Hey All,
Here are the news items from the last week:
TELEVISION
Even though the VH1 series Hindsight received a second season renewal the network has reneged on that deal, canceling the show. It would seem the show is the victim of a regime change and “tighten the purse strings at VH1 and Viacom. (Cynthia Littleton at Variety)
The USA Network has pulled the plug on its new drama Complications after only one season. (Whitney Friedlander at Variety)
Actress Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives) will appear in season 3 of The CW post-apocalyptic series The 100, playing Queen Nia of the Ice Nation, who has reigned over her nation for many through ruthlessness and savvy. (Carissa Pavlica at TV Fanatic)
Actresses Lynn Whitfield (The Josephine Baker Story), Merle Dandridge (The Night Shift and Star Crossed) and Desiree Ross (Falling Skies) have joined the cast of the megachurch drama series Greenleaf that will air on OWN. The series will focus on the unscrupulous world of the Greenleaf family and their sprawling Memphis megachurch, where scandalous secrets and lies are as numerous as the faithful. Whitfield will play Bishop Greenleaf’s imperious wife Lady Mae; Dandridge is Lady Mae’s estranged daughter Grace, a disillusioned former preacher who returns home after having fled her contentious family 20 years ago and Ross will play Grace’s teenage daughter, Sophia. (Denise Petski at Deadline)
Newcomer Violett Beane has landed the role of Jesse Quick (known as Jesse Chambers in the comics), daughter of Johnny Quick and Lady Bell, the first female speedster on The Flash. And, actor Demore Barnes (The Unit) will appear as Henry Hewitt (aka Tokamak), a charming but cocky scientist who was affected by the same particle accelerator explosion that created The Flash. When Caitlin Snow recruits him to join the S.T.A.R. Labs team, Henry begins to fulfill his destiny as a powerful meta-human. (Carissa Pavlica at TV Fanatic and Rebecca Iannucci at TV Line)
Actor Esai Morales (NYPD Blue and Caprica) will guest star in an episode of Blue Bloods this fall, playing Delgado, a charismatic NYPD sergeant who has a plan to increase the accuracy of police statistics by seeking the opinions of city youth, and thus earns a promotion from commish Frank Reagan (series lead Tom Selleck). (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)
Actress Mia Maestro (The Strain and Alias) has landed a major recurring role on Scandal, but her role is being kept under wraps. (Vlada Gelman at TV Line and Deadline)
Actor Matthew Willig (NCIS and veteran NFL player) will Lash, an Inhuman on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when the show returns this fall for its third season. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)
Actress Shohreh Aghdasloo (24 and Grimm) will guest star in an episode of Elementary this fall, staring as Donya Esfandiari, a glamorous international hotelier who’s in negotiations with Sherlock’s dad, Morland (new series regular John Noble), a consultant on the global scale. (Vlada Gelman at TV Line)
ONLINE SERIES NEWS
Actress Amy Forsyth (Defiance) has joined the cast of the upcoming Hulu online drama series The Way from series creator Jason Katims (the man behind Roswell and Parenthood). The Way examines a couple, Eddie (Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad) and Sarah Cleary (Michelle Monaghan from Source Code and True Detective) at the center of a controversial movement struggling with relationships, marriage and power. Forsyth will play Ashley Fields, Hawk’s (Kyle Allen) [son of Eddie and Sarah] smart, popular classmate who forces him to confront the confines of his own religious upbringing. (Denise Petski at Deadline)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Actor Timothy Olyphant (Justified) and actresses Shay Mitchell (Pretty Little Liars) and Britt Robertson (Life Unexpected and Under the Dome) [among others] have joined the cast of the upcoming box office movie Mother’s Day, the romantic comedy from Garry Marshall. They join the already cast Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudeikis. This film is the latest in Marshall’s franchise that includes Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve. Olyphant plays Henry, the ex-husband of Aniston’s character, Sandy. Mitchell will play Tina, Henry’s new bouncy, beautiful wife, who wants nothing more than to be the perfect stepmom to Henry and Sandy’s children. And, Robertson plays Kristin, a slightly neurotic new mother to a one-year-old girl. (Patrick Hipes at Deadline)
Actress Melissa Benoist (Glee and this fall’s Supergirl) and actor Sam Heughan (Outlander) have landed the lead roles in the upcoming box office film Oxford that will find Benoist as an American Rhodes Scholar student, recently arriving at Oxford University, falls for an arrogant teaching assistant (Heughan) who is quietly fighting terminal cancer. When she finds out the reason he is so standoffish, they make the most of each day, traveling the world together. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)
Q&A SECTION (with Michael Ausiello at TV Line and Natalie Abrams at Entertainment Weekly)
Question: Is this finally going to be the Arrow season that Felicity Smoak gets a code name to help protect her identity? —Julie
Ausiello: We took your Q to executive producer Wendy Mericle, who admitted that there’s a running joke in the writers room about what Felicity’s alias would be if they were to give her one. But at the moment, the tech wiz isn’t getting a second moniker. “Dig is out in the field, so there’s a necessity for [him to have one],” Mericle explains. “But not quite yet for Felicity, although you never know. We all love the idea of getting her out there more and being a badass. It’s just a question of finding the right way to do it.”
Question: I can’t wait for Season 13 of NCIS, please give me some scoop on our lovable Abbys (Sciuto or/and Borin). –Ann
Ausiello: There are no plans (yet) for another visit from Diane Neal as Abigail Borin, but we have better news regarding the other Abby: Episode 5 of the new season features what show boss Gary Glasberg touts as “an Abby/Die Hard story,” where the forensics whiz, all alone in a lab, “must use her wits” to save the day.
