EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that Rhona Mitra is finalizing a deal to land the new female lead on Cinemax’s Strike Back in the action drama’s upcoming 10-episode second season. She will play the beautiful, cunning and ultimately ruthless Capt. Rachel Dalton of the British military who is offered the position of head of Section 20 after a long stint working in North Africa. Mitra’s character is expected to fill the void left by the demise of Amanda Mealing’s Col. Eleanor Grant in the first season finale of Strike Back. The series, whose second season is slated to begin filming soon in South Africa, is produced by Cinemax/HBO, Left Bank and Sky, which airs the series in the U.K. Strike Back stars Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester. Season 1 told the story of a charismatic former U.S. Special Forces operative (Stapleton) who joins with a stealth British military unit when a resourceful international terrorist group plots a major attack. British-born Mitra, whose series credits include The Practice, Boston Legal and Nip/Tuck, is repped by Gersh, Untitled and UK’s Ken McReddie.
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Rhona Mitra To Join Cinemax Action Drama ‘Strike Back’ As Female Lead In Season 2
ION Renews ‘Flashpoint’ For Fifth Season
EXCLUSIVE: I hear that ION Television has renewed Canadian-produced cop drama Flashpoint for a fifth season. The broadcast network is picking up all 13 episodes of the series’ fifth season, set to begin production in February 2012. Flashpoint, Canada’
AMC Renews ‘Hell On Wheels’ For Season 2
EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that AMC has renewed its newest series, period Western Hell On Wheels, for a second season. That means that 5 out of the network’s 6 original scripted series to date have now gone beyond their maiden season. Hell On Wheels, developed by Endemol USA and produced by Entertainment One and Calgary-based Nomadic Pictures, got off to a strong start in November. It debuted with 4.4 million viewers, ranking as AMC’
Aaron Sorkin’s New HBO Series Gets Title: ‘The Newsroom’
Aaron Sorkin’
Anastasia Griffith To Co-Star In BBC America’s Drama Series ‘Copper’
EXCLUSIVE: Anastasia Griffith, who recurs on ABC’s Once Upon A Time, has landed a co-starring role in BBC America’s first scripted series, drama Copper. The 10-episode series, from Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, is produced by Canadian-based Cineflix Studios. Co-created by Tom Fontana and Will Rokos, Copper centers on an Irish cop operating in the immigrant communities of 19th century New York, a role that has not been cast yet. British actress Griffith, repped by Paradigm, Untitled and UK’s Ken McReddie Assoc., will play his wife. Fontana, Rokos, Barry Levinson and Cineflix’s Christina Wayne are executive producing the series, which is slated to begin production at the end of January. Griffith, who plays a woman locked into a love triangle with Snow White and Prince Charming on Once Upon A Time, also has been recurring on USA’s Royal Pains. She previously co-starred on NBC’s Trauma and FX’s Damages.
‘Allen Gregory’ To Be Preempted Next Week
Fox has extended the run of Allen Gregory … sort of. The network will preempt the seventh and final (for now) episode of the low-rated freshman animated series, slated for Sunday, December 11, to air an all-holiday-themed animated block. A Christmas The Cleveland Show episode will run in the 8:30 PM slot that night, while the last installment from Allen Gregory‘s 7-episode order will air in the time period the following Sunday. That’s expected to be the show’s series finale as a renewal is extremely unlikely. Five episodes in, the series is still sliding in the ratings after a lackluster premiere.
Microsoft Eyes Entry Into Scripted Television
It looks like software giant Microsoft is looking to get into the scripted TV business. I hear that the company has hired a headhunter to search for an experienced executive to serve as a head of scripted. Microsoft has dabbled into original series before. Several years ago, the company’s music and entertainment service Zune partnered with MEAN Magazine to produce Cinemash, a digital comedy series that took on classic scenes from popular movies. Microsoft recently has been exploring the scripted TV territory for its video-game console XBox. After a decade of growing pains, original content has finally become the new frontier for big Internet companies, though none has gone as far as to produce high-end series for online distribution, and Prospect Park’s failed attempt to do it with canceled soaps One Life To Live and All My Children proves just how economically challenging that is. Netflix is betting heavily on scripted series through straight acquisitions of drama House Of Cards and comedies Orange Is The New Black and Arrested Development. And Google’s YouTube recently announced the launch of as many as 100 channels with premium original content.
