Burn Notice returns tonight for a second season of spy games. Everyone’s favorite burned spy finally returns after a yearlong wait. The second season picks up right where they left off for Michael, who thought he was going to meet the people that burned him. Instead, he finds himself cornered into working for them. Tricia Helfer, best known as sexy Cylon Number Six from Battlestar Galactica, joins the cast as Carla, the latest person to yank Michael’s chain. Tonight, Michael is trying to retrieve information that’s heavily guarded by cutthroat mercenaries, in order to help his client free his kidnapped family. Burn Notice returns tonight on USA at 10 PM/ET.
Chris Noth is leaving Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Jeff Goldblum is joining the USA Network series as the new co-lead alongside Vincent D’Onofrio. The two will be spitting starring duties throughout the season the way D’Onofrio did with Noth in the past three years. This was Noth’s second stint on the Law & Order franchise as Detective Mike Logan. He originated the role on the original series from 1990-95. Law & Order: CI, which migrated from NBC to USA last year, was recently renewed by the cable network for a 16-episode eighth season. The Wolf Films/NBCU Cable Studio series will continue to get a second airing on NBC.
Michael Ausiello is reporting that Brad Garrett has signed on to appear in Monk’s July 18 season premiere. He’ll play a handyman who helps Tony Shalhoub with his home renovations. Also on the Monk front, Robert Loggia (Big, Mancuso, FBI, assorted mobster roles) has been cast as an aging boxer in Mr. Monk Takes a Punch, a Season 7 episode slated to air in August.
Monk will be back on the case for a seventh season. USA Network has given a 16-episode order to the drama series that stars Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk, a brilliant detective who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The cable channel is targeting a July premiere for the first half of the show, which is from Universal Media Studios in association with Mandeville Films and ABC Studios, and January for the second half. In addition to Shalhoub, the rest of the cast also is set to return, including Traylor Howard, Ted Levine and Jason Gray-Stanford.
USA Network has bought TV rights to Paramount and Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, reports Variety. USA is buying not only the latest sequel but the first three installments in the series as part of an overall deal that could cost the network $40 million, depending on the box office returns of Crystal Skull in U.S. theaters. (USA’s license fee is directly tied to the movie’s domestic theatrical revenues.) Paramount won’t be releasing Crystal Skull until May 22, but the deal calls for USA to get its first runs of the previous three - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984) and Last Crusade (1989) - in May as a marathon promotional vehicle for the fourth film.
One reason USA was able to outbid its two main rivals, TNT and FX, for the Indiana Jones package is that all four movies are likely to play on both USA and its sister net SCI FI Channel, with maybe even a run or two on its Bravo sibling. USA takes title to Crystal Skull in 2011, and during the course of the movie’s multiyear license term, Paramount will get the right to sell a few runs to a broadcast network in a carve-out following USA’s premiere group of runs.
USA Network will pay more than $50 million for the network-window rights to National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Enchanted and five other movies Variety reported. Disney previously sold the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy to USA, as well as the first National Treasure movie. Three of the four other titles in the Disney package will come to USA not as first plays but after another cable network takes a few premiere runs, including the fantasy film Bridge to Terabithia. As part of the deal, USA sister network NBC will be able to take a run of Enchanted, as will other NBC Universal-owned networks such as SCI FI Channel and Oxygen. But USA will get the first plays.
Michael Ausiello is reporting that USA is canceling The Dead Zone and The 4400. Both shows wrapped up their respective seasons back in September, neither serving as series finales. In a statement posted on the official 4400 message boards, series creator Scott Peters said, “We’ve had a great time bringing you this story and submersing you in the lives of all these incredible characters. Let me raise my metaphorical glass to you all and thank you for being so loyal and so dedicated. I wish we could go on forever, but the party has come to an end.”
After a successful run as a spring miniseries, The Starter Wife is morphing into a weekly series for USA Network. USA has greenlit production on 10 hourlong episodes of the Debra Messing starrer. Barring delays from a WGA strike, filming is slated to start in March for an early summer 2008 premiere. Starter Wife the series will have Messing reprising her role as newly divorced Molly Kagan. Universal Media Studios will produce. While Starter Wife was designed to be a standalone project that would serve as the launching pad for USA’s summer lineup, There was talk of simply doing another sequel, but USA ultimately opted for a series greenlight.
USA Network is developing a TV version of Thank You for Smoking, which was written/directed by Jason Reitman and starred Aaron Eckhart. James Dodson is writing the script for the project, which Room 9 Entertainment’s David Sacks is executive producing via Universal Media Studios. Sacks produced the original feature. The TV version - which will likely go by a different title - will pick up where the 2006 feature left off. Nick Naylor, having kicked some of his more evil lobbyist habits, will use his rhetorical skills to help people more deserving of aid. “He’ll live somewhere between the morally ambiguous character of the movie and Robin Hood,” said USA programming chief Jeff Wachtel.
USA has ordered a third season of drama Psych, reports Variety. The network has picked up 16 episodes of the show, which revolves around a psychic cop (James Roday). Dule Hill, Corbin Bernsen and Maggie Lawson also star. “The series has been a critical and ratings sensation since it premiered last summer and continues to gain new viewers and grow its fan-base,” said USA executive VP of original programming Jeff Wachtel. Steve Franks executive produces Psych, which is produced by Universal Media Studios and Tagline Pictures.