Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CASTING NEWS

Legendary actress Meryl Streep has joined the second season cast of Big Little Lies. She will play Mary Louise Wright, the mother of Perry (Alexander Skarsgard). (Variety)

Legendary actor John Malkovich will appear in the third season of Billions as Russian billionaire Grigor Andolov. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Cherry Jones (24) will appear in the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale as Holly, the feminist mother to June/Offred (series lead Elisabeth Moss). (The Hollywood Reporter)

Film star Helen Mirren will appear in the HBO telefilm Catherine the Great. (Variety)

Actor Brett Dalton (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) will appear in the upcoming ABC mid-season drama Deception, playing CIA agent Isaac Walker, who teams with Cameron (series lead Jack Cutmore-Scott) & Co. for a counterintelligence case. Isaac also shares a romantic past with the magician’s partner in crime-solving, FBI agent Kay Daniels (series lead Ilfenesh Hadera). (The Futon Critic and TV Line)

Actors Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgard and newcomer Florence Pugh have joined the cast of the upcoming AMC mini-series The Little Drummer Girl about a brilliant young actress, Charlie (Pugh), who strikes up an acquaintance with an intriguing stranger while on vacation in Greece, but it rapidly becomes apparent that his intentions are far from romantic. The man is Becker (Skarsgard), an Israeli intelligence officer who entangles her in a complex and high-stakes plot orchestrated by Israeli spymaster Kurtz (Shannon). (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Joanne Whalley (The Borgias) has appear in Marvel’s Daredevil, playing Sister Maggie, a strong-willed nun who speaks her mind and cares deeply about Matt’s safety. (The Futon Critic)

Actor Kip Pardue (Marvel’s Runaways) will guest star in Once Upon a Time as the fiancé of Zelena’s (Rebecca Mader) cursed alter-ego Kelly. (The Futon Critic and Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Hannah Waddingham (Game of Thrones) will appear in Krypton, the upcoming Syfy Superman prequel. She will play Jax-Ur, formerly one of Krypton’s greatest scientists with deep ties to Krypton’s past; now determined to bring radical change to Krypton as leader of the underground terrorist organization, Black Zero. (Deadline)

Actress Lolita Davidovich (Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders) will recur on How To Get Away with Murder. There are no details about what role she will play though. (Deadline)

CANCELLATION NEWS

The USA Network has cancelled the new drama series Damnation after only one season. (Variety)

NEW SERIES NEWS

The Grey’s Anatomy spin-off finally has an official title: Station 19. (Deadline)

MOVIE NEWS

Actress-singer Jennifer Hudson will play the one and only Aretha Franklin in an upcoming biopic about the life of the Queen of Soul. [NOTE: Hudson is hand-picked by Franklin to play the role]. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the few news items for the past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

The Shannara Chronicles has not been picked up for a third season by Paramount Network, which has taken over Spike TV – the second home of the fantasy series after it was cancelled by MTV the show’s original home network. (The Hollywood Reporter)

FOX has renewed 9-1-1 for a second season. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Rupert Friend (Homeland) has landed a role in the upcoming CBS All Access drama Strange Angel (based on the book by George Pendle), which explores the intersection between genius and madness, science and science fiction, following the life of Jack Parsons (Jack Reynor) in 1940s Los Angeles as by day he helps birth the discipline of American rocketry and by night is a performer of sex magick rituals and a disciple to occultist Aleister Crowley. Friend will take on the role of Ernest Donovan, Jack’s enigmatic neighbor who becomes the young scientist’s tour guide into the illicit underbelly of 1930s Los Angeles. A lost soul and drifter, Donovan pulls Parsons out of his humdrum existence and into a strange new religion that encourages its followers to pursue their deepest and darkest desires as a means of bending the world to their will. A premiere date for Strange Angel has not yet been determined. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Keiynan Lonsdale is taking his character of Wally West from The Flash on The CW to its sister series (if you will) of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. (Entertainment Weekly and The Futon Critic)

Actress Nikohl Boosheri and actor Stephen Conrad Moore have been promoted on the Freeform drama The Bold Type. They are now series regular playing Adena, Kat’s girlfriend and Oliver, Scarlet’s boss. (Deadline)

