Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items (and there is a lot to share especially with network upfronts coming up) for this past week:

SCHEDULING NEWS

The second season of The Shannara Chronicles, which aired its first season on MTV, will now air on Spike. An official airdate has yet to be announced, though. (Variety)

SURPRISE OF THE WEEK

The NBC time-traveling drama Timeless was canceled earlier in the week, but three days after the announcement was made, NBC changed its mind and gave the show a second season that will return at some point in 2018. (Variety)

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

CBS has renewed Elementary and Code Black for another season each while the network has cancelled Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders after two seasons. (Variety)

The CW has finally officially announced that their two dramas Frequency and No Tomorrow will not be renewed for a second season. And, The CW has renewed The Originals and iZombie for new seasons. (Variety)

FOX has cancelled the drama Rosewood after two seasons, the new police drama APB after only one season and the drama Sleepy Hollow has been cancelled after four seasons. Meanwhile, FOX has given Gotham a fourth season renewal, and a surprise second season order was given to The Exorcist. (Variety)

NBC has given a second season renewal to the action drama Taken and a third season renewal to Blindspot. And, the network has given a fifth season renewal to The Blacklist, but the network has cancelled Timeless and The Blacklist: Redemption after each show’s freshman seasons. The network has also renewed Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med for additional seasons, but no word yet on whether Chicago Justice will get a second season. Additionally, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been renewed for a 19th season. (Variety)

Scandal will end its run on ABC after next year’s 7th season. Meanwhile, ABC has renewed Designated Survivor for a second season, Once Upon a Time for its seventh season and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a fifth season. However, The Catch, American Crime and Secrets and Lies have all been cancelled. (Variety)

Starz has given a second season order to American Gods. (Variety)

AMC has given a second season order for the Pierce Brosnan-led period piece drama The Son. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

It is a mass exodus over at Once Upon a Time. Despite recently getting a 7th season renewal, nearly all of the main cast – including Ginnifer Goodwin (Snow White), Josh Dallas (Charming), Jared Gilmore (Henry), Emilie de Ravin (Belle), Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan) and Rebecca Mader (Zelena) – will not be coming back to the show next season. (Variety and The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor John Noble (Fringe and Sleepy Hollow) and actress Rachel Nichols (Continuum) will guest star in The Librarians when it returns for its fourth season. Noble will play Monsignor Vega, a Vatican bishop who is secretly the head of the Heretical Order of the Shadows in the season premiere while Nichols will recur as Nicole Noone, a skilled fighter and Flynn’s previous guardian, who he’d thought perished 13 years ago. (Entertainment Weekly)

Actor Isaiah Washington will not be returning as a series regular to The 100. It is unclear at the time how his character will be written off of the who or whether the actor may appear again in a guest-star capacity. (TV Line)

Actress Ana de la Reguera (Narcos) has landed a lead role opposite Billy Bob Thornton in the upcoming second season of Amazon’s drama series Goliath. She will play Marisol Silva, a city councilwoman from the seamier side of Venice, in the race to be the first Latina mayor of Los Angeles. (Deadline)

Actor Ryan Eggold will be a series regular on The Blacklist in the fall with the show’s spin-off only lasting one season. (Deadline)

EARLY UPFRONT ANNOUNCEMENTS

FOX has picked up the following new dramas (Variety and Deadline):

• 911 – The 13-episode straight-to-series drama will star Angela Bassett (American Horror Story) in the series that is said to be in the vein of ER and revolves around 911 operators;

• The Resident – The new medical drama will follow Devon Pravesh (actor Manish Dayal from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Halt and Catch Fire), an idealistic young doctor who begins his first day under the supervision of a tough, brilliant senior resident to played by Matt Czurchy (Gilmore Girls), who pulls the curtain back on all of the good and evil in modern day medicine. Bruce Greenwood and Emily VanCamp (Revenge) will also star; and,

• Marvel’s The Gifted – The drama will focus on a family that discovers that their children possess mutant powers and are forced to go on the run from a hostile government. The cast will include Stephen Moyer (True Blood), Amy Acker (Person of Interest and Angel), Jamie Chung (Once Upon a Time), Sean Teale (Reign and Incorporated) and Blair Redford (Satisfaction, Switched at Birth and The Lying Game).

NOTE: See below for a quick teaser trailer for Marvel’s The Gifted.