International Emmy Winners Announced
British programs once again had a strong showing at the International Emmy Awards, winning 5 of the 10 categories during the ceremony tonight at the New York Hilton. Two unscripted series with U.S. remakes made the cut: Belgium’s hidden-camera series Benidorm Bastards, whose U.S. version Off Their Rockers starring Betty White is on tap for mideason at NBC, won for best comedy. The British reality show The World’s Strictest Parents, which was awarded best non-scripted entertainment program, has an U.S. remake of the same name airing on TLC and occasionally on MTV. And Sweden’s Millennium mini-series, which won for best TV movie/mini-series, is an extension to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium feature series, which is being remade in the U.S., starting with David Fincher’s upcoming The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The BBC One anthology drama series Accused was the only multiple winner with statuettes for best drama series and best actor, Christopher Eccleston. UK company Twenty Twenty also nabbed 2 wins, for arts programming and non-scripted entertainment. Chile won its first ever International Emmy in the children and young people category. And reality producer Niger Lythgoe received the International Emmy Founders Award, presented to him by Lady Gaga. Emmy-winning Good Wife co-star Archie Panjabi presented the International Emmy Directorate Award to Subhash Chandra, Chairman of India’
NBC Hands Out Full-Season Order To ‘Grimm’, Gives It Thursday 10 PM Tryout
Following a 2-script pickup last week, NBC has given new drama series Grimm a full-season pickup with a Back 9 order. The move comes after the rookie posted a 1.6 adult 18-49 rating this past Friday, even with the previous week to stop the show’s post-premiere slide. Additionally, NBC, which opted to keep Grimm in its original low-trafficked Friday 9 PM slot on the recently released midseason schedule, is giving the fairytale procedural a tryout in the Thursday 10 PM slot. A new Grimm episode will air on Thursday Dec. 8, followed by another original in the series’ regular Friday 9 PM berth the following night. ‘
APA Signs Veteran Comedy Writer Ed Yeager
Veteran comedy writer-producer Ed Yeager has signed with APA. He was at ICM. Yeager created, executive produced and ran the CBS comedy series Gary Unmarried. He also co-created the ABC Family comedy series Ruby & The Rockits and worked such sitcoms as the WB’s Reba, CBS’ Still Standing, ABC’s Dharma & Greg, Grace Under Fire and Roseanne and NBC’s Suddenly Susan. Yeager also wrote the Fox Atomic comedy feature The Comebacks.
‘The Firm’s Scheduling On NBC – New High Water Mark For Acquired Broadcast Series
Broadcast networks’ infatuation with lower-license-fee internationally produced drama series, which began during the run-up to the 2007 writers strike, is entering a major new phase with NBC’s midseason scheduling of the Entertainment One-produced 22-episode drama The Firm, based on John Grisham’s novel and the Tom Cruise-starring movie. Back in 2007, two of the acquired series stockpiled by the U.S. networks as strike contingency, Flashpoint by CBS and Crusoe by NBC, aired in-season on Fridays and Saturdays, and Flashpoint even got a brief tun in the Thursday 10 PM slot when the broadcast nets ran out of originals at the height of the labor dispute. But since then, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox have largely limited lower-license-fee drama series acquisitions to summer runs. (Fox’s attempt to extend the run of such a series, The Good Guys, into the regular season backfired.) Then in April, NBC picked up the 22-episode The Firm based on a spec script by Lucas Reiter. Two weeks later, at NBC’s upfront presentation, the network announced The Firm as a midseason replacement to air on Sundays. And today, the straight-to-series drama was upgraded to the Thursday 10PM slot, which for years had been considered NBC’s top drama slot, home of such iconic series as Hill Street Blues, LA Law and ER. The network muddied the waters in the past year or so by slotting reality shows/comedies … Read More
CBS’ Weird Title Punctuation Obsession
It seems like CBS brass approach creating the titles of their shows the way they select their bank account passwords — by trying hard to assemble an unduplicatable sequence of letters and numbers. Consistently over the past years, the network has employed unusual (and rather annoying for writers) punctuation in their show titles. First it was Numb3rs, then $#*t My Dad Says and Hawaii Five-0, which the network insisted we spell with a zero instead of the letter “O”. And today came the announcement of CBS’ latest stump-the-keyboard series title, ¡Rob! That is the name of the network’s midseason comedy series starring Rob Schneider. The choice of punctuation is related to the series’ plot about a lifelong bachelor (Schneider) who marries into a tight-knit Mexican-American family. Still, can we keep the quirkiness and whimsy in the shows and off their titles, por favor?
Jessica-Jane Clement Bikini Pics From Thailand! OW!