Actor Seamus Dever (Castle) has landed a role in the upcoming streaming series Titans that will follow Dick Grayson aka Robin (Brenton Thwaites) as he steps out of Batman’s shadow and assembles a motley crew of crime fighters. There are no details on what role Dever will play in the series, but he will have a recurring role. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actor Chai Hansen (The 100) will be appearing in the 3rd season of the Freeform fantasy series Shadowhunters as Jordan Kyle, a new friend – and future roommate – of Simon Lewis. (Entertainment Weekly and TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

Both Hulu series Future Man and Runaways have been renewed. Both shows will get 13 episodes for their second seasons. On the other hand, Hulu has canceled the Hugh Laurie-led series Chance after two seasons. (Variety)

AMC has renewed The Walking Dead for a 9th season. (Press Release)

CASTING NEWS

Actors David Oyelowo and Dominic West and actress Lily Collins have landed the lead roles in the upcoming 6-part BBC mini-series adaptation of Les Miserables. West will play French convict Jean Valjean while Oyelowo will play Inspector Javert and Collins will play Fantine. (Variety)

TNT has picked up the small screen adaptation of Snowpiercer, the 2013 box office film, to series. The series will star Jennifer Connelly and will be set seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, centering on the remnants of humanity, who inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe. (Variety)

Gillian Anderson confirmed her exit on The X-Files this week and has ruled out any future return. She has also dropped out of American Gods. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Michael J. Fox will appear in a 5-episode arc of Designated Survivor where he will play Ethan West, a high-flying and connected Washington attorney who is hired by the President’s Cabinet and ultimately appointed as special prosecutor to investigate former President Cornelius Moss’s alleged leak of classified information. (The Futon Critic)

Actors Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) and Maximiliano Hernandez (Sicaro) have joined the cast of the AT&T Audience Network series Mr. Mercedes. Huston will play Brady Hartsfield’s doctor Dr. Felix Babineau and Hernandez will portray Assistant DA Antonio Montez. (Deadline)

Actress Fiona Gubelmann (Wilfred) will have a recurring role in The Good Doctor, playing Morgan, a charming, funny new resident who is fully embracing life and yet also quite cutthroat. (Deadline)

Actress Brooke Shields will appear in multi-episodes of Jane the Virgin, playing River Fields, a famous actress/supermodel who sparks a feud with Rogelio and becomes his new nemesis. (TV Line)

It looks like Skyler Samuels (who plays the telepathic Esme Frost and her identical siblings) in The Gifted just might be getting promoted to series regular when the show returns for its second season. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

TV NEWS

The Fosters has been cancelled except there are several twists to the bad news. The rest of the show’s fifth season will begin on Freeform on January 9, including the show’s 100 episode. The show will return for a three-episode limited event series this summer at which time the show will come to an end. Except, Freeform has ordered an unnamed 13-episode spinoff that will star The Fosters stars Maia Mitchell (who plays Callie) and Cierra Ramirez (who plays Marianna). The spin-off is supposed to follow Callie and Mariana as they move on from their high school lives living with moms Stef and Lena. (Variety)

The final season of Game of Thrones will return to HBO sometime in 2019. (Variety)

FOX has announced that they are planning a “new iteration” of Prison Break similar to what they did with 24 last season. It is expected that both Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller will return should the show come back for another installment. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Stephen Dorff (the box office film Blade and the recent TV series Star) has joined the cast of the 3rd season of the HBO drama True Detective, playing Roland West, an Arkansas State Investigator who, along with his partner, has his life and career influenced over three decades by a baffling crime. (Variety)

U.K. actor Colin McFarlane (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) will appear in the 4th season of Outlander, playing Ulysses, the butler of the River Run plantation in North Carolina that is owned by Jocasta McKenzie Cameron (Jamie Fraser’s aunt and sister of the late Dougal and Colum McKenzie) [to be played by Maria Doyle Kennedy (Orphan Black).] (Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) has landed the lead role of Sabrina Spellman in the upcoming Netflix series based on the Archie Comics’ supernatural heroine Sabrina, an empowered young woman, half-human, half-witch, who is just beginning her dark education as a sorceress, even as she tries to maintain a normal life as a sophomore at Baxter High. The series was originally in development at The CW before moving to Netflix. (Variety)

Actress-singer Sara Bareilles will play Mary Magdalene in the upcoming live NBC production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which will feature singer John Legend in the lead role. The event series will air on Easter Sunday. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Rosario Dawson (Daredevil) will be featured in multi-episodes of Jane the Virgin in an as yet announced role. (Deadline)