The CW has picked up four new dramas for the 2017-2018 TV season (Variety):

• Dynasty, the reboot of the original 1980’s primetime soap opera that will feature Grant Show (Melrose Place), Nathalie Kelley (UnReal and The Vampire Diaries), Alan Dale (The O.C. and Lost);

• Valor, a military drama about an elite unit of helicopter pilots, starring Matt Barr (Sleepy Hollow);

• Life Sentence, starring Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars), as a young woman diagnosed with terminal cancer, who finds out that she’s not dying after all; and,

• Black Lightning, based on the DC Comics character, starring Cress Williams (Hart of Dixie).

NBC has picked up the following dramas (Variety):

• Good Girls – The crime drama about three “good girl” suburban wives and mothers who suddenly find themselves in desperate circumstances and decide to stop playing it safe, risking everything to take their power back. The cast includes Mae Whitman (Parenthood), Retta (Parks and Recreation), Matthew Lillard (Scooby Doo and Bosch), Manny Montana (Graceland); and

• Reverie – The dramatic thriller about a former detective (Sarah Shahi from Person of Interest) specializing in human behavior who is brought in when the launch of an advanced virtual reality program has dangerous and unintended consequences. The cast includes Dennis Haysbert (24), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) and Kathryn Morris (Cold Case).

NBC has also changed the name of the newly picked up military series For God & Country to The Brave. (The Futon Critic)

CBS has picked-up the following pilots (Variety):

• Instinct – Alan Cumming (The Good Wife) will star as a former CIA operative who has since built a ‘normal’ life as a gifted professor and writer. He is pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose. The cast includes Naveen Andrews (Lost) and Khandi Alexander (CSI: Miami);

• Wisdom of the Crowd – The series will follow a visionary tech innovator (Jeremy Piven), who creates a cutting-edge crowd-sourcing app to solve his daughter’s murder, and revolutionize crime solving in the process. The cast includes Natalia Tena (Game of Thrones and the Harry Potter franchise), Richard T. Jones (Judging Amy) and Monica Potter (Parenthood);

• Seal Team – The drama will follow the story of the professional and personal lives of the most elite unit of Navy SEALs as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous, high stakes missions our country can ask of them. The cast includes David Boreanaz (Angel and Bones), Jessica Pare (Mad Men) and Max Thieriot (Bates Motel).

• S.W.A.T. – The drama will follow a locally born and bred S.W.A.T. sergeant who is torn between loyalty to the streets and duty to his fellow officers when he’s tasked to run a specialized tactical unit that is the last stop in law enforcement in Los Angeles. The cast includes Shemar Moore (Criminal Minds) and Peter Onorati.

ABC has picked up the following new drams for the 2017-2018 TV season (Variety):

• The Good Doctor – San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital is about to employ a new surgeon, 25 year-old Shaun Murphy (Freddy Highmore from Bates Motel), a young man unlike any doctor they’ve ever hired before, which is causing problems for the Board of Directors. Shaun is autistic. He also has savant syndrome, which means that while he has real and fundamental difficulties communicating and connecting, he is also a genius with almost perfect recall. The cast includes Nicholas Gonzalez (Pretty Little Liars), Richard Schiff (The West Wing), Hill Harper (CSI: Miami) and Beau Garrett (Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce);

• For the People – The drama follows brand new lawyers working for both the defense and the prosecution, handling the most high-profile and high-stakes federal cases in the country — all as their lives intersect in and out of the courtroom. The cast includes Britne Oldford (Hunters and The Path), Ben Rappaport (Mr. Robot and Younger), Ben Shenkman (Royal Pains) [among others];

• Deception – The drama follows a Las Vegas magician Cameron Black (Jack Cutmore-Scott from Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life), who begins working as a consulting illusionist for the FBI when his career is ruined by scandal. The cast includes Amaury Nolasco (Prison Break), Lenora Crichlow (the original Being Human) and Justin Chon (the Twilight movie franchise);

• The Crossing – The drama revolves around refugees from a war torn country who start showing up to seek asylum in an American town. Only the country these people are from is America and the war they are fleeing is 250 years in the future. The cast includes Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do), Natalie Martinez (APB and Under the Dome), Sandrine Holt (MacGyver), Rick Gomez (Justified) and Jay Karnes (The Shield) [among others]; and,

• The Gospel of Kevin – The “lighter” one-hour will Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia), as a cluelessly self-serving person on a dangerous path to despair, who returns home to stay with his widowed twin sister (JoAnna Garcia Swisher from Once Upon a Time) and niece.

