Bryan Fuller’s Return to Heroes Now Confirmed December 4, 2008 6:33 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Heroes, NBC, News, Television.add a comment
Bryan Fuller is close to signing a two-year overall deal with Universal Media Studios, which will, among other things, bring the Pushing Daisies creator/executive producer back on board the series he left after one season, Heroes.
Fuller is currently wrapping post-production on the final episodes of Pushing Daisies’ 13-episode second season and is expected to officially rejoin Heroes starting with Episode 20. His exact role has not yet been determined, but he’s expected to play a key role in the writers room alongside Heroes showrunner Tim Kring.
Pushing Daisies has failed to capture an audience in its second year and ABC declined to pick up any further episodes past its initial 13-episode commitment. Heroes is experiencing its worst season thus far, and has this season, on more than one occasion, stooped to record lows.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
New Lost Season Five Cast Photo December 4, 2008 6:07 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, Lost, Photos, Television.add a comment
Check out this brand new Lost season five cast photo. Lost returns January 21st. Click to enlarge.
Source: /Film
Knight Rider Order Cut from 21 to 17 Episodes + Ratings Analysis December 4, 2008 2:52 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Broadcast TV Ratings, Knight Rider, NBC, News, Nielsen TV Ratings, Television.2 comments
This could be the end of the road for Knight Rider. On Wednesday, NBC informed the cast and crew that the 17th episode will be the show’s last of the season. The cutback in episodes suggests that despite a planned overhaul–with changes to be reflected in upcoming episodes–this is likely the beginning of the end for the series. Back in October, NBC awarded the show with a surprising full-season order despite only average numbers.
Knight Rider premiered September 24th with a 4.5/7 household rating/share, 7.35 million viewers and a 2.5/7 rating/share among adults 18-49. The show improved upon its premiere numbers two times: in week two (4.7/8 household rating/share and 7.77 million viewers) and in week four (4.7/8 household rating/share and 7.47 million viewers). It’s premiere performance among adults 18-49 has never been duplicated.
When the show was picked up for a full-season, four episodes had already aired. Those four episodes averaged a 4.5 household rating/share, 7.36 million viewers and a 2.4/7 rating/share among adults 18-49. After the pickup, another four episodes aired and the results have not at all been good: 3.6 household rating/share, 5.72 million viewers and a 1.7/5 rating/share among adults 18-49. That’s a decline of 20% among households, 22% (-1.64M) among viewers and 29% among adults 18-49.
The most recent airing tied a series low among adults 18-49 (1.5 rating) and was at series low levels among households (3.3 rating–series low is a 3.2) and viewers (5.20 million–series low is 5.12 million). Overall, Knight Rider has averaged a 4.1/7 household rating/share, 6.54 million viewers and a 2.0/6 rating/share among adults 18-49 through eight episodes.
Note: I originally incorrectly stated that the show had been reduced from 22 episodes to 17. It’s actually 21 to 17 (it was originally given a 21-episode commitment, not 22). The mistake has been corrected.
Details on Post-Super Bowl ‘Office’ Episode December 4, 2008 2:20 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in NBC, News, Television, The Office.add a comment
Don’t read further if you don’t want to be spoiled. With that warning out of the way, according to TV Week, NBC’s post-Super Bowl hour-long episode of The Office will feature employees of Dunder Mifflin roasting the show’s lead character, Michael Scott (Steve Carell).
The roast of Mr. Scott will not be celebrity-driven, but producers are exploring the idea of incorporating some stunt casting into the project. However, the guest stars would be woven into the plotline in such a way as to not interfere with the carefully constructed world of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, a person familiar with the plotline said.
The roast, desired by Michael, of course, isn’t expected until the second half of the episode. The first half will involve a “disaster” linked to Dwight’s training as fire marshal.
Californication Renewed for Third Season December 3, 2008 9:56 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Californication, News, Renewals, Showtime, Television.add a comment
Showtime has renewed the Golden Globe Award-winning comedy series Californication for a third season of 12 episodes.
“It wouldn’t be SHOWTIME without a yearly dose of CALIFORNICATION,” said Showtime President of Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt. “This unapologetic show, about a group of characters led by the inimitable David Duchovny, has quickly established itself as one of our signature comedy series. Beneath its veneer of debauchery, however, is a complex take on love and adult relationships that surprisingly turns poetic and romantic just when you least expect it. “
The full press release follows after the jump.