Actress Kate Beckinsale (the Underworld franchise) will star in the Amazon series The Widow, which is being compared to The Bourne Identity and The Legend of Tarzan. The 8-episode drama centers on a woman who left her previous life behind until the husband she thought was dead pops up in the news. Forced to face the world again, she embarks on a mission to uncover the truth about her past which leads her to the Congo where danger lurks in every corner. (Deadline and TV Guide)

RENEWAL/PICK-UP NEWS

Netflix has ordered a sequel to the Will Smith and Joel Edgerton film Bright. (Variety)

The Gifted has been renewed for a second season at FOX. (Variety)

Syfy has given a series order to Nightflyers, which is based on the George R.R. Martin novella that will follow eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer – a ship with a small tightknit crew and a reclusive captain — in the hope of making contact with alien life. But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other. The cast will include Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire), Eoin Macken (The Night Shift), David Ajala (Falling Water) and Brian F. O’Bryne (The Magicians) [among others].  (The Futon Critic)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the few news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

BBC America has canceled Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency after two season on the air. (Variety)

Van Helsing has been renewed for a third season by Syfy. (The Futon Critic)

The EPIX drama Graves has been cancelled after two seasons. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor-singer John Legend has been tapped for the title role in NBC’s live staging of Jesus Christ Superstar, which is set to air on Easter Sunday. (Variety)

Actors Michael Peña and Diego Luna will star in the upcoming fourth season of Narcos on Netflix. It is set to premiere in 2018. (Variety)

Actor Mike Dopud (Power) has landed a key recurring role on Season 5 of The CW sci-fi drama The 100. He will play Vinson, a ruthless serial killer, terrifying enough to keep even the worst of the criminals on their toes. (Deadline)

Actress Jaime Ray Newman (Marvel’s The Punisher) has landed a recurring role on the 2nd season of the Bravo series Imposters. Shew will portray Linda, a longtime patient of the Annex. (Deadline)

TRAILER

Ocean’s 8

That’s it. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

RENEWALS

Netflix has renewed Marvel’s The Punisher for a second season. (Variety)

The USA Network has given Mr. Robot a season four renewal. (Variety)

Netflix has renewed the Jason Momoa series Frontier for a third season. It will include 6 episodes and is set to premiere in 2018. (The Futon Critic)

NEW PRODUCTIONS

Netflix will stream the UK-produced drama The Frankenstein Chronicles, a supernatural crime drama that reimagines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Set in 1830s London, Sean Bean will play John Marlott, a war veteran and river policeman who is thrown into the supernatural world after taking on the case of a corpse made up of body parts from different children. Soon, John Marlott discovers the horrific crime is entangled in a web of demonic forces and powerful figures in the political establishment. (Variety and TV Guide)

Uber producer Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica and Outlander) has a new project in the works. Apple has given a straight-to-series order for the as-yet titled project that will explore what would have happened if the global space race had never ended. (Deadline)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Colton Haynes is returning to Arrow as Roy Harper for a short arc. (Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Kylie Bunbury (Pitch) will star in the ABC reboot of the 1970’s cop drama Get Christie Love, playing the title character, an African-American CIA agent in charge of an elite special-ops unit. (TV Line)

Actress Gabrielle Carteris (Beverly Hills, 90210 and SAG-AFTRA president) will guest-star in a late-January episode of NCIS, playing Julie Hart, the mother of a high school student who witnessed a crime that Gibbs’ team is investigating. (TV Line)

TRAILER

Little Women (new PBS adaptation)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

RENEWAL/SERIES PICK-UP NEWS

Shooter has been renewed by the USA Network for a third season. (Variety)

EPIX has renewed the spy drama Berlin Station for a third season. (The Futon Critic)

Amazon has landed the right to the ensemble drama Life Itself from This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman. The film will star Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Annette Bening, Samuel L. Jackson, Antonio Banderas, Olivia Cooke and Mandy Patinkin, focusing on a multi-generational love story in which several characters are connected over the course of decades, from the streets of New York to the Spanish countryside and back. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Netflix is planning to adapt the fantasy saga The Witcher by Polis author Andrzej Sapkowski that chronicles monster hunters who, with training and body modification, develop supernatural abilities at a young age to battle deadly beasts. Lauren Schmidt Hissirch (Power, Daredevil and The Defenders) will serve as showrunner and executive producer. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Alice Eve (Star Trek: Into Darkness) will join the cast of Marvel’s Iron Fist for its second season, but her role has yet to be announced. (The Futon Critic)