Photo Credit: Splash News Online
These were snapped during a vacation UK TV star Jessica-Jane Clement took last year to Thailand with her fiance. These pics look somewhat staged, but it’s not like any of you guys give a shit. Here’s some more info about Jessica:
Jessica-Jane Clement (born 24 February 1985 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England) is an English glamour model, actress and TV presenter.
In 2009 she appeared in Doghouse, a British zombie themed comedy, in which she played the leading character’s girlfriend,[5] and the long-running British hospital drama Casualty, playing Jackie, a new member of the ambulance/paramedic crew.[6]
In 2011, November 9th. It was announced that she would be taking part in the 11th Series of the UK TV Series I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! (UK TV series), which will be aired from Sunday the 13th of November. [Source]
And also, just in case some of you bastards missed the Flabber link from a couple days ago, they had a Jessica-Jane layout that might be worth checking out.
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NBC To Launch New Reality Show ‘Who’s Still Standing?’ In December As A Strip
Once again NBC will be launching a reality series as a strip during the holiday season in December. Following in the footsteps of Deal Or No Deal, Clash Of The Choirs and The Sing-Off, new trivia competition show Who’
Bill Paxton In Talks To Direct ‘Kung Fu’
EXCLUSIVE: Bill Paxton is in talks to direct Kung Fu, a screen adaptation of the classic 1972 TV series that starred David Carradine. Paxton, who’s coming off a run in the HBO series Big Love, gets the job after helming two solid films: Frailty and The Greatest Game Ever Played. John McLaughlin will write the script. The film’s being put together under the Legendary Entertainment banner to shoot partly in China next summer. It is possible that this will come under Legendary East, the Hong Kong-based joint venture that involves Thomas Tull’s Legendary, but insiders said that hasn’t happened to this point.
The original series tracked the adventures of a Shaolin monk as he wanders the American West. The monk wants peace but usually winds up using his spectacular martial arts skills to kick some serious tail, in between flashbacks of his early life in the monastery. Below is a reminder of the show.
2011 MLB World Series Preview
2011 MLB World Series Preview
I doubt anyone cares, but I do want to apologize for not making a League Championship series preview. The games between the Division and Championship series sort of mixed in and before I knew it, both series were a game in and I didn’
Ladies Who Attended The “Aim High” Web Series Premiere
Photo Credit: WENN
Cambio and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution celebrated the premiere of 1st Social Series Aim High last night at Trousdale in West Hollywood last night. The web series stars Jackson Rathbone, Aimee Teegarden and Johnny Pemberton. Basically it focuses around Jackson’s character Nick Green as a double agent spy.
Aim High is the story of a young man leading a double life ‘
‘X Factor’ Bumped By Baseball Rain Delay
For the second time, the American League Championship Series is being plagued by rain, wreaking havoc on Fox’s primetime schedule. A lengthy rain delay during today’s Game 4 pushed play well into primetime, forcing Fox to pull tonight’s episode of The X Factor. It is now being rescheduled for tomorrow, while tomorrow’s episode of the singing competition is being penciled in for Sunday. Fox has kept Sunday open in case the series goes to Game 7, which is scheduled for that day. If that happens, X Factor will be on the move yet again. Game 2 of the series last Sunday was rained out completely. It was moved to Monday afternoon but bled into primetime, pushing the start of Fox’s primetime and driving down the ratings for Terra Nova and House.
AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad’ Finale Up, FX’s ‘AHS’ On Track For Top 18-49 Spot In L+3 Ratings
Last night’s Season 4 finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad drew 1.9 million viewers in its original airing. That was up 19% from the series’ third-season finale last year. For the night, including encores, Breaking Bad averaged 2.9 million viewers, 1.8 million of them in 18-49. This was Breaking Bad‘s highest-rated season ever in 18-49, up 24% from Season 3. Over at FX, the premiere of new drama American Horror Story grew some 40% in adults 18-49 from Live+Same Day to Live+7 (2.0 million to 2.8 million) and is now the second-highest-rated FX debut in the demo behind The Shield (3.0 million), and tied with The Riches. AHS is on track to supplant or at least tie the iconic cop drama as FX’s top-rated series premiere ever in the 18-49 in the Live+7 ratings. The horror series already owns the title in several other demos, including adults 18-34 (1.5 million, tied with The Riches.)
Fox Renews ‘The Simpsons’ For Two More Seasons After Actors Sign New Deals
Prospects For New Deal With ‘