Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actress Margaret Colin (Gossip Girl) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Blue Bloods as a love interest for Frank (Tom Selleck). She will play Melanie, a high profile investigative reporter for an international cable news network who has been involved with Frank in a largely long-distance and very discreet romance. The lovers’ private and professional lives collide when Melanie is targeted by a dangerous assailant and Frank is tasked with hunting the bad guy down. (Michael Ausiello and Megan Masters at TV Line)

Actress Morena Baccarin (Homeland and Firefly) will guest star in a March episode of The Good Wife, playing a high-powered executive who gets entangled with weirdo Colin Sweeney (Dylan Baker). (Tanner Stransky at Entertainment Weekly)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

The CW has ordered a pilot for a potential medical drama called First Cut that focuses on a newly minted doctor who is glad to leave her nerdy past behind for a fresh start but soon discovers that, sadly and comically, life at the hospital where she works is no different than high school. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Paula Malcomson (Deadwood and Caprica) has landed the female lead opposite Liev Schreiber in the drama pilot called Ray Donovan from Showtime. The series is being described as a dark family drama with comedic undertones, centering on Ray (Schreiber), a professional “fixer” for LA’s rich and famous, the go-to guy in Hollywood who deftly solves the highly confidential problems of the city’s most intriguing personalities but can’t quite escape the damage in his own troubled family. Malcomson will play Ray’s wife Abby, a Boston tough girl who is still finding it hard to assimilate into the fast lane of Hollywood. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

ABC has greenlit a pilot for Beauty and the Beast (not to be confused with the pilot that The CW has ordered as a remake of the CBS TV series of the same name). This ABC version will be period/fantastical reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world wherein a beautiful and tough Princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Alan Ball (the series creator of True Blood) is getting a new series, but this time with Cinemax called Banshee. The series is to center an ex-convict and master thief who assumes the identity of the sheriff of Banshee, PA, where he continues his criminal activities even as he’s being hunted by the shadowy gangsters he had betrayed years earlier. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

CONDOLENCES

Actor James Farentino, best known for his roles in Dynasty and as George Clooney’s estranged father on ER, has passed away at the age of 73 from heart failure. (Associated Press)

NOTE: RIP, Mr. Farentino. Deepest condolences to his family, friends and fans.

MOMENT OF SILENCE, PLEASE…

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones will star in the box office film called Side Effects, a thriller that is expected to also star Blake Lively, Jude Law and Channing Tatum. The film is being described as a potboiler in the Jagged Edge-Basic Instinct mold with Zeta-Jones to play Dr. Erica Siebert. Lively would play a troubled and depressed woman who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs, which leads her into a relationship with another doctor (Law). Her intake is ostensibly designed to help her deal with the anxiety surrounding the pending release of her husband (Tatum) from prison. (Mike Fleming at Deadline)

Actor Liam Hemsworth (soon to be seen in The Hunger Games film) has signed on to star in the box office film Timeless, which follows a recently married man who inherits a fortune from his late wife. Plagued by an unresolved issue between he and his wife, he uses the money to build a time travel device to see her one last time and clear the air between them once and for all. (Moviehole and First Showing)

That’s it. Enjoy!