Hey All,
It’s back to the real world for me. Here are the news items for today:
TELEVISION
Actor Tom Ellis, who played Robin Hood in one episode of Once Upon a Time, is unavailable to return as a recurring character on the show so actor Sean Maguire will be taking over the role. (Kristin Dos Santos at E!)
Actress Michelle Forbes (The Killing and True Blood) will have a recurring role on Chicago Hope when it returns this fall. She will play a high ranking consultant with the State Fire Marshal’s office, who keeps a sharp eye on budgets and performance at the city’s fire houses. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Actors Kenny Johnson (Saving Grace) and Michael Vartan (Alias) have landed roles in the second season of Bates Motel. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Actor David Anders (Alias and Necessary Roughness) will have a guest starring role on Criminal Minds, playing a serial slayer whose M.O. involves the lobotomization of his victims. (TV Line and The Futon Critic)
Actor Terrence Howard (Crash) has joined the cast of the upcoming FOX drama Wayward Pines from (among others) M. Night Shyamalan that focuses on Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon), a Secret Service Agent who drives to the bucolic town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, to find two missing federal agents only to find himself stranded after a car accident. Howard will play Wayward Pines Sheriff Pope alongside Carla Gugino, Toby Jones and Melissa Leo. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Actor David Denman (The Office and Drop Dead Diva) is joining the cast of Parenthood in the recurring role of Ed, a newly unemployed stay-at-home dad who bonds with Julia when they both pull a lame volunteer job at their children’s school. (Kimberly Roots at TV Line)
Actress Lauren Stamile (Grey’s Anatomy) will guest star in the season premiere of The Mentalist this fall, playing Madison Yardley, the wife of a murder victim whose body is discovered two years after he was reported missing. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)
Actress Daniella Alonso (Revolution) has landed a series regular role on the new upcoming drama Night Shift that is an ensemble medical show following Army doctors working the late shift at a San Antonio Hospital. Alonso will play Dr. Landry Miller, a sexy, cool and fun-loving tough Texas girl. As the lone psychiatrist on the weekend night shift at the busy San Antonio hospital’s emergency department, she sees it all and thrives on it. The series hasn’t gotten a premiere date yet but the cast will include Brigid Brannagh (Army Wives), Eoin Macken (Merlin), Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under), Jeananne Goossen (Alcatraz), Jill Flint (Royal Pains), Ken Leung (Lost and Person of Interest) and Brendan Fehr (Roswell) [among others]. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)
Actress Nicole Ari Parker (Soul Food) has landed a recurring role on Revolution where she will play Secretary Justine Allenford a strong and smart leader. (Deadline and Marissa Roffman at Give Me My Remote)
Actor Warren Christie (Alphas and October Road) has landed a guest star role in Castle this fall, playing Brad Parker, a reporter with a penchant for uncovering stories that are detrimental to national security. (Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
ABC is developing a limited series called The Assets that is based on the Sandra V. Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille book entitled “Circle of Treason: CIA Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed” that will follow Ames, a mole who fed information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who had spied for the United States. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Heather Graham and Ellen Burstyn (Political Animals) are set to star in the Lifetime TV adaptation of the V.C. Andrews best-selling novel Flowers in the Attic about four young siblings, two boys and two girls, who, after the tragic death of their father, are torn from an idyllic life and subjected to cruel emotional and physical abuse resulting from a dark, long-hidden family secret. Graham will play their mother, Corrine while Burstyn will play their grandmother, Olivia. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Actors Taylor Handley (Vegas) and Mark Famiglietti (Terminator 3) [among others] will have roles in the USA drama pilot called Horizon that will be set at the height of World War II, revolving around a secretary at the FBI who begins a secretive investigation into files that have been stamped with the code name “horizon.” Handley will star as George Howl, a marine husband who mysteriously resurfaces after disappearing in a battle over the Pacific which the Navy has deemed classified while Famiglietti will play Will “Sparks” Sparkman, a by-the-book FBI agent whose crush on co-worker Lauren is obvious to everyone but her. Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) is set for a lead role of Max Hartman, a mysterious man who leads a double life. (The Hollywood Reporter, The Futon Critic and Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
Syfy is developing a new mini-series called Warriors of Oz that will be a fantasy-action reimagining of the classic story in which a warrior from present day Earth is transported to a post-apocalyptic future Oz where he must team up with three other warriors, Heartless, Brainless, and Coward, in order to defeat the evil Wizard who has enslaved the land. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
ABC has bought a potential drama called Lawless about a maverick lawyer who returns to her hometown to right the wrongs she left behind that is inspired by the real life crusading trucker-turned-lawyer Wynona Ward, founder of Have Justice Will Travel. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
MADE-FOR-TV MOVIES NEWS
Actress Rachel Blanchard (Clueless), actor Jack Wagner (The Bold and the Beautiful) and actor Cameron Mathison (All My Children) will star in the Hallmark Channel two-hour backdoor pilot and potential primetime series called My Gal Sunday based on the best-selling novel by Mary Higgins Clark that centers around an irresistible sleuthing duo, Sandra “Sunday” O’Brien-Parker (Blanchard), renowned attorney and private investigator and her newlywed husband and sleuthing partner, Henry Parker (Mathison), whose deep political ties and endearing romance put them at the center of intrigue and scandal. Wagner will play Sunday’s dad Danny. (Hallmark Press Release)
Actor Ving Rhames has joined the cast of the Lifetime made-for-TV Whoopi Goldberg-led movie called A Day Late and a Dollar Short based on the Terry McMillan best-selling book that revolves around Viola Price (Goldberg), who after learning that her next asthma attack is likely to kill her, sets out to fix her fractured family. Rhames will play Viola’s husband, Cecil. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Actor Topher Grace will have a supporting role in the upcoming box office film Interstellar that already includes among its cast Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)
Q&A SECTION (with Natalie Abrams and Adam Bryant from TV Guide and Michael Ausiello at TV Line)
Question: Will we get a definitive explanation of the Home Office on Once Upon a Time? — Pedro
NATALIE: Yes, in the season premiere. “As we stated in the finale, Greg and Tamara don’t know that they’re working for Peter Pan,” executive producer Adam Horowitz says. “So the Home Office is related to Pan, but that’ll be cleared up pretty quickly.” Oh, and it may have appeared that Ariel was in Storybrooke in that Comic-Con teaser, but the producers say that she’ll actually be in Neverland.
