Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

TELEVISION

The Hallmark Channel has ordered a 10-episode scripted series for their long-running made-for-TV movie franchise The Good Witch that will find actress Catherine Bell (Army Wives and JAG) reprising her lead role of Cassie Nighingale. The seventh movie in the franchise – The Good Witch’s Wonder – will air on October 25 with the new series to kick off on the cable network sometime in early 2015. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actress Bailee Madison (Trophy Wife and Once Upon a Time) will have a recurring role on the ABC Family drama The Fosters during the show’s upcoming second season that will air this summer. She will play a girl who is connected to Callie’s (series regular Maia Mitchell) past. (Vlada Gelman at TV Line)

Actor Matt Lauria (The Chicago Code and Friday Night Lights) will star opposite Frank Grillo (The Gates) in DirecTV’s 10-episode straight-to-series drama Navy St. that is a gritty family drama set against the backdrop of a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym in Venice, California. Lauria will play Ryan, a former three-time All-American wrestler at Arizona State and an ex-Olympian, who was once on top of the world , but when he shows up at Alvey’s (Grillo) gym, he is a changed man. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Actor Wyatt Nash (Pretty Little Liars and Mistresses) will take over the role of Christopher Dollanganger in the Lifetime made-for-TV movie sequel Petals on the Wind. He joins recently announced actress Rose McIver (Once Upon a Time), who takes over the role of Cathy Dollanganger, and returning stars Heather Graham and Ellen Burstyn. (Tierney Bricker at E! Online)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Clifton Collins, Jr. (Red Widow and The Event) will join Ryan Phillippe, Juliette Lewis and KaDee Strickland in the ABC drama pilot called Secrets & Lies, which centers on Ben (Phillippe), a family man who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a young boy when he finds the body. Clifton will play Ben’s childhood friend and tenant in Ben’s pool house who is unwaveringly supportive of Ben. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Tim Daly (Private Practice) has joined the cast of the CBS drama pilot Madam Secretary that explores the personal and professional life of a maverick female Secretary of State (Tea Leoni) as she drives international diplomacy, wrangles office politics and balances a complex family life. Daly will play her husband Henry, a professor of medieval religious history. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Skeet Ulrich (Jericho) will star alongside Meagan Good (Deception) in the NBC drama pilot called Babylon Fields in which the dead are resurrected and try to resume their former lives. He will play the dual roles of Father Harries, a local priest, and his estranged identical twin brother Graham, a junkie who returns from the dead. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Mykelti Williamson (Justified) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot Clementine, which focuses on Clementine Ross (newcomer Sarah Snook), a habitual criminal who digs into the mystery of her origins after she becomes the target of a group of zealots who fear she possesses latent supernatural abilities that she will one day harness for either profound good or monstrous evil. Williamson will play Ray Allison, a hard-working, recently divorced detective with the Philadelphia Police Department. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actress Michelle Harrison (Emily Owens, M.D.) has joined the cast of The CW drama pilot The Flash that will focus on the DC Comics hero Barry Allen (Grant Gustin from Glee), a Central City assistant police forensics investigator-turned-superhero. Harrison will play his mother, Nora Allen, who will obviously be seen in flashbacks since in the story that is already known about Barry his mother was killed. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Charlie Weber (90210 and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot How to Get Away With Murder that is about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor, Annalise Dewitt (a role that has yet to be cast), who become entangled in a murder plot that will rock their entire university and change the course of their lives. Weber is expected to play Frank Delgado, her associate, a macho, takes-no-shit type of guy, a local Philly boy done good. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Veteran actress Jamie Lee Curtis has joined the cast of the CBS drama pilot Only Human that is about four siblings who had their entire lives documented by a filmmaker until age 32, when the documentary stops and everyone comes to find the four’s real lives are quite different from the way they had been portrayed on TV. Curtis will play their mother, Caroline Lang, a part time clinician, who runs a hospital with the authority of a woman with a distinguished career behind her. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actors Malcolm Goodwin (Breakout Kings) and David Anders (Alias and Once Upon a Time) have joined the cast of The CW drama pilot called iZombie, a supernatural crime procedural that centers on Liv, a med student-turned-zombie who takes a job in the coroner’s office to gain access to the brains she must reluctantly eat to maintain her humanity, but with each brain she consumes, she inherits the corpse’s memories. With the help of her medical examiner boss and a police detective (to be played by Goodwin), she solves homicide cases in order to quiet the disturbing voices in her head. Anders will play the show’s bad guy Blaine, an entitled rich kid who bites off more than he can chew in the drug business. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

NOTE: SO iZombie is going to be Tru Calling but with a zombie as the lead. Great?! That’s a not so happy great, by the way!

Actress Lily Rabe (American Horror Story) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot The Visitors that is about a race against the clock to defeat an unseen alien enemy out to destroy the world by using the Earth’s most precious resource: children. Rabe will play Claire Bennigan, an FBI agent and single mother who is torn between work and home life. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Michael Trucco (Killer Women and Battlestar Galactica) has joined the cast of the ABC drama pilot Sea of Fire that follows the fallout — including one murder and a disappearance — from the discovery that three teenage girls in a small town starred in a pornographic film. He will play Pete Harper, the father of the lost girls’ boyfriend. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Actress Ashley Judd (most recently seen on the small screen in the short-lived Missing) has joined the cast of the NBC drama pilot Salvation that follows a family that rallies together after the death of their father, the leader of a Texas mega church. She will play the matriarch of the family. (Whitney Friedlander at Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!