Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

NBC has picked up the new drama Chicago Fire for a full season. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

Beauty and the Beast has also been given a full season order by The CW. (TV By the Numbers)

Actress Mary Lynn Rajskub (24) will be guest starring in an upcoming episode of The Mentalist, playing a rehab patient whose roommate is murdered. She will appear in an episode that is set for January. (Vlada Gelman at TV Line)

Actress Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Hawaii Five-0, playing an ambitious, strong-willed chemistry student who has planned a medical career for herself, but gets angry and hurt when it looks as if something — or someone? — might interfere with her future plans. (Philiana Ng at The Hollywood Reporter)

Syfy has picked up drama Haven for a fourth season. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor D. B. Woodside (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) has booked a multi-episode arc on the new CW medical series Emily Owens, M.D. He will play Evan, the husband of Dr. Gina Bandari (Necar Zadegan), the doctor who inspires and intimidates all the interns. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Rosemarie DeWitt and actor Patton Oswalt will both have recurring roles on The Newsroom when it returns to HBO for its second season. DeWitt will play Rebecca Halliday, a litigator who’s been hired to defend Atlantis Cable News in a multi-million dollar wrongful termination suit. Meanwhile, Oswalt will play Jonas Pfeiffer, the new Vice President of Human Resources of ACN. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Eion Bailey (Once Upon a Time) has been cast as the male lead opposite Mira Sorvino in the TNT drama pilot Trooper, which centers on KJ Flaxton (Sorvino) a recently divorced female state trooper who is as unconventional at work as she is at home raising her three kids. Her partner on the job is James Burk (Bailey), a widowed father who has a much more by-the-book approach to policing. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Brigid Brannagh (Army Wives) has been cast in the NBC pilot After Hours, which revolves around the graveyard shift in the ER at San Antonio Medical Center. Branaugh will play Dr. Atthea Martin, who is easing into her old job as a trauma doctor while grieving the loss of her husband, killed by a drunk driver. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

MADE FOR TV MOVIE NEWS

Singer-actress Jennifer Hudson and actresses Melissa Leo, Octavia Spencer and Sarah Hyland have all been cast Lifetime anthology sequel called Five 2, which depicts various characters dealing with breast cancer. (The Futon Critic, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Mark Wahlberg will star in – of all things – Transformers 4 from Michael Bay. (Dominic Patten at Deadline)

Actors Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson and Nick Offerman and actress Alison Brie will all lend their voices to the upcoming animated as-yet-titled Lego film from Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow. They join Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett and Morgan Freeman in a story that follows Emmet (Pratt), an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average Lego mini-figure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant. Ferrell will play Emmet’s primary adversary, President Business while Neeson is the president’s powerful henchman, Bad Cop. Offerman is a craggy, swaggering pirate obsessed with revenge on President Business while Brie is a member of Emmet’s team with a powerful secret. (The Deadline Team)

That’s it. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!!