Actor Kevin Zegers (Gossip Girl and Gracepointe) has joined the cast of Fear the Walking Dead for the show’s fourth season, but his role is being kept under wraps. (Deadline)

Actress Amber Skye Noyes (The Deuce and Beauty and the Beast) has landed a recurring role on the third season of Quantico, playing Celine Fox, a new recruit of an elite black ops team. (Deadline)

Rock-n-roll icon Alice Cooper will play King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar Live! which will debut on NBC on April 1. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Michael Malarkey (The Vampire Diaries) has joined the cast of the History Channel’s upcoming 10-episode drama series Blue Book that chronicles the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book.” He will play Captain Michael Quinn, A decorated WWII hero. (Deadline)

Actress Jillian Rose Reed (Awkward.) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Lucifer, playing Cece, the quirky, bubbly and exceptionally-devoted personal assistant of a massive pop star — who also happens to be her best friend whose orbit she has lived in for years. (TV Line)

TV EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

The 35th annual Paley Fest will be held early next year. Three of the panels have been announced: Stranger Things, Will & Grace and The Good Doctor. (Deadline)

TRAILERS

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – Official Trailer

‘Howards End’ Trailer Starz Adaptation

Nashville Season 6 Trailer

Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Season 2)

First Look at Outlander Season 4!

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CANCELLATION/RENEWAL/PICK-UP NEWS

Mindhunter has been renewed for Season 2 at Netflix. (Variety)

Stranger Things has been renewed for a third season at Netflix. (Variety)

CBS has decided not to move forward with more episodes of Wisdom of the Crowd, ending it with the 13 episodes from its original order. This news shouldn’t come as a surprise since the ratings have been declining each week, but more so because of the groping accusations that have been lodged against series star Jeremy Piven. (Variety)

The new series about Sabrina the Teenage Witch is on the move, heading to Netflix with a 20-episode, two season order. The series was originally in development at The CW. The series will be reimagine the origin and adventures of Sabrina as a dark coming-of-age story that traffics in horror, the occult, and witchcraft. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Kendrick Sampson (How to Get Away With Murder, The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural) has landed a recurring role on The Flash, appearing as Dominic Lanse, a TSA agent who apparently was among the dozen bus passengers doused with dark matter and now possesses the ability to read other people’s thoughts. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Nicolette Sheridan (Desperate Housewives) will play Alexis Carrington in the remake of Dynasty on The CW (a role originated by Joan Collins). (Variety)

Actress Maggie Grace (Lost and the Taken franchise) will be a series regular on Fear the Walking Dead when it returns for its fourth season. Details on her role will be announced at a later date. (Deadline)

Actor John Stamos will have a recurring role opposite Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail in the Lifetime straight-to-series psychological thriller drama You, which is based on the Caroline Kepnes best-selling novel. The series will focus on brilliant bookstore manager Joe (Badgley), who crosses paths with an aspiring writer, Beck (Lail). Stamos will play Dr. Nicky, who becomes a fixture in Beck’s life, much to the dismay of Joe (Badgley). Pretty Little Liars alum Shay Mitchell also stars. (Deadline)

Actor Wilson Bethel (Hart of Dixie) has landed a series regular role in season 3 of Marvel’s Daredevil, portraying an FBI agent, who plays a critical role in the conflict between Matt Murdock aka Daredevil and returning foe Wilson Fisk /Kingpin. (Variety and TV Line)

Actress Danneel Ackles (One Tree Hill and Mrs. Jensen Ackles in real life) will recur on Supernatural as Sister Jo, a well-known faith healer whose good works attract the attention of someone very, very bad: Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino). (Variety)

MOVIE TRAILER

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War Official Trailer

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

CASTING NEWS

Actress Ksenia Solo (Lost Girl and Turn: Washington’s Spies) will be a series regular in the upcoming History Channel drama series Blue Book which will chronicle the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book.” The series follows Dr. J. Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen), a brilliant college professor recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead this clandestine operation that researched thousands of cases, many of which were never solved. Solo will portray Susie, a stylish, eye-catching young woman with an alluring confidence to envy. (Deadline)

