Mark Cuban’s HDNet has added two canceled series to its lineup. The Black Donnellys, canceled after only 8 episodes on NBC, starts Wednesday, June 13th at 8 PM ET. This run also includes seven exclusive, previously un-aired episodes, And Blade: The Series, canceled after one season on Spike TV starts Monday, June 18th, at 10 PM ET. It’s great to Cuban giving two good shows new life on HDNet. Is this a sign of things to come? Will Cuban pick up more great abandoned network shows for his HD network?
Fred Thompson, edging toward a presidential run, is giving up his day job playing a prosecutor on the TV series Law & Order. Thompson asked Wednesday to be released from the show after five seasons, series creator and executive producer Dick Wolf said. “Although he told me he has not made a firm decision about his political future, he felt that given the creative and scheduling constraints of the upcoming season,” he should leave Law & Order, Wolf said in a statement. The producer lauded Thompson’s commitment to Law & Order and the new TV movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, in which the actor plays a president - Ulysses S. Grant. The film, which Wolf produced, premiered last Sunday on HBO.
Thompson, 64, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has yet to announce he’s seeking the GOP nomination but has taken steps toward a summer entry into the crowded field. He has been casting himself in speeches and on the Internet as a Reaganesque conservative. Thompson, a lawyer, began his acting career with the film Marie in 1985, about a high-profile legal case he handled in Tennessee and in which he played himself. His credits also include In the Line of Fire and The Hunt for Red October. Thompson served in the Senate from 1994 to 2002, resuming his Hollywood career when he left. On NBC’s Law & Order, which has been renewed for its 18th year, he played New York District Attorney Arthur Branch.
Welcome to the Spoiler Roundup, the most comprehensive weekly spoiler wrapup on the internet. We scour the web for all the best spoilers on some of the most popular shows on the air. Catch it here every Wednesday at The TV Remote.
This week: Big Love, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, House, Lost, One Tree Hill, Prison Break, The Office and Veronica Mars.
Continue reading The Spoiler Roundup 05.30.07
The official Web site of Freema Agyeman, who plays Martha Jones on the third season of the BBC’s Doctor Who, shot down rumors that the actress would be leaving the series. The site posted a statement from the BBC: “It is absolute rubbish that Freema Agyeman has been axed or sacked from Doctor Who. However we do not comment on future storylines.” The statement came in reaction to a story published in the British tabloid The Sun, which said that Agyeman was being axed because “show chiefs think her performance is not as strong as in her earlier episodes.”
Agyeman joined the series opposite star David Tennant at the beginning of season three, following in the footsteps of Billie Piper, who played the Doctor’s companion, Rose Tyler, in the first two seasons. The third season of Doctor Who is currently airing in the United Kingdom on BBC One. It will begin airing in the United States on SCI FI Channel in July.
The third-season finale of ABC’s Lost saw its ratings down from a year ago, but it came in a strong second in its Wednesday-night time period, Variety reported. According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, the two-hour Lost finale averaged a 5.8 rating among adults aged 18-49 and 13.7 million viewers overall, peaking with a 6.6 rating in the demographic and 15.5 million viewers overall in its final half-hour. This was the show’s best performance since Feb. 7, when it premiered in a new Wednesday 10 p.m. timeslot, although its total program average was down more than 20 percent vs. last year, the trade paper reported. Lost returns in January with a fourth season.
Maybe the ratings were done because of the excess of commercials that ABC forced onto the finale. Did anyone else notice this? There were roughly 3-4 minutes of commercials every 6-7 minutes throughout the two-hour season finale. It was hard to keep watching the show with so many commercial breaks, I wouldn’t be suprised if peopled just Tivo’ed it and watched something else. ABC knew the Lost finale would do well, so they took that opportunity to exploit the finale for their financial gain. In all fairness, ratings overall have been down this year, probably due to the timeslot change, but it still makes me smile to know that their greed helped lower the ratings of the show.
