Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Showtime series Nurse Jackie will be back for a seventh and final season. (Natalie Abrams at Entertainment Weekly)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

CBS is developing a drama project called Last Hour with writer Nikki Toscano (Revenge and Las Vegas) that will follow a female FBI agent in the last hour of an FBI operation as she infiltrates the most dangerous criminal organizations in the world. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

FOX has given an off-cycle pilot order to a drama called Runner that will involve Peter Horton as an executive producer. The series will be based on the Turkish series called Son that centers on Lauren Marks who, after a simple twist of fate, learns that her husband is not the person she believed him to be. Faced with the harsh reality that her life is forever changed, she goes on a truth-seeking journey that entrenches her in a U.S./Mexican war over weapons and terrorism. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Five-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O’Hara has been cast in the upcoming NBC December 4 telecast of Peter Pan Live. She will play Mrs. Darling, the wife of George Darling and mother of the Darling children – Wendy, John and Michael. (The Futon Critic)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Rachel Brosnahan (Manhattan and The Blacklist) has joined the cast of the family drama Louder Than Bombs that follows Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and his two sons (Jesse Eisenberg and Devin Makenzie Druid) three years after the death of their wife and mother. Brosnahan will play an ex-girlfriend of Eisenberg’s character. (The Deadline Team)

Actor Jesse Carere (who plays Ofe on the MTV drama Finding Carter) has joined the cast of The Stanford Prison Experiment, a film about the infamous 1971 psychological tests in which college students played the roles of prisoners and guards with disturbing results. Carere will play Paul, Prisoner 5704, a gangly young man who counts smoking as his only vice. (The Deadline Team)

Q&A SECTION (with Adam Bryant at TV Guide)

Question: Will the Castle cliff-hanger be resolved early in the new season or strung out for ages? —

Adam: New showrunner David Amann would like a little from Column A and a little from Column B. “After the second episode, the audience will have some but not all of the answers about what exactly is going on,” he says of explaining just how and why Castle’s car came to be engulfed in flames. “It’s a sufficient amount [of resolution] that the characters can move and get back to life as they knew it, but the effects of what happened to Castle will re-emerge and re-assert themselves later in the season.” However, don’t expect that to necessarily slow down the re-booking of a wedding. So, will we see Castle-Beckett nuptials this season? “I think that is very possible,” Amann says.

Question: Do you have any intel on the new season of Homeland? — Nathan

Adam: Although we expect the ghost of Brody to haunt the new season at some point, his name isn’t even mentioned in the first episode. Instead, Carrie is thrust right back into the center of the action by overseeing a drone-strike program in Afghanistan. Things get a bit dicey, however, when Carrie’s latest target is taken out during a family wedding (three words: international. PR. nightmare.). But perhaps the most telling thing about Carrie is how little any of what she’s doing these days seems to faze her.

Question: Scandal scoop, please! — Eliza

Adam: Hold off on Olivia-Fitz ‘shipping for now. While Liv is relaxing on the beach, Fitz and Mellie will still be grieving Jerry’s death, which won’t be resolved any time soon. “It’s a huge struggle,” Tony Goldwyn tells us. “And with the absence of Olivia, emotionally, Fitz is trying to adjust to this new reality. … It’s not about moving forward on their marriage; it’s about getting through today. It kind of goes into territory that’s deeper and different and unexpected for Scandal.”

Question: I can’t wait for Person of Interest. Do you have any new spoilers? — Tommy

Adam: As you might have guessed, living under false identities doesn’t sit very well with many of the team members. (Ass-kickers Reese and Shaw, in particular, won’t be enjoying their fairly routine day jobs.) However, when the opportunity to get the band back together presents itself, not everyone jumps at the chance. “Finch has come to a place of doubting the intentions of his creation,” executive producer Jonathan Nolan teases. “Finch has been much more measured in his belief in what his creation is doing. He’s a lot more conflicted about it and that conflict will only continue.”

Question: I’m obsessed with Outlander. Any scoop?!

Adam: Book readers who have been dying for years to see the (very pivotal) wedding of Claire and Jamie won’t have to wait much longer. (The steamy union will take place in Episode 7 that will air September 20, to be exact.) As if you needed another reason to be excited, author Diana Gabaldon offered up this tease when we visited the set in Scotland. “It is well worth seeing,” she said. “I told [Sam Heughan], ‘I’ve seen it. It’s fantastic, the lighting is wonderful, and honesty compels me to add you have one fine ass, man!’ And that he does.”

That’s it. Enjoy!