Production on the fifth and final season of Fringe has been delayed as star John Noble receives medical treatment. The actor, who was absent from the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association Press Tour earlier this week, is being treated for an unspecified sleeping disorder.
Production is expected to resume on Aug. 7, and the delay will reportedly not affect the show’s premiere date.
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Gun control represents only a sliver of the many issues touched on in the first episode of NBC’s Revolution, but nonetheless, the timely subject came up during the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association Press Tour being held this week in Los Angeles.
On the show, a worldwide blackout has led to the rise of warlords several years in the future. Breaking Bad alum (and Emmy nominee) Giancarlo Esposito plays a rules-with-his-fist militia leader who has taken away the right to bear arms for the people living in his republic.
While gun control has re-entered public consciousness in light of the mass shooting that took place Friday morning in Colorado, executive producer Eric Kripke (Supernatural) said that the issue is, at most, a small portion of the issues and themes explored in the show. “I think we’re talking about a broader canvas than that,” he said. “We’re talking about a dictator who is also conscripting soldiers, [taxing people] without representation, and taking away away the freedoms of what was once the citizens of the United States in 100 different ways. What we’re really talking about, at the end of the day, is a very patriotic show that is about people fighting for freedom to go where they want, say what they want, [and] be together with their families. [The gun issue] is a small part.”
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Image Credit: Nick Briggs/PBS
Shirley MacLaine joined the cast and creator Julian Fellowes for a preview of Downton Abbey‘s season 3 (which debuts in the U.S. January 6) at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour Saturday night. MacLaine, 77, will play Martha Levinson, Cora’s American mother, who will clash wildly (here’s video!) with Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess. Their rivalry goes way back in real life: MacLaine remembered that 40 years ago, when she and Smith met backstage at the Oscars after MacLaine had lost an award, Smith had remarked, “Do you know what you did, dear? You tucked right into that chocolate cake and said ‘F— it, I don’t care if I’m thin again.’”
“We were lovers in another life,” MacLaine joked about Smith. “You can use it, Julian, you can use it!”
PBS showed brief clips before a panel discussion with cast and producers. Here’s what to expect: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: David Livingston/Getty Images
At the Television Critics Association’s summer season press tour in Los Angeles, Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, blamed a tight production schedule for the removal of Fred Willard, 78, as the narrator of the network’s Antiques Roadshow spin-off, Market Warriors. Since the show is currently taping, execs had to make a quick decision.
“We actually needed to move fast because we’re taping now,” said Kerger. “It’s a new series, and our concern really is that [Willard's] circumstance would become a distraction to the series, which we’re hoping will have an ongoing presence on public television.”
Antiques Roadshow host Mark Wahlberg will re-voice the Warriors episodes Willard had already taped, and the show will air Monday as scheduled.
As reported earlier today, Willard — who was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of a lewd public act in an adult theater — will not face jail time.
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Bryan Cranston isn’t afraid to stand before a tough crowd. Case in point: The Breaking Bad star will host the annual Television Critics Association awards next month.
The show, being held July 28 in Los Angeles as part of the TCA press tour, will honor television critics’ picks for best television programming for the 2011-2012 season. Cranston, a first-time host, is nominated in the dramatic category for his role as Walter White on Breaking Bad.
Last year, Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman hosted the ceremony, which handed out awards to Mad Men, Game of Thrones and Friday Night Lights, among others.
Image Credit: Monty Brinton/CBS
Today’s How I Met Your Mother panel at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles was certainly less heated than, say, that of Two Broke Girls. But the lack of drama thankfully didn’t translate into lack of scoop.
In fact, executive producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas were rather forthcoming about what’s coming up on their hit comedy, and (joined on stage by stars Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel) dolled out some pretty good scoop on what’s to come. We’ve picked out the five best bits. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: CBS
UPDATED: CBS’ press tour panel for raunchy hit sitcom 2 Broke Girls turned into a riveting verbal brawl between some critics and the series’ showrunner, who vehemently defended the comedy from accusations of stereotypical characters and profane jokes.
Ever since 2 Broke Girls premiered to high ratings in September, the series has been criticized for its portrayal of an Asian character named Han (who’s been at the receiving end of jokes like, “You can’t tell an Asian he made a mistake, he’ll go in the back and throw himself on a sword”) and an African-American character named Earl.
Before the show’s panel in Pasadena, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler assured critics that writers would continue to “dimensionalize” the 2 Broke Girls characters as time went on. Then the show’s creator, Michael Patrick King (of Sex and the City fame), and stars Kat Denning and Beth Behrs took the stage. What followed is one of the most combative press tour panels in recent years (and was also verbally graphic, so fair warning).