Mary-Kate Olsen is returning to television with a co-starring role on Showtime’s dark comedy Weeds, says The Hollywood Reporter. On the Lionsgate-produced show, Olsen will play Tara, a devoted Christian girl living in the newly developed megachurch community Majestic who becomes a love interest for Nancy Botwin’s (Mary-Louise Parker) son Silas (Hunter Parrish). Olsen will appear in 10 of the 15 episodes of the show’s third season. Weeds marks Olsen’s first major solo role. Since their debut on ABC’s hit comedy series Full House at age 9 months, Olsen and her twin sister, Ashley, have starred together in a string of kids and tween-oriented series and movies for television and video. In addition to Olsen, joining the Weeds cast this upcoming season is previously announced Matthew Modine. The series’ Season 3 premieres August 13.
New characters for season three of Fox’s Prison Break - which will find Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) and the gang locked up in a Panama prison next season - include a mysterious fisherman who apparently is wrongfully imprisoned there, a beautiful local woman who is the fisherman’s girlfriend, a Panamanian drug kingpin and a female freelance operative with a government organization.
NBC’s Heroes, which wrapped its freshman season with an explosive finale Monday, is rumored to be introducing at least four new, mostly international, characters next season, among them a sexy boyfriend for everyone’s favorite cheerleader, Claire. Also potentially joining the cast of characters on Heroes next season are a 28-year-old black mother, a surrogate for Niki’s son, an Irish mobster and a twentysomething Latina. It is believed that most of these characters will only do arcs on the show rather than become regulars.
All I can say is wow . . . Jack’s flashbacks were actually flashforwards and everything on the island was the flashback and now Jack wants to get back. That is definately the game-changer everyone is talking about and it really caught me offguard. At first I thought it was showing that Jack and Kate knew each other before the island and it was all a scam of some sort, but wow, Jack breaking down and echoing what Ben said about leaving the island being a mistake. It left me wanted more.
There were many twists and turns that had me glued to the TV. I thought Sayid, Jin and Bernard were dead. I am glad Tom decided against it, even though he paid for it by being executed by Sawyer. It was nice to see Alex and Danielle reunited. There was just so much to take in for the finale.
There was alot of death in this episode. I was sad to see Tom get killed. And Charlie’s death was pretty heartbreaking. I really thought Cuse and Lindelof would be creative and not kill Charlie like everyone knew was coming. And the two women in the Looking Glass station we hardley knew.
Overall I really enjoyed the episode but all it left me with are more questions:
Where is the temple the Others are going to and why?
Was that really Walt or an apparition?
How did Locke lose use of his legs again and then get it back?
Who was talking to Locke in the pit before he saw Walt?
Is Mikhail really dead this time?
Who died when Jack went to the viewing? Was it Locke?
Who is Kate with (who will wonder where she went)? Is is Sawyer?
If everything on the island was a flashback, what happened between Jack making the call and the present?
What happened to Ben and the Others?
Who was on the boat and were they bad like Ben said?
Where is Penny and what happened with her search?
What happened to Desmond?
What happened to everyone else?
Why did Jack want to go back to the island?
Was everyone forced to leave or did they get a choice?
And most importantly . . . will the next season be about Jack rounded up the Losties and trying to get back to the island . . . and is anyone still there?
I am sure there are more questions I am forgetting. I have to watch the finale again. So much happened and I am sure there was a lot of subtle things happening as well. And we have nine months to think about the finale and wait and see where Lost is going.
Hugh Laurie, who stars in the hit TV medical drama House, was made a member of the Order of the British Empire on Wednesday. Queen Elizabeth II presented the honor to Laurie at Buckingham Palace. The 47-year-old actor has been part of the comedy establishment in Britain for more than 20 years. He was a member of the Cambridge Footlights comedy group along with Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. Laurie and Fry landed their own sketch show, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, in 1987. They also starred in “Jeeves and Wooster,” a hugely popular TV version of P.G. Wodehouse’s comic stories. Laurie’s film roles include Sense and Sensibility, Peter’s Friends and Stuart Little. He has won two Golden Globe awards for his role on “House” as the brilliant but flawed Dr. Gregory House, who heads a medical team specializing in the diagnosis of rare disorders. He now spends most of his time in Los Angeles for his role on News Corp.’s Fox network show.