NBC Announces Midseason Schedule, The Office Gets Post-Super Bowl Spot December 3, 2008 9:53 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 Television, Celebrity Apprentice, Chuck, E.R., Heroes, Kings, Life, NBC, News, Television, The Office, XIII.add a comment
NBC has announced their programming lineup for Super Bowl night, as well as what the network has in store later in the season. Super Bowl XLIII on February 1st will be followed by an hour-long original episode of The Office. The following evening, February 2nd, will see the returns of both Chuck (via a special 3-D episode) and Heroes (with the new volume titled “Fugitives”), as well as the 5th season premiere of Medium. Other returns include Life (February 4th) and Celebrity Apprentice (March 1). The network also announced that the original movie event XIII will air on February 8th and 15th, new drama Kings will premiere with a two-hour event on March 19th and the two-hour ER series finale will air on March 12th.
The full press release, which includes a look at the new schedule, follows after the jump.
The CW Announces Midseason Schedule December 3, 2008 9:42 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 13 Fear Is Real, 2008/2009 Television, News, Reaper, Television, The CW.1 comment so far
The CW has unveiled its midseason schedule. The lineup features the series premiere of the new reality series 13 Fear Is Real (January 7) and the return of Reaper (March 17).
Check out the new schedule, and full press release follows after the jump.
New Video of NBC’s Kings December 3, 2008 8:33 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 Television, Kings, NBC, News, Television.add a comment
NBC has released a new sneak peek video of their upcoming series Kings. Watch it below.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
News on Veronica Mars Movie December 3, 2008 8:30 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Movies, News, Television, Veronica Mars.add a comment
Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas tells Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello that he “hasn’t gotten far” on the film’s outline:
“I thought I had the idea broken, but I’ve hit a wall in the final act that I haven’t quite figured out. And with Cupid and Party Down occupying 80 hours a week, and a new baby boy occupying the remaining hours, I haven’t nailed it down. I’m hopeful that I can find the time to figure it out over the Christmas holidays.”
While I’m sure Thomas’ update to Cupid will work out (I have no idea what Party Down is about), I’d much rather see him finish up his Veronica Mars story on the big-screen.
Disney Orders More Episodes of Hannah Montana and Second Season of Suite Life December 3, 2008 8:22 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Desperate to Buy, Disney, Hanah Montana, Hannah Montana, HGTV, Income Property, News, Peter Perfect, Style, Television, The Property Shop, The Suite Life on Deck, The Unsellables.4 comments
Disney Channel has ordered additional episodes of its live-action series Hannah Montana and The Suite Life on Deck. Disney ordered six more episodes of the third season of ‘Hannah’, bringing its total order to 30, and green-lit a second 13-episode season of ‘Suite Life’, a spin-off of The Suite Lilfe of Zack & Cody.
Elsewhere on Cable, HGTV announced they are debuting four new series on New Years Day: The Unsellables, Desperate to Buy, Income Property and The Property Shop. All four shows will focus on helping homeowners make the most of the real estate market.
And the Style network ordered eight more episodes of Peter Perfect, which returns January 3rd.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
The CW Sets March Return for Reaper December 3, 2008 1:49 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 Television, News, Reaper, Television, The CW.add a comment
The CW has scheduled the return of the supernatural drama Reaper. The 13-episode second season will air after 90210 on Tuesday nights starting March 17th. Privileged is currently running in that time period, but it will have finished its 18-episode run by the time Reaper returns.
If I may say so, 90210 is a very, very odd choice for a lead-in. Then again, it may end up not mattering one way or the other. We’ll see soon enough I suppose.
Reaper premiered September 25, 2007 with the following ratings: 2.1/3 HH rating/share, 3.28 million viewers and a 1.5/4 rating among adults 18-49, all of which were series highs.
Overall, 18 episodes aired during season one, averaging a 1.7/3 HH rating/share, 2.62 million viewers and a 1.2/3 rating/share among adults 18-49.
Source: THR Feed
Lost Season Five Sneak Peek December 2, 2008 6:36 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, Lost, Television, Trailers.add a comment
ABC has released a two-minute sneak peek at the upcoming fifth season of Lost. Watch it below. Lost premieres on Wednesday, January 21st at 9pm.
ABC Sets Premiere Dates for Castle, Cupid and The Unusuals December 2, 2008 6:16 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 Television, ABC, Television.add a comment
ABC has announced the premiere dates for three new dramas: Castle (March 9th), Cupid (March 24th) and The Unusuals (April 8th). ABC also set a return date for Primetime: What Would You Do? (January 6th).
The full press release follows after the jump.