Question: Will fans of NCIS: LA’s Deeks and Kensi get to see their relationship develop more through Season 7? —Tony
Ausiello: That would be a definitive yes. “Things must be getting serious if he makes the choice to introduce her to his mom (played by Pamela Reed),” says Daniela Ruah, who plays Kensi. “Throughout that episode, Deeks gets calls on his phone, he doesn’t tell Kensi who it is, he doesn’t pick up… so you can see he’s making the decision about whether he wants to take this step or not. And then he ends up taking it,” previews the actress. “I like that they’ve made it a thought-out decision.”
Question: Anything new about Castle? —Rachael
Ausiello: As part of the Season 8 plan to present twentysomething Alexis as “a young woman as opposed to a child,” Rick’s daughter will find an influential new mentor, in Scotland Yard alum-turned-security specialist Hayley Shipton (new series regular Toks Olagundoye). “Hayley is going to help Alexis find herself,” says co-showrunner Terence Paul Winter, who sees the two sharing “a different kind of energy” than when Alexis interned for M.E. Lanie. “What we’ve shot with [Alexis and Hayley] together is magic, it really is.”
Question: Got any scoop on Scorpion? —Shon
Ausiello: Yes, but promise me you won’t breathe a word of it to Paige. Episode 6 will find Walter getting aggressively pursued by a disarmingly beautiful woman at a hotel bar. But wait, there’s a catch! The hottie in question is later suspected of planting a worm in a security system Walter is designing. In other words, she probably was just pretending to be interested in him. So it’s cool if you wanna tell Paige.
Question: Is there any hope that we will see Once Upon a Time‘s Robin Hood in a new adventure? When I heard Merida was coming (Amy Manson from Atlantis and Outcasts), I immediately thought that she would somehow end up related to him. –Chris
Ausiello: “We are going to see his adventure side,” series co-creator Eddy Kitsis answered when Matt Mitovich delivered your Q. As for the other ace archer entering the series’ mix, “Robin does not have a connection to Merida,” Kitsis said, “but he will interact with her.”
Question: What’s going on with Liz Keen this season on The Blacklist? — Peritta
Natalie: Discovering that she was responsible for her father’s death will really challenge Liz in the new season. “It informs this feeling deep inside that there’s a criminal instinct that she’s trying to resist and trying not to embrace, and yet she’s being forced to embrace by virtue of the fact that she’s on the run,” says executive producer Jon Bokenkamp. Still, Liz may use her new Most Wanted status to her advantage. “The idea of who she is, what her past is, who her mother was, her ties to Russia, those all play into how she’s going to have to survive.”
Question: Beyond being “Abbie’s boss,” what importance will the character Daniel Reynolds hold in this upcoming season of Sleepy Hollow? — Ramón
Natalie: Yeah, he’s not just Abbie’s boss. Reynolds (Lance Gross) and Abbie first met at Quantico as recruits, where they pushed each other, which led to a short but passionate affair before they parted ways to pursue their careers — Reynolds as a rookie FBI agent, and Abbie back to her hometown of Sleepy Hollow to work for the Sheriff’s Department. It’s been four years when they reunite in the new season and now he’s her boss, so this should be interesting!
Question: Flash scoop, please! I will take anything on Iris West or Westallen. — Tatiana
Natalie: Iris will be stepping up in a big way this season now that Wells is no longer the team leader at S.T.A.R. Labs. “Iris slides into [the role] very naturally,” says executive producer Andrew Kreisberg. “She’s a born leader. One of the best things in the premiere is Barry decides that he wants to work alone because he doesn’t want to risk anyone else’s lives, and Iris is really the one who gets the band back together again. She’s the only one who can stand up to Barry.”
Question: Hi! Any scoop about Castle? — Fred
Natalie: We’re finally going to learn more about Castle’s missing time — and it appears to be way more important than even I could’ve guessed. “This year, we really do want to get into what happened when he was gone in a way that hopefully ties a lot of the threads of mysteries of seven seasons together in an unexpected and exciting way,” says EP Alexi Hawley.
Question: Anything on the new faces coming to Gotham? — Mac
Natalie: Instead of talking about one of the new faces we know — of which there are many — let’s talk about someone I can’t yet identify. When talking with my colleague Samantha Highfill about the time period in which the city of Gotham exists, executive producer Danny Cannon teased: “We have a character now who basically wants to move into the future and has a grand design of moving Gotham into a modern future, and we’re going to see if the city can handle that kind of pressure or not.” Their true intentions remain to be seen, but considering the season explores the rise of the villains, he or she is probably bad.
Question: On Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., why exactly is Mack — who has shown to be anti-alien and powered people in the past — working with Skye on a project that’s supposed to be secret and looking for powered people? — klutzy_girl
Natalie: That’s because Skye Daisy and Mack are going to be the Mulder and Scully of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In other words, “The person who’s skeptical of alien stuff and the person who has it inside of her,” EP Jed Whedon says. Taking on much more of a leadership role this season, Skye Daisy is the only super-powered person within the Secret Warriors team when the show returns — but that won’t last for long.
Question: Any Deeks and Kensi news for NCIS: LA? — Henrietta
Natalie: The Internal Affairs investigation will continue to be a point of concern between Kensi and Deeks. “It’s tough,” says Eric Christian Olsen, who remains steadfast that even he doesn’t know what Deeks did. “I think he’s covering something up, something catastrophic. I think he probably gets sent back to LAPD at some point. I think he’s hiding it from everybody, he’s been hiding it from himself. Whatever it is, I only hope he did it for the right reasons.”
That’s it. Enjoy!
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