Tag Archives: TV notes

Rob Lowe becomes a series regular on Parks and Rec!

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Chris Traeger, the world’s most fit, energetic, and positive-thinking auditor, will be sticking around Pawnee, Indiana for the foreseeable future.  NBC has named Rob Lowe a series regular on their rising Thursday night comedy Parks and Recreation.  With Party Down (unfortunately) out of the picture, let’s hope Adam Scott can prove he’s a valuable assest to the show, too.  This ensemble cast just keeps getting better and better.  It’s a damn shame we have to wait until mid-season for new episodes!

[Via EW-HollywoodInsider]

David Cross joins FOX’s ‘Running Wilde’

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Now this is fantastic news!  Actor David Cross is joining the new FOX comedy Running Wilde.  The show stars Will Arnett.  The show is created by Mitch Hurwitz.  Have you connected the dots yet?  It’s an Arrested Developement reunion!  In Hurwitz’s Arrested Development, Cross played doctor-turned-aspiring actor Tobias Fünke, the brother-in-law of Arnett’s Gob Bluth.  Cross will be featured in 7 of the initial 13 episodes as “the radical environmentalist boyfriend of Keri Russell’s character” according to IGN.  Hurwitz and Arnett serve as creators, writers, and executive producers.  Arrested Development directors Anthony and Joe Russo and executive producer Jim Valley are also on board.

FOX is giving Hurwitz another chance with Running Wilde, so make sure you tune in Tuesday, September 21 at 9:30PM.  We can’t give the network another opportunity to shun Hurwitz & Co. away from making great TV like they did with the prematurally canned Arrested Development.  With a handful of AD alum signed on, I have a good feeling this comedy will tower over other network premieres in terms of quality.  AD‘s theme was “family first.”  From the looks of the trailer (embedded after the break, along with the synopsis), Running Wilde will take a new yet familar path: Russell’s Emmy to Arnett’s Wilde: “I am going to make you a better man.”  Family, relationships, heart, hilarity.  Welcome back, Hurwitz.

[Via IGN] Continue reading David Cross joins FOX’s ‘Running Wilde’ →

24’s Jon Cassar joins ‘Terra Nova’ as regular series director & exec producer

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Terra Nova just keeps getting better–and it hasn’t even started yet!  The Steven Spielberg/Peter Chernin sci-fi drama is starting to look like a 24 reunion nowadays.  Executive producers Brandon Braga (24, FlashForward) and David Fury (24, Lost) are joined by Jon Cessar who served as executive producer and recurring director on every season of 24 (with the exception of season 8).  Cessar joins Terra Nova as executive producer and regular series director.  He will take over as director for a multi-episode arc after taking the reins from Alex Graves (Fringe) who is set to direct the pilot.

Terra Nova stars Jason O’Mara as Jim Shannon, a man who is sent back in time to prehistoric Earth with family in an attempt to save the human race.  Production is set to being at the end of this summer in Australia and the show is expected to debut its thirteen-episode order midseason on FOX.

[Via Deadline]

Will Forte to guest star in Parks & Rec next season

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SNL’s MacGruber (the movie is hilarious, go see it!) has accepted an invitation to guest star in NBC’s Parks & Recreation in a season three episode.  According to Ausiello, Forte “will play a Pawnee resident whose obsession with the Twilight franchise complicates a pet project Poehler’s Leslie is working on.  Hint: Think time capsule.”  Forte will be third SNL member to visit Pawnee, following Fred Armisen as  Raul, the head of the Venezuelan delegation, in “Sister City” and Andy Samberg’s loud-mouthed Park Ranger Carl in “Park Safety.”

[Via EW-AusielloFiles]

NBC picks up J.J. Abrams’ Undercovers

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And the first new scripted TV program of the fall is… J.J. Abrams’ spy drama Undercovers.  NBC pounced on this back in December, and now it has been made official.  NBC ordered an inital 13 episode run set to start in September.  Undercovers is about a married couple (Boris Kodjoe & Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who play ex-CIA agents that are pulled back into the “into the world of espionage.”  That’s right people; Abrams is going back to his roots (Alias, MI:3).  Here’s the synopsis:

Outwardly, Steven Bloom (Kodjoe) and his wife, Samantha (Mbatha-Raw), are a typical married couple who own a small catering company in Los Angeles and are helped by Samantha’s easily frazzled younger sister, Lizzy (Jessica Parker Kennedy). Secretly, the duo were two of the CIA’s best spies until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired. When fellow spy and friend Nash (Carter MacIntyre) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated by boss Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney) to locate and rescue Nash. The pair is thrust back into the world of espionage as they follow leads that span the globe — and Steven and Samantha realize that this supercharged, undercover lifestyle provides the excitement and romance that their marriage has been missing.

Jeff Gaspin, Chairman, NBC Universal Television Entertainment: “We have tremendous confidence in this promising series and feel this is a great way to kick off our upcoming Upfront development announcements. J.J. has delivered another signature series along with our partners at Warner Bros and we couldn’t be happier.”  NBC President Angela Bromstad: “Having J.J. on our creative team is a great reason for celebration. In Undercovers, he’s found a breakout couple that is rich in character and brimming with romance and action. We feel he’s found the perfect cast.”

Abrams will servce as co-writer, executive producer, and co-creator (with Josh Reims).  He also directed the pilot; this is the first time he’s directing a TV show episode since the Lost pilot.  This should be good.  Keep it on your radar.

[Via EW-Ausiello Files; IGN]

Sarah Waynes Callies joins AMC’s The Walking Dead

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So we already know–AMC is taking Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, a highly acclaimed comic book series about a world run by zombies, and bring it to television.  Main protagonist Rick Grimes and his partner Shane have already been cast with Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal filling in their shoes, respectively.  And now Rick’s wife has been chosen.  Prison Break‘s Sarah Waynes Callies will be Lori Grimes, the female lead.  It’s all starting to come together now, and man did I just get even more excited about this show!  Callies rocked it as Dr. Sara Tendredit on Prison Break and I can’t wait to see her become a zombie killin’ machine come this October.

Other cast additions include Laurie Holden who will play Andrea, one of the human survivors, and Steven Yeun as Glenn.

[Via EW-Ausiello Files; IGN]

AMC’s The Walking Dead casts Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes

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Last month, AMC announced a new show based on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, a highly acclaimed comic book series about a world run by zombies.  Actor Andrew Lincoln (Love, Actually) has been given the lead role in Rick Grimes, a “small-town police officer who leads a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse.”  Says Kirkman: “Andrew Lincoln, wow–what an amazing find this guy is.  Writing Rick Grimes month after month in the comic series, I had no idea he was an actual living breathing human being and yet here he is.  I couldn’t be more thrilled with how this show is coming together.”  His partner Shane had already been cast; Jon Bernthal (The Pacific) got the part.  Together they will fight off zombies when The Walking Dead premieres on AMC this October.

[Via IGN]