Skip to main content

"Action News" Becomes "Back to You," Fires Two

Wowsers. What a difference a day can make.

Just a day after attending the audience run through on FOX's comedy pilot Action News (now being renamed with the less on-the-nose title of Back to You), I was shocked to learn that not one, but two actors had been replaced in the days leading up to Friday's scheduled taping of the Action News/Back to You pilot. (The series itself already has a 13-episode commitment on FOX for the fall.)

Paul Campbell (of Battlestar Galactica and Nobody's Watching) and Aimee Garcia (George Lopez), who played station news director Nate and weatherwoman Montana respectively, are both off the series and are being replaced by Josh Gad and Ayda Field.

Gad (21) will replace Paul Campbell as the young corporate news director; Field (Studio 60), who also appears in the untitled Gabe Sachs/Jeff Judah comedy pilot at ABC this season, will replace Aimee Garcia as the former child beauty pageant winner turned meteorologist.

Both Gad and Field will serve as guest stars in the pilot and could be later bumped to regulars on the series.

While I'm shocked that a recast would happen so quickly after a full run-through (and a day before shooting), stranger things have happened. I'll be curious to see how Gad and Field fare in the roles and whether Campbell manages to pop up on another project before pilot season ends. It would be tragic if nobody really was watching this talented actor.

Comments

Anonymous said…
But Patricia Heaton's still on it, right? Damn...I'm still out.
That's so sad! I was really looking forward to seeing Campbell in this show. I think he's a really talented actor and this seemed like the perfect fit.
The CineManiac said…
I have tickets to go see the taping of the pilot tomorrow night, but without Campbell I'm not sure I want to go anymore, he was really a big draw.
Now it's a tough decision.
Anonymous said…
Patricia Heaton's still on? Then I'm in!!!!!
Anonymous said…
Hey ally....is this what YOU do in the way of talent? At least Patty has some!
Anonymous said…
I was at the run-through also, and felt that Paul Campbell was "off" compared to the rest of the cast. His timing was off. I felt uneasy watching him. He didn't seem comfortable or confident. All the other male actors were great. You could really see their talent. I told someone who works on the show what I thought, and they mentioned that others felt the same about Campbell and Garcia. Later that day, I learned that both parts were being recast. Ouch! I watched Campbell on "Nobody's Watching" and was surprised to see how much more comfortable his performances were in those clips.
Jace Lacob said…
Anon,

I definitely felt Garcia's timing felt off and she didn't seem to be a perfect fit for the role of Montana.

As for Campbell, I felt any sort of awkwardness was more the pressure of a "live" performance rather than the edited fluity of something like "Nobody's Watching." I do think that Campbell, based on the pilot (and subsequent websiodes) of Nobody's Watching has great comedic timing and, for whatever reason, it wasn't coming through on the set.

Sadly, I don't think he'll land anything else this pilot season, due to the lateness of the recasting.
Anonymous said…
Jace,

I'm sure in time, Campbell would've done well in the show. He obviously has talent for comedy. It just had to come through that day, and it didn't. That's too bad.

I heard the taping went well, and the replacement actor/actress got much better responses from the audience this time through.
Anonymous said…
You know what is so annoying, you hear all these great things about this pilot script and how funny it is. And everyone on here is talking about it and how much the liked it. Yet trying to obtain a copy is like trying to find water in space, no dice. It is like being at the dinner table and everyone saying how good the wine is but your too young to drink so you are our of luck. Share the water and pass the wine, let those of us who do not have hollywood connections have a chance to read this amazing script, besides the more people who read such a good script are the more that will want to watch the new show and make it a hit.

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.

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

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