CBS Announces Midseason Schedule December 2, 2008 3:16 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 Television, CBS, News, Television.add a comment
CBS has unveiled its midseason schedule. The lineup features the series premieres of Game Show in My Head (January 3) and Harper’s Island (April 9), and the returns of Flashpoint (January 9), Survivor (February 12) and The Amazing Race (February 15).
The full press release follows after the jump.
CBS Orders Five More Episodes of Eleventh Hour December 2, 2008 12:49 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in CBS, Eleventh Hour, News, Television.add a comment
CBS has ordered an addditional five episodes of the freshman drama Eleventh Hour, bringing the season order to 18. Eleventh Hour is based on the British series of the same name, and follows government scientist Dr. Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) and his FBI partner Rachel Young (Marley Shelton) as they try to stop scientific experiments gone bad.
Through seven aired episodes thus far this season, Eleventh Hour has drawn solid and consistent ratings, averaging a 7.4/13 HH rating/share, 11.36 million viewers and a 3.0/8 A18-49 rating/share. However, the problem is that the show performs poorly as a lead-out to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, with retention levels of just 62% among households, 58% among viewers and 56% among adults 18-49.
Source: TV Week
HBO’s Rome Could Get Film Treatment December 2, 2008 12:47 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cable TV, HBO, Movies, News, Rome, Television.add a comment
HBO’s two-year drama series Rome may be getting a wrap-up courtesy a feature-length film. Creator Bruno Heller, who is also the creator of CBS’s successful series The Mentalist, says that he wants to produce such a feature for the canceled series: “There is talk of doing a movie version,” he said. “It’s moving along. It’s not there until it is there. I would love to round that show off.”
Although the second season of Rome was lower rated than the first, the show did well without a Sopranos lead-in and HBO executives now admit that it was a mistake to cancel the show.
“I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end,” Heller said. “The second was going to end with death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end. There’s certainly more than enough history to go around.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Glenn Beck Fox News Premieres January 19th UPDATE: Premiere Numbers December 2, 2008 12:46 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cable TV, Cable TV Ratings, Fox News Channel, News, Nielsen TV Ratings, Television.7 comments
UPDATED on 1/22/2009:
The numbers are in for the first episode of Glenn Beck’s new Fox News show. The first episode, which was helped tremendously by an interview with former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, the show drew a time-period high 2,388,000 total viewers and a second place 467,000 adults 25-54.
In total viewers, Beck’s show was up 92% over the January ’09 average of America’s News HQ and up 124% over the Q1 ’08 average of the same show. In the demo, it was up 70% and 106%, respectively.
Growth was even stronger compared to the last month of Beck’s HLN show. His first show was up a whopping 321% in total viewers and 119% in the demo.
Original article follows below.
Conservative talk radio personality Glenn Beck, who hosted a primetime show on CNN Headline News, will debut his new show on Fox News Channel sooner than originally expected. His 5 p.m. program will now debut on January 19th, a few weeks earlier than the originally expected February debut.
New Scrubs Trailer December 2, 2008 10:30 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, Scrubs, Television.add a comment
Scrubs makes the switch from NBC to ABC with the eighth season premiere–back-to-back episodes–January 6th. In the meantime, check out this new trailer featuring actress Courtney Cox.
SCI FI Greenlights Caprica; Will Premiere in 2010 December 2, 2008 12:39 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, News, Sci Fi, Television.2 comments
The SCI FI Channel has greenlit the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica. The network has already produced a two-hour backdoor pilot, and plans are to air the show in early 2010, with production set to begin around the middle of next year.
Caprica stars Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker, and will be set 50 years prior to “Galactica’s” seminal attack on human civilization by those dreaded ‘droids the Cylons. Family-drama-themed series will focus on the Earthlike planet of Caprica as two rival families deal with, among other topical issues, the broader implications of their society’s emerging artificial intelligence technology sector.
” ‘Battlestar Galactica’ was absolutely our flagship show. It put us on the map and helped transform the perception of the network,” said Sci Fi prexy Dave Howe, noting that the cabler hopes to draw a broader audience to a series it sees as more compelling family drama than “space opera.”
“We want people to come to this who have never heard of ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ” he added. “I think, because (‘Galactica’s’) backdrop was space and spaceships, there was a barrier to entry for some viewers. ‘Caprica’ has none of that. It’s an intense family drama set on an Earthlike planet, in the near future, speaking to a lot of the ethical dilemmas that we as a human race are going to have to face very shortly.”
The decision to wait until 2010 was made to give the producers time to regroup the core of the ‘Galactica‘ writing staff, says SCI FI programming executive Mark Stern:
“One of the other things we have going for is, this is one of the first shows we’ve done in conjunction with our new cable studio,” Stern added. “There will be a lot of coordination between the studio and the network, not just on production, but how the series is launched, as well.”
