Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Cinemax has renewed Strike Back for a third season that will debut sometime in 2013; but there are no details on who exactly will be in the cast this time around. In other words, the network likes to keep the viewers guessing. (TV Equals)

Syfy has acquired the Canadian series/UK spin-off Primeval: New World, which will star Niall Matter (Eureka), Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries) and Danny Rahim (Young James Herriot) as a team of animal experts and scientists investigating paranormal events, while battling both prehistoric and futuristic creatures. In addition, Amanda Tapping (Stargate SG1 and Sanctuary) is on board to direct several episodes. (TV By The Numbers)

Actors Patrick Fischler (Mad Men) and Tony Denison (The Closer and Major Crimes) will guest star in an upcoming mafia-themed episode of Castle. Fischler will play Leo Conrad, a mild mannered witness to a murder who Castle and Beckett take on the run to protect him from a team of ruthless gangsters who want him silenced. Denison will play Mickey Dolan, an enforcer with the McElroy crime family who was friends with the victim until recently when they had a falling out. The episode is slated to air in November. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Actor Colin O’Donoghue (The Rite) was cast not that long ago as Captain Hook on Once Upon a Time and now news has broken that he has been promoted to series regular. He will make his first appearance in the show on October 21. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

ABC has picked up another drama project – this one from screenwriter/playwright Jonathan Mark Feldman, Patrick Massett and John Zinman. The project is called Birthright, centering on Hal Chester, former dashing prince of the tabloids and heir apparent to the true royal family of New York, who returns home a war hero, only to shock the nation, publicly renouncing his family and their ilk, and vowing to now fight against them for the common good and repair the damage that their centuries of insular wealth and power have wreaked upon America. But before he can begin, he is arrested for murdering his younger brother over the woman they both love. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will join Hugh Jackman in the upcoming kidnapping thriller flick Prisoners. He will play a hot shot cop named Detective Loki. (The Deadline Team)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Hot Trailer: ‘The Lone Ranger’

Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Disguises in the Trailer for ‘Parker’

DreamWorks Animation’s Caveman Comedy ‘The Croods’ First Trailer

Q&A SECTION (with Team Watch with Kristin at E! Online; Natalie Abrams and Adam Bryant at TV Guide and Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Question: What’s coming up for Daniel on Revenge? – Shannon

Team Watch with Kristin: Hell hath no fury like a not-so-dead mother scorned. “It’s going to really twist up Victoria’s relationship with Daniel,” Mike Kelley teases of Victoria’s re-entry into the world of the living. “When she got on that plane, part of it was because she knew Daniel had double-crossed her with his father and chosen sides. You don’t cross Victoria without some sort of payback.” Yikes!

Question: I need NCIS spoilers. – Ronnie

Team Watch with Kristin: Pauley Perrette tells us all about the guest stars coming to NCIS, and the plotlines that come with them. “Right after the explosion we have our psychiatrist come in who is played by the incredible Steve Valentine, who we all adore,” she says. “And then we also have Billy Dee Williams joining us. We’re bringing back Ralph Waite, who plays Gibb’s father, who is so beloved to us. Abby’s brother, that she didn’t know she had, who we met last year, we’ll get to revisit that storyline.” And get a load of this factoid about the guy playing her brother: “He’s played by Daniel Louis Rivas, which is so fun. We actually look like twins, and he’s my ex-boyfriend in real life.”

Question: Got any Revolution scoop for us? – Ali

Team Watch with Kristin: You mean besides the fact that NBC already gave it a full-season order? Fans should prepare to meet Neville’s wife Julia in an upcoming episode. She’s beautiful, strong and dangerous.

Question: Do you know who’s on the boat on Revenge? — Ashian

NATALIE: Mike Kelley unequivocally confirms that the arm on the boat belongs to a male, not a female. “It’s a man and it’s someone you know,” he says with an evil laugh — seriously — before noting that we’ll learn whose arm it is in Episode 14. Kelley also addressed his statements from February that the Season 2 flash-forward would involve a wedding: “No one’s saying there’s not a wedding that night. I just didn’t show that part. There is at least one wedding and probably two by the time we get to the boat wreck.” So who do you think is on the boat?

Question: You promised Once Upon a Time scoop on the fate of Pinocchio and how Prince Charming and Snow White would take back their kingdom! — Joseph

NATALIE: And I will keep my word! This season’s third episode will feature a fairy-tale land flashback to Snow and Charming’s post-reunion plan — and there will be familiar faces helping them along the way. “We’ve seen their war council,” executive producer Adam Horowitz says. “Snow’s got a really great relationship with Red, and I think that is a story we want to tell.” Horowitz also promises that August’s fate — whether he’s dead now because he went all wooden — will be explained in this Sunday’s episode, but fear not because Eion Bailey has already returned to filming this season!

Question: I could not have guessed who Quinn Perkins was if I tried! What’s coming up on Scandal now? — Mel

NATALIE: Sure, Quinn is a free woman, but not everyone is happy with that. Namely, David, who will not let his failure go. “He came off the case looking like such an imbecile because he absolutely should’ve won it and he didn’t,” Katie Lowes tells us. “Now he [spends] all these [next] episodes going absolutely insane and he is going to get to the bottom of this.”

Question: I really enjoyed Last Resort. Any hints about what’s to come? — Wesley

ADAM: Look for a major bomb (heh) about Chaplin’s family to be dropped in Thursday’s episode. It will provide context for (and raise questions about) Chaplin’s motivations to take on his own country. Speaking of family bombshells, the father of a character we’ve already met seems to be in on the conspiracy to sink to the USS Colorado.

Question: Loved the Revenge premiere! Do you have any more scoop to share about the season? Maybe something about Emily and Aiden? –Jessica

Ausiello: Takeda’s other student might not have figured prominently in last week’s episode, but that will soon change. According to executive producer Mike Kelley, an origins episode of the addictive primetime soap will fill in a lot of the new guy’s back story – including how he and Em met and what bonds them. And later, when Daniel and Emily are “on the outs” and Jack’s unavailable, “There’s an opening there” for Aiden, Kelley previews. “But she’s not the most receptive. He has a lot of ground to make up with her, because he did something to her that’s very hard for her to forgive.” He adds that Em’s rich sidekick may not be Aiden’s biggest fan. “This character has come in and stolen his girl, so [Nolan] doesn’t love him.”

Question: Can I have some Hart of Dixie scoop? —Alicia

Ausiello: Next week’s episode will introduce viewers to Bluebell’s answer to Lollapalooza, Bluebell-palooza. “It’s a music festival,” explains show runner Leila Gerstein. “Claudia Lee, who plays Magnolia, is performing and Wade and George are performing.” Also on the theme-episode docket this season is an election episode that actually airs on Election Day (aka Tuesday, Nov. 6). “It is Bluebell,” notes Gerstein, “so a chicken — the Pickin’ Chicken — may decide who wins.”

Question: I’m glad to see Revolution doing well, but where did Elizabeth Mitchell vanish to so soon? She’s one of the main reasons I’m watching. –Jerry

Ausiello: Rachel is seen again in Episode 5 (airing Oct. 15), in which Mitchell says “we learn quite a bit” about “the ins and outs of her leaving” her family. But it’s in Episode 7, she says, that “we find out 100 percent for sure” how it is that she wound up in Monroe’s possession.

That’s it. Enjoy!