Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actor Josh Stamberg will not be returning to Drop Dead Diva for its fifth season, but the show will have a number of female guest stars, including Natalie Hall (Pretty Little Liars) who will appear in two episodes as a character named Britney; Annie Ilonzeh (Arrow and Switched at Birth) who will play Kim’s new assistant in a recurring role; Brigid Brannagh (Army Wives) will play Molly Hagen, a woman whose deadbeat husband wins a fortune at a casino, only to hide it from her while filing for a quickie divorce; and Reika Aylesworth (Hawaii Five-0 and 24) who will play June Frazier, a brilliant graphic designer who enlists Kim legal help as she battles to protect her dead boyfriend’s legacy from his estranged parents. Drop Dead Diva is back on June 29 at 9 PM on Lifetime. (The Wrap and Kimberly Nordyke at The Hollywood Reporter)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Emmy Rossum (Shameless) and Justin Long (Live Free and Die Hard) will appear in the independent romantic comedy called Comet that will bounce back and forth over the course of an unlikely but perfectly paired couple’s six-year relationship. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)

Actors James Franco, Jeff Bridges, Benicio Del Toro and Paul Giamatti as well as actresses , Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard will lend their voices to the box office animated film The Little Prince. The story centers on a pilot (Bridges) who crash-lands in the Sahara desert and comes across a little boy who says he is a prince fallen to Earth from his home on an asteroid. As the pilot repairs his plane, the little prince regales him with stories about his home and the foolish inhabitants of nearby asteroids. (Heat Vision and Dark Horizons)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Watch: Harrison Ford Versus Gary Oldman in First ‘Paranoia’ Trailer

Nokia Releases Final “Man of Steel” Trailer

INSIDE LINE (with Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Question: I know Gary Glasberg has mentioned we will see the events that led up to the cliffhanger with Gibbs in the NCIS finale. But will we also get to see what McGee, Tony and Ziva have been doing in their four-month absence? I’m eager to see how they adapted to life outside NCIS and without Gibbs’s rules (particularly Rule No. 12). –Cheryl

Mitovich: If I’m any good at reading between Glasberg’s lines, viewers will be made privy to at least some of that when Season 11 arrives. “The season opener is going to take us from where we left off all the way up to the point where we’re seeing Gibbs [behind a rifle],” he says, As for Tony, Ziva and McGee in particular, “There will be a portion in which they’re still resigned, and then it’ll develop from there. I don’t want to give too much away about the opener yet, but we’ll learn what happened with Tony and Ziva and McGee, I promise.”

Question: I’m curious as to your thoughts on NCIS‘ baiting of “Tiva” fans without delivering. This season, especially, saw the showrunner pushing the notion of the couple becoming a reality, yet once again it did not happen. Even worse, [the finale] found them calling each other “friends,” the same label they applied to each other in Season 9′s “A Desperate Man.” Do you as a reporter find it difficult to see these things teased, when they never come fruition? Or do you think it’s just part of the game and “business as usual”? In addition, do you feel that at some point this bait-and-switch will impact viewership? –Dee

Mitovich: A very sound question, because as you note, I have long witnessed this to-and-fro as well. Quite honestly, I think NCIS and show boss Gary Glasberg face a tremendously difficult juggling act with this (would-be) couple because it is TV’s most watched program, and like a game of Jenga, you can’t be quite sure which slight move could send things toppling. Is NCIS No. 1 because it metes out exactly 25 milligrams of romance every third episode, and never a bit more? Is there a fear that going all-in with Tiva will soap up the show too much? Look at the comments sure to populate below; if one out of three is against the coupling, does that confirm the show would risk disenfranchising some 5 million viewers? (And if you do put them together, will the outcry nonetheless continue if “not enough” intimacy is displayed, a la Castle, presenting a no-win scenario?) All I can do on my end is press for some semblance of concrete evidence behind any loaded quotes (about any topic), then trust the show will follow through to some degree.

Question: Have we seen the last of Eion Bailey (Ben) and Anne Dudek (Danielle) on Covert Affairs? I really loved the chemistry that both of them had with Piper Perabo. –Johnny

Mitovich:Most likely not. As EPs Matt Corman and Chris Ord tell the Inside Line, “Both Ben and Danielle are extremely important figures in Annie’s life. We definitely haven’t seen the last of them.”

Question: Do you know something about Castle or Scandal? This hiatus is killing me! –Martina

Mitovich: I’ll, um, play it safe and go with…. Scandal. If you suspect that, given the roller coaster events of the season finale, newly minted U.S. Attorney David Rosen has turned in his Gladiator card, you’d be right. Sharing his “personal theory” on the matter, Joshua Malina says, “Having spent the time he has with [Pope & Associates], he has newfound respect for them… and he went to school on them. Because he learned that if you really want to be effective – and that’s the sad story of his for the year – pure white hat-edness only gets you so far.” So although Rosen discovered that “getting down in the gutter and fighting dirtier” can get the job done, “I think he considers himself apart from — and possibly above” — Olivia, Abby et al. (Dem’s fighting words, right?)

That’s it. Enjoy!