Question: Do you know when The Vampire Diaries will pick up this season? — Jeanine
NATALIE: “We’re coming back three months later, so we’ll touch base on what the characters have been doing all summer,” says executive producer Caroline Dries. “We realize that poor Stefan has been drowning, dying and coming back to life. But everyone else has been having a totally fun time. Elena and Damon are a super-sexy couple and happy for once. Caroline is ready to start school. Nobody knows that Bonnie is dead, so it’s bliss, but then there’s Stefan just dying.” Just a typical summer vacation!
Question: I’d like some Castle scoop, please. Especially something about Lanie and Esposito! — Cindy
ADAM: Tamala Jones’ promised more “Esplanie,” this season, and creator Andrew W. Marlowe seems happy to oblige. But don’t get your hopes up for some grand romance. In fact, we’ll probably just figure out why they’re apart. “There was a scene cut from their break-up because of some time issues that I think leaves a little lack of clarity in terms of what happened and where they are,” Marlowe says. “I think we owe it to the fans to give them an explanation of what’s going on in their relationship.”
Question: Since Comic-Con ended, that means you’ve gotta have some scoop on the best summer show ever, Under the Dome. Is it coming back for a second season? —Phillip
Ausiello: Yes. Although nothing’s official, rest assured there will be a second season of Under the Dome. The only question is whether CBS will hold it until next summer or bring it back in-season (i.e. next spring). In the meantime, in case you missed it, Rachelle Lefevre lightly spoiled the Season 1 finale, telling me at Con, “The last five minutes will contain a very, very large moment of whether or not [Barbie and Julia] have come far enough in our relationship to help one other out of a very difficult situation.”
Question: I need something on The Fosters, like, now. Obsessed. —Vona
Ausiello: The Aug. 5 finale features resolution for a number of “love triangles and love squares,” teases co-star Maia Mitchell, who adds, “There’s [also] a huge cliffhanger to do with my character. Something pretty big happens. And something big happens between Lena and Stef, too.”
Question: Is there any chance Covert Affairs will bring back Eyal this season? I just love his character so much. —Ashley
Ausiello: There’s a rock-solid chance, actually. Exec producer Matt Corman tells TVLine, “It’s safe to say [Oded Fehr’s spy] will return, it’s just a question as to when. And we want that to kind of be a secret.”
Question: How about some Pretty Little Liars scoop on Jake and Aria? —Jasmine
Ausiello: Jake “rides back into Rosewood” in next week’s episode, confirms exec producer Oliver Goldstick, “and their romance heats up by the latter half of the season.” He adds that the Ezra/Aria/Jake imbroglio is “a real triangle by the finale. There will be a turn of events in Ezra’s life, too, that may change his relationship with Aria. We’re editing the penultimate episode right now, which I wrote, and in it you’ll get to see Ryan Guzman show his fancy dance moves. We have a great Footloose/Urban Cowboy episode where he gets to let loose. You’ll see why Aria’s drawn in that direction.”
Question: How much time will have passed when Orphan Black‘s second season starts? —Geoffrey
Ausiello: Not much. “We pick up very quickly from where we left off at the end of Season 1,” exec producer John Fawcett tells TVLine. “Kira has been taken. It’s very difficult to not go, ‘OK, what do we do next? Kira’s gone!’ The presumption is we have to begin right there.” Adds fellow EP Graeme Manson: “There’s no ‘Two Years Later’ and Sarah’s living a bucolic life on a farm.”
That’s it. Enjoy!
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