On March 31, the new Netflix series 13 Reasons Why will debut online.
Adapted from the best-selling books by Jay Asher, the streaming series follows teenager Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette from Lost and Scandal) as he returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker (newcomer Katherine Langford) – his classmate and crush – who tragically committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life.
The cast includes Justin Prentice (Awkward), Miles Heizer (Parenthood), Alisha Boe (Teen Wolf and Ray Donovan), Ross Butler (Riverdale), Amy Hargreaves (Homeland), Derek Luke (Rogue and Empire), Kate Walsh (Private Practice) and Brian d’Arcy James (Smash).
Here is a list of programming options to expect on TV this coming week:
On March 28, the new BET drama Rebel will debut at 9 PM. The series follows Rebel (relative newcomer Danielle Mone Truitt), a police officer who leaves the force after being under an intense Internal Affairs/criminal investigation for shooting her partner in the hopes of stopping him from gunning down her little brother. Continuing to fight crime as a P.I., Rebel struggles with her brother’s murder while defending herself from the dirty cops who are out for revenge.
Also on March 28, Bones brings its 12-season run to an end on FOX with a 2-part series finale [check local listings for airtime and details].
The FX series Legion will air its season finale on March 29 at 10 PM. That same night, the new Hulu streaming drama Harlots will debut online today. The drama is set in 18th Century London and focuses on Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Last Panthers) struggles to reconcile her roles as brothel owner and mother to daughters Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay from Downton Abbey) and Lucy (Eloise Smyth from Fortitude). When her business comes under attack from Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville from Maleficent and Cranford), a rival madam with a ruthless streak, Margaret must fight back even if it means losing her family and possibly her life.
On March 31, the new Netflix series 13 Reasons Why will debut online today. Adapted from the best-selling books by Jay Asher, the streaming series follows teenager Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette from Lost and Scandal) as he returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker (newcomer Katherine Langford) – his classmate and crush – who tragically committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life.
The series finale of Grimm will also air on NBC on March 31 at 8 PM.
On April 1, the Hallmark Channel movie Love at First Bark will debut at 9 PM, starring Jana Kramer (One Tree Hill) and Kevin McGarry (Heartland).
The Black Sails series finale will air on Starz on April 2 at 9 PM. Also that night, the sixth season of Call the Midwife and the second and final season of Home Fires will premiere on PBS at 8 and 9 PM respectively.
The Reelz Channel 4-hour mini-series The Kennedys After Camelot will air its two-hour premiere on April 2 at 9 PM. The mini-series is based on the best-seller by J. Randy Taraborrelli, starring Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Matthew Perry as Ted Kennedy, Alexander Siddiq as Aristotle Onassis, Brett Donahue as John F. Kennedy, Jr., Kristen Hager as Joan Kennedy with Diana Hardcastle and Kristin Booth reprising their roles as Rose and Ethel Kennedy. The two-hour conclusion will air on April 9 at 9 PM.
Also on April 2, the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries movie Concrete Evidence: A Fixer Upper Mystery will debut at 9 PM, starring singer-songwriter Jewel and Colin Ferguson (Eureka)
Lastly, the season finale of The Walking Dead will air on AMC on April 2 at 9 PM and the finale of The Missing will air on Starz at 8 PM.
Here is how the weekend dramas fared in the ratings:
SATURDAY:
8 PM Show: Ransom (CBS) [NEW] – 3 million
SUNDAY:
8 PM Shows: NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS) [NEW] – 11.3 million [Delayed due to March Madness] Once Upon a Time (ABC) [NEW] – 2.9 million
9 PM Shows: Madam Secretary (CBS) [NEW] – 8.5 million [Delayed due to March Madness] Chicago Justice (NBC) [NEW] – 5.8 million Time After Time (ABC) [NEW] – 1.9 million
10 PM Shows: Elementary (CBS) [NEW] – 5.6 million [Delayed due to March Madness] Shades of Blue (NBC) [NEW] – 4.4 million American Crime (ABC) [NEW] – 1.6 million
What did you watch on TV this past weekend? Please share.