The debate started with the very first question, when King was asked about the show’s “broad racial and ethnic humor.” READ FULL STORY »
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For the first time in its history, American Idol will start its 11th season facing down competition from another network singing competition show: NBC’s The Voice, which launches its second season with a plum post-Super Bowl slot and will then start its regular two-hour berth on Mondays. While The Voice won’t go up directly against Idol, it was easy to see at the latter show’s TCA panel today in Pasadena that Idol‘s exec producers and judges are feeling a twinge competitive with their Mark Burnett-produced rival.
“The winner of The Voice, I will remind you, was an artist who had a deal at Capitol Records for several years, a failed contract,” said judge Randy Jackson of The Voice victor Javier Colon. “That show was almost ‘second chance people.’” READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX
Rest easy, Booth and Brennan fans. Bones creator Hart Hanson told reporters at the TCA press tour today that he is “very confident” that there will be an 8th season of the fan favorite Fox series. “Putting Booth and Brennan together, raising a child, we feel reinvigorated the series,” added Hanson, who feels there are an “infinite” number of murder stories available for Booth and Brennan to investigate.
Hanson was actually speaking to the TCA press about his Bones spin-off, The Finder – albeit via Skype, due a motorcycle accident on Tuesday that left him with a broken ankle. (At one point, one of the Finder panelists who was present on stage at TCAs — including stars Geoff Stults and Michael Clarke Duncan — asked Hanson if he was wearing pants. He wasn’t.) After a reporter commented that “The Finder” was a pretty “flat” title, Hanson and fellow exec producer Barry Josephson essentially conceded the point by admitting that they couldn’t find a better title — other options included Lost and Found and The Locator, “which sounded to me like a real estate show,” joked Hanson.
Here are the other highlights from other Fox mid-season panels for Naploeon Dynamite, New Girl, Raising Hope, and Breaking In: READ FULL STORY »
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Bringing classic characters from literature and TV to a new audience and building off cultural trends is a formula that’s working for Masterpiece on PBS. A recent New York Times article highlighted PBS’ efforts to compete with premium cable channels with, shows like Downton Abbey and the new Sherlock reboot. And several others coming up on the network and at Masterpiece in particular, are taking similar cues — not just remaking the classics, but reimagining the characters in more modern times and ways.
The new Inspector Morse episode, Endeavor, features the detective as a young man, played by Shaun Evans, who is famous in the U.K. for starring in a hit series there called The Sweeney (yet another classic 1970s show that got a modern kickstart). Playing off the Mad Men 1960s-era boom in recent network TV, this new Inspector Morse is living in the Oxford of the ’60s. In a fun twist, Abigail Thaw — the daughter of John Thaw, who played Morse in the original series — makes a key cameo in the first episode, which PBS previewed at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: BBC
It seems like Benedict Cumberbatch’s star has risen overnight, with two high profile movies out (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and War Horse) and today’s announcement that he’ll star in the new Star Trek flick. But fans of the BBC reboot of Sherlock on Masterpiece on PBS feel like an old friend is getting his due.
They won’t be disappointed — but they will have to wait until May, when the new season premieres. In the first episode, penned by Steven Moffat, we see more of Sherlock than ever before, as it opens with him wrapped only in a sheet, sitting on a bench inside Buckingham Palace. (Don’t worry, the sheet drops.) This season finds Sherlock, well, alive, which we weren’t clear on at the end of season 1, and at work on a new case, The Scandal in Belgravia (a sly take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original “A Scandal in Bohemia”). PBS showed a preview of the new season and the stars spoke at the annual Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. READ FULL STORY »
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The critics were restless. After two weeks of sitting in hotel ballrooms listening to celebrities talk (and talk and talk) about their shows, reporters were ready for the summer press tour to be over. But there was still one last must-see panelist: Tim Allen, who is making his return to TV in ABC’s Last Man Standing, about a traditional male living with modern women.
“You’re pissed,” he told the critics at the start of the session. “I can see it … already pissed off and tired.”
So the critics didn’t waste much time. “Tim, why are men always portrayed as douchebags on sitcoms?” one asked. READ FULL STORY »
The cast of the CW’s The Secret Circle is well aware of the buzz around the show as a result of the popular young- adult book series and know it’s a lot to live up to.
“It’s stressful, because we want to make sure people like what we’re doing and we can only go by what we hope people will like at this point because no one has seen it,” cast member Thomas Dekker said.
In a chat with EW, cast members Gale Harold, Adam Harrington, Thomas Dekker, and Ashley Crow talk about those big expectations and how the show will live up to the fan hype.
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James Hibberd
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Lynette Rice
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