Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

CASTING NEWS

Actress Ashley Judd has joined the cast of the EPIX series Berlin Station for its second season. She will play BB Yates, Berlin’s disarming new Chief of Station, nicknamed “The Station Whisperer” for her itinerant work in the field shoring up CIA stations in moral or corporate disrepair. (Variety)

Actor Peter Sarsgaard will star alongside Jeff Daniels in the Hulu streaming series The Looming Tower that is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning expose by Lawrence Wright on the in-fighting between the FBI and CIA in the years leading up to 9/11. He will play Martin Schmidt, a CIA analyst who invariably believes he’s by far the smartest person in the room. (Variety)

Actress Katie McGrath (Merlin) has been promoted to series regular on Supergirl where she plays Lena Luthor, the baby sister of Lex Luthor, who came to National City to get out from under the shadow of her notorious brother. (Deadline)

Actress Anne Dudek (House and Covert Affairs) will have a recurring role on The Flash, playing Tracy Brand, who is described as “a smorgasbord of quirky idiosyncrasies.” Showing nary a hint of the greatness that people will celebrate her for in the future, Tracy will set out to find the genius she’s destined to one day become. (TV Line)

Actress Eliza Dushku (Buffy and Dollhouse) has joined the cast of Bull. She will appear in a 3-episode arc of its debut season and has the option of being added as a series regular for its 2nd season. She will play J.P. Nunnelly, the savvy head of the best criminal defense firm in New York, who is hired by Dr. Jason Bull (series lead Michael Weatherly) when a member of his Trial Analysis Corporation team faces prison time. (Variety)

Actress Talulah Riley has been promoted to series regular for the second season of HBO’s Westworld. She plays Angela, the host whose beatific face welcomed guests to Westworld for decades. (Deadline)

Actor Yohance Myles (Shots Fired) will guest star in the second season of OWN’s Queen Sugar, playing a successful barbershop owner named D’Andre. It seems he and Nova (series lead Rutina Wesley) shared an “intimate night” not too long ago, and D’Andre isn’t the least bit shy about letting her know he’d like to make it a more regular thing. (TV Line)

Actress Mary Stuart Masterson will guest star in the season finale of Blindspot, but details on the character she will play is being kept under wraps. (Entertainment Weekly and TV Line)

TV MINI-SERIES NEWS

Some well-known names have been cast in the upcoming National Geographic mini-series The Long Road Home, based on the Martha Raddatz book. It will focus on April 4, 2004 (aka Black Sunday) on which a Texas platoon form the 1st Calvary Division came under attack in Sadr City, Baghdad. The 8-episode event will star Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush), Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break, The Walking Dead and Colony), Jason Ritter (Parenthood), Jeremy Sisto (Law & Order and Suburgatory) and Noel Fisher (Shameless) [among others]. The mini-series is expected to air sometime in 2017. (The Hollywood Reporter and TV Line)

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Hulu has given a second season order to Shut Eye, the series that stars Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) as Charlie Haverford who, along with his wife Linda (KaDee Strickland), run a chain of fortune-telling parlors, one of which occupies a room in their Los Angeles home. (Variety)

CBS has renewed the following dramas: Blue Bloods, Bull, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, Madam Secretary, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans and Scorpion. Meanwhile, the fate of the following CBS drama are still yet to be determined: Code Black, Criminal Minds, Criminal Minds Beyond Borders, Elementary, Ransom and Training Day.  (CBS Press Release)

Cinemax has officially canceled the period piece medical drama The Knick. (Variety)

Lucifer fans be forewarned. Fox is cutting the sophomore season short, saving the final four episodes for season 3 with the season finale set for May 29. Those final four episodes are actually considered mostly stand-alone episodes that will be character-focused. (TV Line and The Futon Critic)

TRAILER

Red Nose Day, Actually (Love Actually Reunion)

Justice League

That’s it. Enjoy!