Skip to main content

Channel Surfing: Michael Vartan Scrubs In for TNT, "Breaking Bad" Gets Webisodes, Marvel Hatches Cartoon Network Series, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. I hope everyone had a very happy three-day weekend. (I know I did.) A few headlines on yet another rain-soaked day in Los Angeles...

Former Alias star Michael Vartan has joined the cast of TNT drama series Time Heals, where he will replace Jeffrey Nordling in the role of Tom Wakefield, the director of medicine at the hospital where Christina Hawthorne (Jada Pinkett Smith) is the director of nursing. Nordling played the part in the series' original pilot. Move marks Vartan's return to series television since he last starred in ABC's short-lived drama Big Shots. (Hollywood Reporter)

TV Guide's Mickey O'Connor offers up some solutions to save CW's Gossip Girl, which he believes is creatively "starting to stink like so much day-old smoked salmon." Among the series' problems that O'Connor points out needs addressing: Serena and Dan's on-again-off-again relationship, the under-utilization of Zuzanna Szadkowski's Dorota, Chuck being portrayed as a "38-year-old lothario celebrating his latest divorce," Chace Crawford's snooze-inducing performance as Nate, a lack of focus on Jenny, and too much meanness towards Brooklyn. Do you agree? (TV Guide)

Geoff Stults (October Road) has been cast in ABC drama pilot Happy Town, from creators Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg, where he will play Tommy, Haplin's newly appointed sheriff who has to solve a grisly murder case, the town's first such crime in seven years, after his father is removed from office. Elsewhere at ABC, Kiwi actor Martin Henderson (Smokin' Aces) has been the first actor cast in Shonda Rhimes' drama pilot Inside the Box, about reporters at a Washington news bureau who "[pursue] 'the story' at all costs while juggling their personal animosities and crises of conscience." Henderson will play Jake, the right-hand man to Catherine, an ultra-ambitious news producer, with whom he shares more than a little bit of chemistry. (Hollywood Reporter)

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which launches in less than a month, has hired A.D. Miles to serve as its head writer. Miles will work closely with executive producer Lorne Michaels and showrunner Michael Shoemaker. (Variety)

CBS has ordered a pilot presentation for unscripted series Thunder Road, in which two teams must drive a racing course filled with obstacles a la ABC's Wipeout. Project, from Warner Horizon and Wonderland, is executive produced by McG, Scott Messick, and Justin Hochberg. (Hollywood Reporter)

Cartoon Network has ordered 26 episodes of animated series Marvel Super Hero Squad, in which heroes Captain America, Hulk, Wolverine, Iron Man and Silver Surfer team up to battle crime. Series, executive produced by Alan Fine, Simon Phillips, and Eric S. Rollman, will debut in late 2009 on the cabler. (Meanwhile, I can't help but think that it's not quite The Avengers but not quite The Defenders?) (Variety)

SCI FI Wire talks to Fringe's Joshua Jackson about what to expect when the series returns in April with new episodes as Peter struggles with his relationship with his father and Olivia discovers some long-buried secrets about The Pattern. (SCI FI Wire)

AMC and Sony have launched online webisodes for drama series Breaking Bad, which returns with its second season next month. Five standalone installments will launch beginning today on AMC's website and Crackle.com. (Hollywood Reporter)

Sci Fi will launch four-hour miniseries Knight of Bloodsteel, starring David James Elliott, Natassia Malthe, and Christopher Lloyd, on Sunday, April 19th. The second part of the mini, originally titled Mirabilis, will air the following night. (Futon Critic)

Stay tuned.

Comments

The CineManiac said…
The Rhimes show sounds a lot like the show she was supposedly preping for Jeffrey Dean "Denny" Morgan a few years back.
Is it in fact that same show, and if so will Morgan be involved?
Anonymous said…
RE: Mickey O'Connor's thoughts about Gossip Girl, I definitely agree that the Serena/Dan relationship has become tedious and that Nate is a bore. However, as much as I love Dorota, I think that they are already pushing the limit with her character. She is brilliant in small doses but I think that too much Dorota would just be over the top (and not in a good way).

Popular posts from this blog

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

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns