Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

NBC has given a full season order to new drama Revolution and the comedies Go On and The New Normal. (The Wrap)

Actress Whoopi Goldberg will guest star on 666 Park Avenue, playing Maris Elder a mysterious shut-in and longtime resident of the Drake, who helps Jane (Rachael Taylor understand her supernatural connection to the building by using a radical method of hypnosis. This episode is expected to air in December. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

Actor Paul Telfer (NCIS and Hercules TV movie) will appear on The Vampire Diaries, playing Alexander a vampire hunter who has a connection to Original vampire Rebekah (Claire Holt). (Alloy Entertainment)

Actor Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) will guest star in at least two episodes of Shameless, playing Abraham, a powerful, well-dressed, sophisticated gay man who is a political activist. The series will be back starting on January 13. (TV By the Numbers)

Boardwalk Empire has been renewed for a fourth season on HBO. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

Actor Patton Oswalt will have a recurring role in Justified, playing Bob Sweeney, a local constable who went to high school with Raylan (Timothy Olyphant). Justified is expected to be back in early 2013. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actresses Callie Thorne (Necessary Roughness) and Lisa Edelstein (House) will both appear on the new CBS drama Elementary. Thorne will play Terry D’Amico, a veteran NYPD detective and former partner of Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn). Meanwhile, Edelstein will appear as Heather Vanowen, the charismatic CEO of a high-end PR consultancy. (Matt Mitovich and Kimberly Roots at TV Line)

Actor Stephen Collins (7th Heaven) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Falling Skies. He will play Benjamin Hathaway, who served as the President of the United States prior to the alien invasion; but is now stationed in Colorado, sending out sniper teams all over the nation to locate survivors. He wants to meet Tom (Noah Wyle) to see how the 2nd Mass has been winning the war against the outer space creatures. The series is set to return to TNT in summer 2013. (William Keck at TV Guide)

Actors Mike Vogel (Pan Am) and Nestor Carbonell (Ringer) have joined the cast in recurring roles of the of the upcoming A&E drama series Bates Motel, the prequel to the Alfred Hitchcock horror classic Psycho. The series will examine the twisted relationship between serial-killer-to-be Norman (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Varmiga). Carbonell will play Sheriff Royce Romero, who has something almost sinister about him while Vogel will play Deputy Zach Shelby, a completely engaging, attractive, intelligent sociopath. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

A report made earlier today stated that the potential new NBC series Mockingbird Lane, a reboot of The Munsters, by Bryan Fuller was looking like it wouldn’t be picked up after all. But a short time later, Bryan Fuller took Twitter stating that NBC told him that the report was “dead wrong” so we’ll see what really happens soon enough. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

CBS has given a script order to a high-concept drama called The Centurion from feature film writers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides (Immortals). The potential new drama would center on an elite force recon Marine who, after a near-fatal accident in combat overseas, makes a promise to God to clear the debt of the lives he’s taken if he safely returns home to his family. Once he does return home, he settles back into his former career as a police detective to make good on his promise, guided by the angel of his best friend, who died in the accident. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

MADE FOR TV MOVIE NEWS

Actress Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos) will star in the Lifetime two-hour original movie/backdoor pilot called Stalkers, formerly Whisper of Fear. The movie is inspired by a true story from the book “Whisper of Fear: The True Story of the Prosecutor Who Stalks the Stalkers” by Rhonda Saunders, a criminal prosecutor who wrote the law on stalking in California. Stalkers will follow Diane Harper (de Matteo), a hot-headed cop with a troubled past, and a polished DA who team up to bring a stalker, obsessed with her former lover, to justice. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) will star opposite Rebecca Hall in the upcoming film called A Promise, which is set in pre-WW1 Germany. Madden will play an engineer who goes to work for a wealthy older man and ends up falling for the benefactor’s wife (Hall). The war forces them to part and the relationship is put on hold until the two meet nine years later. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Actor Topher Grace (That 70’s Show) will star opposite Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Anthony Mackie, Aubrey Plaza, and Giovanni Ribisi in the upcoming film called A Many Splintered Thing that tells the story of a young man disillusioned by love, who meets a breathtaking young woman at a charity dinner by pretending to be a philanthropist. As it turns out, she is engaged to a guy who doesn’t like her going on dates. Challenged by the chase, and egged on by his eclectic friends, he feigns a platonic relationship in order to keep seeing her as he tries to conquer her heart. Grace will play the poser’s best friend. (Mike Fleming at Deadline)

Actor Kevin Costner will star in an as-yet titled action thriller to be directed by McG. Costner will play a dying Secret Service agent who decides to retire in order to reconnect with his estranged family; but when the Secret Service offers him access to an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment, he finds himself trying to juggle his family, his mission, and the drug’s hallucinatory side-effects. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Q&A SECTION (with Team Watch with Kristin at E! Online)

Question: So happy Revenge is back! Loving that Emily and Nolan are roommates. What can you tell me about their relationship this season? – Erin from Chicago

Team Watch with Kristin: We’ll let the always adorable Gabriel Mann take this one: “That would be too simple, wouldn’t it? To BFF it up the whole season?” Mann teased. “I think we start from the nice place that we ended last season, and then the car just starts going faster and faster and faster. I will tease the addition of our new friend from the U.K., who plays Aiden. I don’t know that Nolan is going to be loving the new love interest.”

Question: Once Upon a Time scoop, please! Maybe something about Emma’s love life? – Danielle

Team Watch with Kristin: Though she’s currently stuck in fairy-tale land for the foreseeable future, Emma will be getting a love interest this season. Or make that several proper love interest. “Last year, she had to be the whole savior thing and I’m-a-new-mom thing, so I would be bummed out if we didn’t see a few suitors come her way,” Edward Kitsis teases. While he wouldn’t say who the suitors would be, he did share, “There may be a few people we haven’t met yet.”

Question: I’ll take anything you’ve got on Supernatural! – Tyler

Team Watch with Kristin: Prepare for Supernatural…as a cartoon show. Kind of. “What happens when you find yourself living in a cartoon universe? That’s a lot of fun,” show runner Jeremy Carver says of an upcoming episode, but notes that it will not be animated. “It deals with cartoon physiques in the real world,” he explains. Another fun one to look forward to is “an episode that deals pretty heavily and fun-ly with the LARPing universe, different from the way we’ve dealt with it in the past.”

That’s it. Enjoy!