The final 10 episodes of the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica begin airing on January 16th, culminating with the series finale on March 20th. A two-hour movie adaptation, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, is slated to air in early summer.
Source: Variety
David Gregory To Take Over Meet the Press? December 2, 2008 12:35 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Television.add a comment
The Huffington Post is reporting that David Gregory will be taking over as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press. Gregory has been a leading candidate to take over the spot ever since Tom Brokaw stepped in in an interim role following the death of long-time host Tim Russert in June.
For their part, NBC has denied the story, telling Politico “I don’t know where they are getting this. We have nothing to announce.”
Meet the Press has averaged 4.5 million viewers in November, finishing in first place to ABC’s This Week (3.5 million), CBS’s Face the Nation (3.1 million) and Fox’s Fox News Sunday (1.5 million). Meet the Press also leads among the key new demo, adults 25-54, drawing a 1.3 rating compared to ABC’s 1.0, CBS’s 0.9 and Fox’s 0.5.
Brokaw ends his moderating duties this weekend, where he’ll be interviewing President-elect Barack Obama.
Will Twilight’s Success Pave the Way for a New Buffy Movie? November 30, 2008 6:01 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Movies, News, Television.add a comment
The success of Summit Entertainment’s Twilight, people are starting to talk about the possibility of a return to film for the cult fave Buffy the Vampire Slayer could be making a return to the big screen. Here’s what the Herald-Sun Newspaper wrote (via Moviehole.net):
The monster success of girly vampire pic Twilight at the US Box office last weekend could kick open the door for a big-screen return of Joss Whedon’s much-loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rumors are circulating in Hollywood that Whedon has a feature-film script based on his hit TV series ready to roll as soon as a studio is prepared to commit. The Buffy concept was first unveiled as a movie in 1992 with long-forgotten Kristy Swanson in the title role.
Fourth Futurama Straight-to-Video Movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, Hits DVD and Blu-ray in February November 26, 2008 7:13 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Blu-ray, DVD, Futurama, Into the Wild Green Yonder, Movies, News, Television.1 comment so far
The fourth, and currently final, Futurama direct-to-video movie has been given a release date and title. Into The Wild Green Yonder will be released on February 24, 2009 on DVD and Blu-ray Hi-Def.
Synopsis
All the other galaxies will be green with envy! In this all-new Futurama extravaganza, mankind stands on the brink of a wondrous new Green Age. But ancient forces of darkness, three years older than time itself, have returned to wreak destruction. Even more shocking: Bender’s in love with a married fembot, and Leela’s on the run from the law – Zapp Brannigan’s law! Fry is the last hope of the universe…so if you’re in the universe, you might want to think about going somewhere else. Could this be the end of the Planet Express crew forever? Say it ain’t so, meatbag! Off we go, Into the Wild Green Yonder!
Here are a few photos, click here for more and to read the entire press release.
Source: TVShowsonDVD.com
NBC Announces January 2009 Schedule November 26, 2008 4:34 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Television.add a comment
NBC has announced its lineup for January 2009. The lineup features the premieres of Superstars of Dance (January 4) and Howie Do It (January 9) and the returns of The Biggest Loser: Couples (January 6) and Friday Night Lights (January 16).
Chuck, Heroes and Life all return in February.
The full press release follows after the jump.
Braff Confirms His Departure from Scrubs November 26, 2008 3:09 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, News, Scrubs, Television.add a comment
Scrubs star Zach Braff has confirmed that the upcoming eighth season of Scrubs will be his last. Braff told Israeli site Haaretz.com that he has already left the show (which wrapped its eighth, but not necessarily its last, season over the summer) because “there’s so much I want to do with my life.” Scrubs premieres on ABC in January, 2009. In the meantime, check out this new promo.
Source: Haaretz.com (via TV Squad)
The Sarah Jane Adventures Renewed for Third Season November 25, 2008 12:16 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in BBC, News, Renewals, Television, The Sarah Jane Adventures.1 comment so far
The BBC has announced that they’ve given a third season renewal to Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures. The show is scheduled to return with new episodes in autumn 2009.
From the release:
On CBBC, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) returns for a third series of The Sarah Jane Adventures in Autumn 2009, produced by Doctor Who supremo Russell T Davies.
Together with her companions Rani and Clyde and her adopted son Luke, Sarah Jane once again comes face to face with a whole host of weird and wonderful alien beings.
Source: BBC
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