Channel Surfing: "Pushing Daisies" Gets Dopplegangers, "90210," AMC Looks West, Denman in "Office," and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Hopefully all of you managed to catch a superlative season opener to NBC's Chuck and a slightly-less-than-stellar episode of CW's Gossip Girl.

Orlando Jones (Drumline), Michael Weaver (Notes from the Underbelly), and Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale) have been cast in guest roles for a November episodes of ABC's Pushing Daisies entitled "The Norwegians," where they will play Norwegian detectives resembling our favorite troika of gumshoes Emerson, Ned, and Chuck, who leave Scandinavia in search of bigger and better mysteries to solve. Let's just hope these dopplegangers don't try to solve the mystery of how Emerson and Ned, er, solve their mysteries. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Don't hold your breath waiting for an Arrested Development feature film, fans of the Bluth clan. Michael Cera says that he's heard nothing about plans for a feature film based on the short-lived FOX comedy series. “I don't think I would want to see a movie of the series if I was a fan, anyway," said Cera, “and I don't really see a need for it if you can get the three seasons on DVD.” Ouch. I'm going to curl up with my Arrested DVDs and pretend I didn't hear that. (CinemaBlend)

David Denman's Roy is expected to return this season to NBC's The Office, where he could put a damper on the road to the altar for lovebirds Pam and Jim. According to Kristin dos Santos, Roy will appear in an episode coming up very soon in which Jim and Darryl meet up with the former Dunder Mifflin employee at a bar, where Roy reveals something that has Jim worried about Pam being away at art school... (E! Online)

Spike has announced that it has ordered a pilot for its single-camera US adaptation of British comedy series Peep Show (one of my favorities); the announcement comes on the heels of the completion of shooting on said pilot in Chicago. Peep Show follows the misadventures of two mismatched roommates, Jeremy (Rob Chester Smith) and Mark (Brad Morris). David Richardson serves as showrunner/executive producer on the project, which was directed by Dylan Kidd (Roger Dodger) from a script by the British series' creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. Fingers crossed that this turns out better than, say, Spaced or Coupling. (Hollywood Reporter)

FOX has ordered a pilot presentation for animated comedy Good Vibes from writer/executive producer David Gordon Green (director of Pineapple Express) about two high school surfers who live near the beach in California. Move once again marks a different director for Green, who was once best known for his arthouse pics like Snow Angels and All the Real Girls. (Variety)

AMC is developing an untitled period western drama with Robert Duvall (Broken Trail), about the Pony Express, the pioneer mail-delivery service that lasted from 1860 to 1861. Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers) will write the script, which will be produced by Fox Television Studios, and Richard Donner is expected to direct the pilot. (Variety)

Ellen Burstyn (Big Love) has signed on to star in Showtime drama pilot Possible Side Effects, from writer/executive producer/director Tim Robbins, about a powerful family that runs a successful pharmaceutical company. Already cast: Josh Lucas and Tim Blake Nelson. Burstyn will play the family's matriarch. (Variety)

TV Guide talks to 90210's Ryan Eggold, who plays mysteriously scruffy and yet perpetually upbeat teacher Ryan Matthews. Look for Adrianna to put the moves on his character sometime soon. (TV Guide)

Christina Moore (90210) and David Julian Hirsch (Naked Josh) will star opposite Jada Pinkett Smith in TNT drama pilot Time Heals, about a single mother who is the director of nursing at a North Carolina hospital. (Hollywood Reporter)

Tandem Communications has come aboard TNT's drama series Night and Day--starring William Fichtner, Sherry Stringfeld, and Conor O'Farrell--as international distributors and producers, along with Muse Entertainment. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

Continue reading full story...

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Continue reading full story...

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj

Continue reading full story...

[Televisionary]

Search This Blog