Syfy has picked up two new series based on comic book fare: Krypton and Happy. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Krypton will be set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet, following Superman’s grandfather (relative newcomer Cameron Cuffe) [whose House of El was ostracized and shamed] as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.

• Happy is based on the graphic novel, revolving around Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Underground), an intoxicated, corrupt ex-cop turned hit man, who is adrift in a world of casual murder, soulless sex and betrayal.

The new AT&T Audience Network (on DirecTV) will debut a new drama called Mr. Mercedes, based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King, on August 9 at 8 PM. The drama follows a demented killer Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway from Penny Dreadful), who taunts a retired police detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson from the Harry Potter franchise) with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he is able to strike again. (The Futon Critic)

The USA Network has given the new drama Damnation a series order. The drama is an epic saga about the secret history of the 1930’s American heartland, centering on the mythic conflict and bloody struggle between big money and the downtrodden, God and greed, charlatans and prophets. The series will star actor Killian Scott (Ripper Street) as Seth Davenport, a man masquerading as a small town Iowa preacher in the hopes of starting a full-blown insurrection against the status quo and actress Sarah Jones (Alcatraz) as Seth Davenport’s wife, who is not who she seems to be. The series is slated to premiere in October 2017. (Variety)

STREAMING SERIES NEWS

Amazon will launch its own big-budget fantasy series Carnival Row with an 8-episode run. The show is a “neo-Victorian fantasy” set in a world where humans and mythical creatures co-exist. It will follow the investigation into a series of unsolved murders in a city that’s already boiling over with tensions between man and creature. (TV Line)

Actor Andre Holland (the box office movie Moonlight) has landed the lead role in the upcoming Hulu psychological-horror drama called Castle Rock set in the Stephen King multiverse that combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. Holland will play Henry, a death row attorney with a unique and complicated history in Castle Rock, Maine. (Deadline)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Psych will be coming back for the holidays when the original cast and creator will be reunited for Psych: The Movie, the two-hour holiday movie that will pick up three years after the series finale, finding the friends [and family] [Shawn Spencer (James Roday), Burton “Gus” Guster (Dulé Hill), Lassiter (Timothy Omundson), Juliet (Maggie Lawson), Henry (Corbin Bernsen) and Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson) coming together during the holidays after a mystery assailant targets one of their own. (Variety)

NBC has chosen Jesus Christ Superstar as it next live musical event for the 2017-2018 TV season. It will air on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018. (Variety)

Actors Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) and Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey) will star in the HBO film My Dinner with Hervé, based on a story about late actor Hervé Villechaize. Dornan will star as struggling journalist Danny Tate, who had an unconventional friendship with the diminutive actor, who sadly committed suicide in 1993. (Deadline)

FOX has chosen the award-winning musical Rent as its next musical for the small screen; right in time to celebrate the musical’s 20th anniversary. Rent tells the story of seven artists struggling to follow their dreams during a time of great social and political turmoil, under the shadow of AIDS. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Walton Goggins (Six and Justified) has joined the cast of Maze Runner: The Death Cure, the third installment in the film franchise based on the James Dashner books. Goggins will play Lawrence, an unusual and dangerous character who is part-revolutionary, part-anarchist, and a voice for the voiceless people. (Deadline)

Actor Cliff Curtis (Fear the Walking Dead) will appear in all four of James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar sequels in the lead role, playing Tonowari, who is the leader of the Metkayina, the reef people clan. He joins returning cast members Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver. (Deadline)

Actresses Anya Taylor-Joy (the box office movies The Witch and Split) and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) will star in the X-Men spin-off movie The New Mutants, which will focus on a diverse group of teenage mutants who are still coming of age. Taylor-Joy will play Magik, a young sorceress who is also the sister of the X-Men bruiser Colossus while Williams will portray Wolfsbane, a lycanthrope struggling to reconcile her powers with her religious beliefs. (Entertainment Weekly)

TRAILERS

Blade Runner 2049

The Gifted (New Marvel TV Series)

The Crossing Official Teaser

Love Actually: Red Nose Day

NOTE: The third annual fund-raiser, Red Nose Day, will air on NBC on May 25 at 10 PM. You owe it to yourself to not only watch the trailer featured above, but also to check out the special when it airs.

That’s it. Enjoy!