Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

So how is everyone’s Tuesday treating them? Well, I hope. I had quite a fun night last night, attending the Paley Center for Media’s panel for the popular USA Network series Royal Pains, which featured the entire cast and the executive producers plus a sneak peek at the first new episode that will air on January 20. It was a fun night.

Meanwhile, here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Rebecca Mader (Lost) will appear on No Ordinary Family, playing an employee of Global Tech — the company where Stephanie (Julie Benz) works — who may be hiding a few secrets of her own. This episode is slated to premiere in January. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

Shohreh Aghdashloo (24 and FlashForward) will appear in an upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU, playing Sunny Qadar, an employee of the Brooklyn DA’s office. (William Keck at TV Guide)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

FOX has picked up a drama project tentatively called Full Nelson, which is to be set in the music industry in the 1980s and follows a woman as she rises in the business. This project comes from Jeffrey Lieber and Jerry Bruckheimer Television. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer are in negotiations, while Hilary Swank and Ashton Kutcher are circling key roles in the planned sequel (of sorts) to the movie Valentine’s Day called New Year’s Eve for which Lea Michele (Glee) and Abigail Breslin are already set to star. If the sign on, De Niro will play a bitter, dying man in a hospital; Pfeiffer would be a frustrated secretary tackling her unfulfilled resolutions; Swank would play a producer of the Times Square New Year’s Eve show, and Kutcher plays a guy who hates the holiday. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)

Camilla Belle is in negotiations and Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) is set to star in the inspirational drama Zebras, based on the true-life story of a music producer who discovers talented young soccer players in the ghettos of South Africa. He soon forms them into a successful team dubbed the Zebras because it brings together black and white players. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Q&A SECTION (with Kristin from E! Entertainment Online)

Bethany: If Life Unexpected doesn’t come back beyond the 13 episodes, will every storyline be wrapped up? Specifically the story between Ryan and Julia that was introduced in the premiere?

Kristin: LUX boss Liz Tigelaar promises that “every single thing we’ve set up in the course of this season will be fulfilled.” That said, The Ryan-Julia storyline certainly won’t be as fleshed out as originally planned, but fans will be pleased. “We can’t do everything that we had planned on doing, but I want to make it great,” Liz tells us. “If this is the end of the series, it’s going to be just like the beginning of the series—filled with a lot of hope. It’s just complicated and you get places in ways you didn’t expect.

That’s it. Enjoy!