Hey All,
How is your week starting out? Hope all is well. Here are the news items for today:
TELEVISION
AMC is officially moving ahead with a 5th season of the award-winning series Mad Men (even though a deal with the show’s creator and executive producer, Matt Weiner, hasn’t been ironed out yet). The drawback to the show’s renewal, though, especially for fans – it won’t be back until early 2012. (Deadline)
Actors Alan Alda (M*A*S*H and The West Wing) and Hugh Dancy (King Arthur and Ella Enchanted) will be appearing in the 2nd season of The Big C when the show returns with new episode this summer. Alda will play an oncologist that Cathy (Laura Linney) sees [SPOILER ALERT] after receiving a failed treatment for her melanoma. Dancy’s role has yet to be specified. The show will be back on June 27 at 10:30 PM. (Deadline and TV Overmind)
Actor John Rothman (Ghostbusters) and actress Cristine Rose (Heroes) will appear as Cooper Freedman’s (Paul Adelstein) parents in the May 5 episode of Private Practice. Meanwhile Tess Harper (Silkwood) will appear as Charlotte King’s (Kadee Strickland) mom in the same episode. (William Keck at TV Guide)
Justified has been picked up for a 3rd season by FX. (Twitter)
Actor Jay Mohr (Gary Unmarried) will have a guest appearance in the 10th and final season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, playing a famous and incredibly successful Charlie Sheen-type bad boy – a “rock star” fashion designer whose every creation turns to gold. The show will be back on the USA Network on May 1 at 9 PM. (Nellie Andreeva at TV Line)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Actors James Spader and Ryan Phillippe and actress Carla Gugino have joined the dramatic box office thriller called By Virtue Fall, which stars Eric Bana in the story of two ATF agents who find themselves on opposite sides of the friendship divide after one sells out the other. There are no details on the roles for any of them, though. (24 Frames and Dark Horizons)
Q&A SECTION (with the Spoiler Chat at E! Entertainment Online and Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly)
Question from Quentin: Breakout Kings is amazing! Tell me I’m not the only one feeling the heat between Lloyd and Julianne!
Spoiler Chat: You are definitely not the only one. And you’re in luck, because Brooke Nevin tells us there will be more Lloyd (Jimmi Simpson) and Julianne sparks coming up. “The writers are definitely going to let this one play out,” she says. “I don’t know that anything is necessarily resolved by the first season but certainly if you caught on to some sort of chemistry between Julianne and Lloyd you wouldn’t be far off. That is really something that’s meant to be there.”
Question from Cheryl in Hudson, N.Y.: Emily isn’t really moving to Texas on Pretty Little Liars, is she?
Spoiler Chat: First Caleb hops a bus for Arizona, now Emily’s family’s relocating to the Lone Star State…are the folks in Rosewood that desperate for fresh salsa? Anyway, while Caleb is road tripping back home with Lucas, Mrs. Fields proves she’s serious about getting out of (going to?) Dodge by putting the house on the market and getting a realtor. Suggestion for Emily: Melissa might be looking for a roommate in the guesthouse. Just sayin’.
Question from ElderPoptart: Any post finale #PLL scoop would be amazing! Please and thank you!
Spoiler Chat: When Pretty Little Liars returns for its second season June 14 (Cannot. Wait.), someone else besides A will be privy to the girls’ secrets: a posh therapist. Because no one believes their allegations about Ian and what happened to him in the church, their parents send their Little Liars (who happen to be telling the truth this time) to group counseling. Too bad their Jenna isn’t the one having her head examined instead.
Question from Simone Snow: I’m begging for some Mikita scoop!
Spoiler Chat: Nikita show runner Craig Silverstein tells us, “It’s a little hard for them. Michael and Nikita will make it work for a second—and then there is the next second.” We then asked Craig what a world with a semi-functional Mikita relationship would look like and he teased (squee), “God willing, that world is called season two.” Whoo! Meanwhile, Craig tells us, “When we come back on April 7, we will see why he wasn’t able to make it work with Nikita, when they were both working at Division, and we will get another reveal about his past that kind of ripples through and changes his presence.”
Question: Anything on the return of Leverage? I’m so excited for it to come back! — Lori
Sandra Gonzalez: The show is in the planning stages of a super trippy episode that will find Parker in a journey through time. Part of the episode takes place in present day and the rest takes place in flashbacks to the 1930s-40s as a client relays his complex and heartbreaking tale to Parker. I. Can’t. Wait.
Question: What can you tell me about the new agent coming to Fringe? I heard she’s going to be played by Emily Meade from Boardwalk. — Ryan
Sandra Gonzalez: Right you are. The agent is scheduled to make her debut in the season finale, and executive producer Joel H. Wyman tells me her character will have a deeper meaning than a simple rookie agent. “We try and expand our storytelling week to week to a way that we are able to tell, I guess, deeper stories about our main characters. So many of the guest stars that come on are there to do one main thing and that’s to reflect back on our main characters and to learn more about them and sort of uncover more aspects of their personality and deepen them for the viewer. That character will definitely be there to do that,” Wyman tells EW. As for rumors that the new agent will be recurring, the EP says that’s more of a safety net. “We always protect ourselves by saying that because you never know. When we used Seth Gable, for instance, he turned out to be so great. And it’s just those little discoveries that you’re like ‘Wow, you never know.’ We always like to just know that we’re covered, should it go great.”
That’s it. Enjoy!
Rueben's Ramblings 