Hey There,
Here are the news items for this past week:
RENEWALS AND CANCELLATIONS
The official upfront announcements will be made in New York next week, but a lot of renewals and cancellations have already been made.
NOTE: All upfront presentation information is courtesy of Variety.
Showtime has renewed Billions for a 5th season.
Power will come to an end on Starz after its upcoming sixth season.
CBS has renewed Bull, Hawaii Five-0, Madam Secretary, MacGyver, SEAL Team and S.W.A.T. for new seasons.
ABC has cancelled For the People after two seasons and has cancelled Whiskey Cavalier after only one season. Meanwhile The Rookie, Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away With Murder and Station 19 have all been renewed for new seasons.
FOX has cancelled The Passage and Proven Innocent both after one season, Lethal Weapon and Star have both been cancelled after three seasons each. Meanwhile, The Orville has been renewed for a third season.
NBC has given Blindspot a 5th and final season renewal; and the network has given This Is Us a renewal for THREE (yes 3) more seasons.
NEW SHOW PICK-UPS
A number of new dramas have been picked up by the major networks. Please note that specific details on these dramas will be discussed more thoroughly in network specific postings next week as the official upfronts take place. The new dramas include the following:
NOTE: All upfront presentation information is courtesy of Variety.
NBC
Bluff City, the new legal drama starring Jimmy Smits follows the lawyers of an elite Memphis law firm that specializes in the most controversial landmark civil rights cases.
Council of Dads tells the story of an extended family when Scott, a loving father of four, has his entire life’s plan thrown into upheaval by a cancer diagnosis and calls on a few of his closest allies to step in as back-up dads for every stage of his growing family’s life. The main cast includes Sarah Wayne Callies, Clive Standen, Tom Everett Scott and J. August Richards.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist follows Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco.
Lincoln, inspired by the best-selling book The Bone Collector, follows former NYPD detective and forensic genius Lincoln Rhyme (Russell Hornsby), who was at the top of his game until a serious accident at the hands of a notorious serial killer forces him out of the field. When Amelia Sachs (Arielle Kebbel), an intuitive young officer who’s got her own gift for profiling, finds herself hot on the killer’s trail, Rhyme in turn finds a partner for this new game of cat and mouse.
Filthy Rich, a southern Gothic family drama, centers around the aftermath of a plane crash which kills the patriarch of a mega-rich Southern family, famed for creating a wildly successful Christian television network. After his death, his wife and family are stunned to learn that he fathered three illegitimate children, all of whom are written into his will, threatening their family name and fortune. The cast includes Kim Cattrall, Gerald McRaney and Steve Harris.
The CW
Batwoman, starring Ruby Rose Kate Kane, armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, she soars onto the streets of Gotham as Batwoman, an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter primed to snuff out the failing city’s criminal resurgence.
Katy Keene, a spinoff of Riverdale, follows aspiring fashion designer Katy Keene (Lucy Hale), who meets Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), fresh off the bus to chase her musical dreams. Their world is populated with kindred-spirit starving artists, including mysterious socialite Pepper Smith and Broadway-bound performer Jorge Lopez – and his drag queen alter ego, Ginger.
Nancy Drew, set in the summer after Nancy’s (Kennedy McMann) high school graduation, she thought she’d be leaving her hometown for college, but when a family tragedy holds her back another year, she finds herself embroiled in a ghostly murder investigation, and along the way, uncovers secrets that run deeper than she ever imagined.
ABC
Stumptown [title to be changed soon], is based on the graphic novel series, following Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders), a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt, and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great P.I., but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police.
For Life is a serialized legal and family drama about a prisoner who becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.
Emergence centers around a police chief (Allison Tolman) who takes in a young child that she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the child’s identity is at the center of it all. This drama was originally developed by NBC, but picked up by ABC when NBC decided not to move forward with the series.
The Baker and the Beauty focuses on Daniel Garcia (Victor Rasuk), working in the family bakery and doing everything that his loving Cuban parents and siblings expect him to do; but on a wild Miami night he meets Noa Hamilton (Nathalie Kelley), an international superstar and fashion mogul, and his life moves into the spotlight.
CBS
Evil focuses on a skeptical female forensic psychologist who joins a priest-in-training and a carpenter to investigate and assess the Church’s backlog of supposed miracles, demonic possessions and unexplained phenomena.
FBI: Most Wanted, the spin-off of FBI, centers on the Fugitive Task Force of the FBI that tracks and captures the notorious criminals on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
All Rise (formerly known as Courthouse) follows the dedicated, chaotic, hopeful, and sometimes absurd lives of judges, prosecutors, and public defenders as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal system.
Tommy stars Edie Falco as a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. She uses her unflinching honesty and hardball tactics to navigate the social, political, and national security issues that converge with enforcing the law.
FOX
Deputy is a cop drama that focuses on what happens when the Los Angeles County’s Sheriff dies, forcing an arcane rule – forged back in the Wild West – thrusts the most unlikely man (Stephen Dorff) into the job: a fifth-generation lawman, more comfortable taking down bad guys than navigating a sea of politics.
neXt follows a Silicon Valley pioneer who discovers that one of his own creations – a powerful A.I. – might spell global catastrophe, and teams up with a cybercrime agent to fight a villain unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Prodigal Son centers on Malcolm Bright, who knows how killers think because his father was one of the best, a notorious serial killer called The Surgeon.
The untitled Weisman/Katims project is based on the Australia series Sisters focuses on an only child who finds her life turned upside down when her father reveals that, over the course of his prize-winning career as a pioneering fertility doctor, he used his own sperm to conceive upwards of a hundred children, including two new sisters.
9-1-1: Lone Star, the spin-off will star Rob Lowe, who will play a sophisticated New York cop who, along with his son, relocates to Austin, Texas, and must try to balance saving those who are at their most vulnerable with solving the problems in his own life.
Netflix
Away, stars Academy Award winner Hilary Swank as American astronaut Emma Green, who must leave her husband and teenage daughter behind to command an international space crew embarking upon a treacherous mission to the Red Planet.
MOVIE NEWS
Actress Jessica Chastain and actor Andrew Garfield will star in the box office movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which tells the extraordinary and outlandish rise, fall and redemption of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. In the 1970s and ’80s, Tammy Faye and Jim rose from humble beginnings to create the world’s largest religious broadcasting network and a theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn’t long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals and sexual scandal tore their marriage apart and toppled their carefully constructed empire. (Variety)
That’s it. Enjoy!
Read Full Post »
Rueben's Ramblings 