Skip to main content

Channel Surfing: Morena Baccarin Gets Scaly for "V," Hansen and Watros Get Early "Gossip," Ashlee Simpson-Wentz Moves into "Melrose Place," and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

A slew of pilot castings were announced over the weekend, including former Firefly star Morena Baccarin landing the pivotal role of Anna in ABC's sci-fi pilot V, a remake of the 1980s cult series about an alien invasion. Baccarin will play the charismatic Anna, the leader of the Visitors who is able to manipulate the media very effectively and shows a breadth of knowledge about human culture. (Hollywood Reporter)

Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) and Cynthia Watros (Lost) have joined the cast of the untitled Gossip Girl prequel backdoor pilot, which will air May 11th. Watros will play Lily's mother CeCe, while Hansen will play Shep, a friend of Owen (Shiloh Fernandez), who has a thing for Lily's older sister Carol (Krysten Ritter). (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz (Seventh Heaven) has been last in CW's drama pilot Melrose Place, an update of the 1990s FOX mainstay. She'll play Violet, a small-town girl recently transplanted to LA who arrives in own harboring a secret. Simpson-Wentz joins previously announced cast members Michael Rady and Katie Cassidy in the CBS Paramount Network Television-produced pilot. (Hollywood Reporter)

More casting announcements: Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks) will play the lead in ABC's untitled Jerry Bruckheimer drama pilot; Nina Dobrev (Degrassi) has scored the lead role in the CW's supernatural drama pilot Vampire Diaries; Tony Hale (Arrested Development) will star in FOX comedy pilot Cop House; Eliza Coupe (Scrubs) has joined the cast of ABC comedy pilot No Heroics; Luke Mably (The Prince and Me), Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire), and Anna Rose Hopkins (CSI: Miami) will co-star in FOX drama pilot Maggie Hill; Robbie Jones (One Tree Hill) and Shannon Woodward (The Riches) will star in ABC drama pilot Limelight; Lana Parrilla (Swingtown) will star in CBS drama pilot Miami Trauma, Tammy Blanchard (Cadillac Records) and Mel Raido (Clubbed) have been cast in ABC drama pilot Empire State; and Justina Machado (ER) has landed a role in CBS drama pilot Three Rivers. (Hollywood Reporter)

Finally: Nate Corddry (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and Molly Parker (Swingtown) will star opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in HBO single-camera comedy pilot The Wonderful Maladys, about three adult siblings who lost their parents at a young age. Parker will play Mary, a therapist and older sister to Gellar's Alice; while Corddry will play their younger brother Neil, a grad student. Project, written by Charles Randolph, will be directed by Alan Taylor (Mad Men). (Hollywood Reporter)

Friday Night Lights star Scott Porter blogs about the latest episode of the NBC drama series, in which his character Jason Street leaves Dillon, Texas for good and how executive priducers Jason Katims and Peter Berg broke the news to him. (Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch)

ABC has handed out an official pilot order to single-camera comedy Pulling, a US remake of the UK comedy series about three women who move in together when one ends her engagement 24 hours before her wedding. Project, from ABC Studios, is written by Rob Hanning (Courting Alex) and will be directed by Elliot Hegarty. Stacy Traub will serve as showrunner/executive producer; also aboard to executive produce: Francie Calfo, Sharon Horgan, and Dennis Kelly. (Variety)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has some scoop for Smallville fans... as he indicates that not one, but TWO pivotal characters will die in the season finale this May. "These characters will die and they will stay dead," Ausiello's source tells him. "This is the real deal." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

SoapNet has acquired all seven seasons of drama Gilmore Girls and is said to be developing two original scripted dramas as well: a US adaptation of Dutch soap Julia's Tango and Santa Monica, a dramedy about twenty-somethings living at the beach. (TV Week)

Stay tuned.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
The Gossip Girl prequel is building up quite a cast. So far, I've been pretty impressed and I'm happy to see Ryan Hansen sign on.
3/09/2009
Anonymous said…
Why remake Pulling? Are they in need of some pseudo SitC with darker overtones? Why not jump on a decent new idea - Most imported remakes don't survive.
3/10/2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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.
253 comments
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
135 comments
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
55 comments
Continue reading full story...