie in North Carolina: Got anything on No Ordinary Family?

Kristin: Jim has been keeping a secret from Stephanie, J.J.’s superpower secret finally comes out, and Daphne’s powers uncover a student/teacher relationship that is practically an epidemic on TV these days. Also, the Powells might not be the only supers in town. They’re getting new neighbors who are harboring a secret—so either this new family has powers too, or they’re hiding a homicidal relative in their basement, à la Desperate Housewives back in the day.

Question: Edward: Looking forward to the return of Burn Notice in a few weeks. Will Coby Bell still be around in the new episodes?

Kristin: Yes, Coby Bell is still on Burn Notice when it returns Nov. 11 (hallelujah!), even though he’s feeling a little (understandably) snippy about having been taken advantage of by Michael, Fiona and Sam.

That’s it. Enjoy!

Read Full Post »