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)
Trying to figure out what to watch tonight? Be it new episodes of the TV season, reairs of cable series or a movie, here are some suggestions:
5:30 PM: The Maze Runner movie on FX Independence Day movie on Syfy
6:55 PM: Independence Day: Resurgence movie on HBO
7 PM: A Dash of Love movie on Hallmark Channel (Encore) Murder She Baked: A Deadly Recipe movie on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries White Collar on ION
8 PM: Once Upon a Time on ABC (NEW) NCIS: Los Angeles on CBS (NEW) Me Before You movie on EPIX Lucy movie on FX White Collar on ION
9 PM: Time After Time on ABC (NEW) When Calls the Heart on Hallmark Channel (NEW) Murder She Baked: Just Desserts movie on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (DEBUT) To Walk Invisible: Bronte Sisters on Masterpiece movie on PBS (DEBUT) True Lies movie on Encore Criminal movie on HBO2 The Proposal movie on Lifetime Thor movie on TNT White Collar on ION
10 PM: The Arrangement on E! (NEW) White Collar on ION
Over the course of the last few days, I had the opportunity to attend two more of the Paley Fest 2017 panels (the last two I will be attending for this year), saluting the Clone Club otherwise known as Orphan Black and the biggest social media show on TV: Pretty Little Liars.
The following are pictures I took at both panels, but please note that I’m not a professional photographer nor do I have a fancy camera, but I had to share the pictures I was able to take with the fans of the shows:
Orphan Black:
Tatiana Maslany
Jordan Gavaris
Maria Doyle Kennedy
Kristian Bruun
Evelyne Brochu
Ari Millen
Josh Vokey
Kathryn Alexandre (Tatiana’s Scene Double)
EP’s John Fawcett and Graeme Manson
Jordan and Tat
Kathryn and Maria
Kevin Hanchard, Kristian, Jordan and Tat
Maria and Evelyne
Full Panel
Pretty Little Liars:
Shay Mitchell
Ashley Benson
Sasha Pieterse
Janel Parrish
Andrea Parker
Tyler Blackburn
Janel and Sasha
Shay, Ashley and Tyler
Shay and Ashley
Full Panel
That’s a wrap (at least for me).
More pictures from Paley Fest 2017 will be posted once the site’s photographer, Dominick Dusseault, has them ready for release.
The new Hulu streaming drama Harlots will debut online on March 29.
The drama is set in 18th Century London and focuses on Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Last Panthers) struggles to reconcile her roles as brothel owner and mother to daughters Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay from Downton Abbey) and Lucy (Eloise Smyth from Fortitude).
When her business comes under attack from Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville from Maleficent and Cranford), a rival madam with a ruthless streak, Margaret must fight back even if it means losing her family and possibly her life.
It was another light night of programming on the major networks with March Madness still owning the night on CBS and repeats on other networks, but there were almost a handful of new episodes of Friday night dramas, including two penultimate episodes.
Here is how all few Friday night dramas fared in the overnight ratings:
8 PM Shows: Grimm (NBC) [NEW – Penultimate Episode, Final Season] – 4.1 million The Originals (The CW) [NEW] – 1 million
9 PM Shows: Sleepy Hollow (FOX) [NEW – Penultimate Episode] – 2 million Reign (The CW) [NEW] – 764,000 viewers
What did you watch on TV last night? Please share.
Trying to figure out what to watch tonight? Be it new episodes of the TV season, reairs of cable series or a movie, here are some suggestions:
5:30 PM: Minority Report movie on HBO
5:42 PM: Unbroken movie on FXM
6 PM: Back to the Future movie on VH1
6:05 PM: The Legend of Tarzan movie on HBO2
6:30 PM: Walking Tall movie on TNT
7 PM: Campfire Kiss movie on Hallmark Channel (Encore)
7:30 PM: Crazy, Stupid, Love movie on Bravo
8 PM: Ransom on CBS (NEW) Underground on WGN America (Reair) Despicable Me 2 (animated) movie on NBC Ocean’s Thirteen movie on Cinemax Spectre movie on EPIX Independence Day: Resurgence movie on HBO
8:30 PM: Cast Away movie on HBO2 Back to the Future, Part II movie on VH1
8:57 PM: Divergent movie on TBS
9 PM: Finding Nemo (animated) movie on Disney The Maze Runner movie on FX Garage Sale Mystery: The Art of Murder movie on Hallmark Channel (Encore) You’ve Got Mail movie on POP
10 PM: Crazy, Stupid, Love movie on Bravo Live Free or Die Hard movie on HBO