Actor Breckin Meyer (Franklin & Bash) has landed a recurring role on Designated Survivor, playing Trey Kirkman, the polar opposite of his older brother, Tom Kirkman (series lead Kiefer Sutherland), in temperament and life choices. (Deadline)

Actor Michael Rady (UnREAL and Jane the Virgin) will have a recurring role on the NBC time-travel drama Timeless, playing Nicholas Keynes, an American soldier in World War I who, after getting badly injured during battle, is carried to a farmhouse, where he is cared for by Emma (Annie Wersching) and Carol (Susanna Thompson), who want to save his life. Though he seems helpless at first, Keynes is much more formidable than he initially appears. (TV Line)

Actress Arden Cho (Teen Wolf) will recur on Chicago Med as Emily, the party-girl adopted sister of Dr. Ethan Choi; a semi-professional gambler who bankrolls her high-stakes betting by cozying up to rich men. (TV Line)

Actor Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies and True Blood) will star opposite Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) in the small screen adaptation of John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl, which is a co-production between AMC, BBC One and The Ink Factory. The 6-part mini-series will follow Charlie, a brilliant young actress, as she strikes up an acquaintance with Becker, an intriguing stranger, while on holiday in Greece. (TV Line)

Actress Shantel VanSanten (Shooter) will recur on Scorpion as Toby’s onetime fiancée, Amy, who is now married to his nemesis, pop-psychologist Quincy Berkstead (Jeff Galfer). (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS/PICK UP NEWS

Nashville is being cancelled, again. The show aired for four season on ABC before being cancelled. But it was saved by CMT; except the cable network has announced that the musical drama will come to an end after its upcoming sixth season. (TV Line)

CBS has given a full season order to freshman drama S.W.A.T. (Variety)

The new Stana Katic (Castle) series Absentia has found its U.S. home: Amazon. The series is slated to debut in 2018. The show centers on FBI agent Emily Byrne (Katic), who – while hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers – disappears without a trace and is declared dead. Six years later, Emily is found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive, and with no memory of the years she was missing. Returning home to learn her husband has remarried and her son is being raised by another woman, she soon finds herself implicated in a new series of murders. (Deadline)

Amazon is also moving forward with a Lord of the Rings TV series, which will explore new storylines preceding “The Fellowship of the Ring.” (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Skyler Samuels (Scream Queens and The Nine Lives of Chloe King) has landed a recurring role in The Gifted. She will play a refugee mutant with telepathic abilities and a mysterious past. (Deadline)

Actress Carmen Ejogo (The Girlfriend Experience) will star opposite actor Mahershala Ali (Luke Cage and The 4400) in the new installment of the HBO anthology drama True Detective. She will play Amelia Reardon, an Arkansas schoolteacher with a connection to two missing children in 1980. Ali will play Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas. The new season tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. (Variety)

Actor Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge (Leverage and Underground) will star in the Showtime pilot City on a Hill, a fictional account of a real time in Boston history that came to be called the “Boston Miracle.” District Attorney Decourcy Ward (Hodge) comes from Brooklyn and forms an unlikely alliance with a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran Jackie Rhodes (Bacon), who is deeply invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s city-wide criminal justice system. (Variety)

Actresses Marlee Matlin (Switched at Birth) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and actors Zach Gilford (Kingdom and Friday Night Lights) and Colt Prattes (the Dirty Dancing small-screen remake) will star in the Sundance Now upcoming series This Close, which is based on a series of shorts featured at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival’s Short Form Episodic Showcase, created, written and starring actress Shoshannah Stern (Jericho and Supernatural) and Josh Feldman, both of whom are deaf. The show will explore the relationship between best friends Kate (Stern), who is newly engaged, and Michael (Feldman), who is attempting to move on from his ex-fiancé. Gilford will play Danny, Kate’s fiancé; Hines will play Stella, a PR maven and Kate’s boss; Prattes will play Ryan, Michael’s (Feldman) ex and Matlin will play Michael’s mother, Annie, a recovering alcoholic trying to reconnect with her son. (The Futon Critic)

Actor Nathan Lane will appear in the 100th episode of The Blacklist, playing criminal Abraham Stern, who manipulates the desperate into committing illegal and immoral acts so that he can claim his birthright fortune. (TV Line)

Actor Garret Dillahunt (Raising Hope and currently recurring on The Gifted) and actress Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) have both landed series regular roles in the fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead. Details on the roles they will play are being kept under wraps though. (The Hollywood Reporter)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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