Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actress Merrin Dungey (Alias and Betrayed) has landed a recurring role on Once Upon a Time, playing The Little Mermaid villain Ursula. She will be teamed with actress Victoria Smurfit (Dracula), who will play Cruella de Vil and actress Kristin Bauer van Straten (True Blood), who returns as Maleficent. (Natalie Abrams at Entertainment Weekly)

Actor Riley Smith (True Blood) has landed a recurring role on the second season of True Detective, playing Steve Mercier, a boyish Sheriff’s deputy, the boyfriend of Rachel McAdams character. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Michael Ealy (Almost Human) has landed a series regular role on The Following where he will play the new face of evil, a brilliant, chameleon-like killer who will push Ryan Hardy (series lead Kevin Bacon) to the brink. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

The A&E drama Longmire may have been cancelled, but it has been saved by Netflix, who has picked up the show for a 10-episode fourth season that will air sometime in 2015. (TV Guide Magazine)

Actor Billy Baldwin (Parenthood) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Forever, playing Oliver Clausten, a work-hard, play-hard Wall Street CEO who’s accustomed to getting things his way and lives his life with a master-of-the-universe charm and top-predator charisma. When his protégé Jason Fox winds up dead, the show will peel back the layers of Jason’s humble beginnings and introduction to Oliver, his company, and the dangerously cutthroat world that ultimately lead to his demise. (Natalie Abrams at Entertainment Weekly)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Ahna O’Reilly (The Help) and actor Richard Armitage (The Hobbit franchise) will appear in the big screen psychological thriller Sleepwalker that has O’Reilly playing a grad student who goes to a campus sleep clinic to treat her insomnia and nightmares, but instead starts experiencing unsettling changes in her waking reality every time she wakes up. With the help of a doctor (Armitage), she attempts to find her way back to normalcy by unraveling the tangled knot of her dreams, reality, and shockingly tragic past. (Jen Yamato at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE TRAILERS

Cinderella

The Age of Adaline

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

Question: What have you got about Tony on NCIS? — Marla, via Twitter

Adam: You definitely haven’t seen the last of Keats, Tony’s former partner with whom some sparks flew recently. “That connection…will come up again at some point,” executive producer Gary Glasberg tells us. “It was a tough year for Tony DiNozzo last year. We’re going to continue down the road of getting back to what we call the old Tony DiNozzo — [seeing him] spreading his wings a little bit and enjoying himself.” But not all the character’s exploration will come through love interests. Glasberg teases that Robert Wagner will return as Tony Sr. in a winter episode that offers “more insight into Tony DiNozzo when he was younger.”

Question: What can you tell me about Castle’s mid-season finale? Will it deal with Castle’s disappearance at all? — Caleb

Adam: Executive producer David Amann suggests that the writers won’t be picking up that mystery again until probably February, during this season’s big two-parter episode. But the midseason finale should pack plenty of punch. Because it serves as this season’s Christmas episode, it has a bit of a lighter touch…right up until the end. “We’re looking at a bit of a game-changer for Castle at the end of the episode,” Amann teases, although he promises that Castle and Beckett aren’t getting a quickie divorce. “The events of the episode will cause a shift…in Castle’s life in a fairly significant way.” Bah humbug!

Question: Will Keller be a thorn in Neal’s side now that he’s working for Interpol on White Collar? — Chris

Adam: Because Keller and Neal ultimately have the same goal — to take down the Pink Panthers — they find themselves as unlikely allies. And working together might perhaps change how Neal feels about Keller — and himself. “That’s a relationship I’ve always loved because they’re always the shadowy reflection of each other, that yin and yang,” creator Jeff Eastin says. “It gives Neal a chance to dig in and look inside and ask, ‘Who am I?’ Ultimately, that’s what I think the series has been about: Neal trying to figure out who he is. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?”

Question: Is McQuaid’s wife really dead on Covert Affairs? What if she’s alive and working with Belenko? — Justin

Adam: That would be something, right? Alas, creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord promise that McQuaid’s late wife, whom he casually mentioned in the summer finale, is just part of his backstory. “The stakes of these [remaining episodes] are so high and focused on Auggie that we’re not really finding time for other things, so that’s not something that will come up,” Ord says. “But never say never in the future.”

That’s it. Enjoy!