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Channel Surfing: Masi Oka to Hawaii, Bones Won't Go for The Situation, Vincent Kartheiser Talks Mad Men, MI-5 Heads to ABC, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that former Heroes star Masi Oka will guest star on CBS' upcoming reboot of crime drama Hawaii Five-0, where he will play a local coroner who assists Steve McGarrett and his team solve some murders. "He'll debut in the fourth episode as the coroner and be billed as a guest star," writes Keck. "But with the body count expected to spike considerably in Oahu, this coroner could potentially be busy for several seasons." Keck also reports that D.L. Hughley will guest star in the third episode. (TV Guide Magazine)

You can breath a sigh of relief: it looks like The Situation won't be turning up on Bones this season after all, according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, who says that plans to have the Jersey Shore star turn up as a murder victim this season on Bones haven't come to fruition. “The Situation is not going to work out,” executive producer Stephen Nathan told Ausiello. “There were so many contractual difficulties with MTV that it just became an impossibility... But the episode will still be our little tribute to Jersey Shore, and it will do what many people in America would like to see themselves--which is one of those people dead." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

TVGuide.com's David Hochman has a brief interview with Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser, in which they discuss just where Pete is heading this season, the series' fourth. "There's only one Don Draper, and when you work alongside somebody like that, you make your peace with being a beta male," said Kartheiser. "Pete got a promotion, he's feeling more comfortable with his status, and he knows more about who he is. His angst is down and his confidence is up." (TVGuide.com)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC is developing a US version of hit British crime drama Spooks, which has aired Stateside (on A&E, PBS, and BBC America at various times) under the title MI-5, following a deal between Kudos Rights Ltd and ABC Studios. Michael Seitzman will write/executive produce the reversioning, which has received a script order at the network, however it's still unclear whether the series' spies will be British or American. [Editor: As a huge fan of the original, I'm firmly against this as I don't think that a US version would keep the stakes and tension of the original, where any of the characters could be killed off at any time. Instead, I feel like ABC is attempting to launch their own version of 24.] (Deadline)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a first look photo of Brian Austin Green on ABC's Desperate Housewives, where he will play a handyman hired by Marcia Cross' Bree. “Bree has an instant physical attraction to him,” executive producer Bob Daly told Ausiello. “But then over time it turns into something more.” Green will make his first appearance in the seventh season opener, airing September 26th. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Neal McDonough--whom she says was allegedly let go from ABC's Scoundrels after refusing to go against his religious beliefs and film a sex scene--has landed at Starz, where he will executive produce and star in drama pilot Vigilante Priest, which he co-created by Walon Green (Law & Order). McDonough (Desperate Housewives) will play "an ex-cop turned priest who is cleaning up the streets of Los Angeles 'one sinner at a time.'" Andreeva reports that the pay cabler is fast-tracking the development on the project. (Deadline)

Nerd Gets the Girl? Recycled Crap? Exploitative Crime Documentary #57? The latest faux NBC fall schedule making the rounds in Hollywood yesterday was this little gem, which contains all of the above, along with Jerry Seinfeld's Paycheck and Decreasingly Wet Paint. Ahem. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Yay, Mahershalalhashbaz! [Editor: what can I say? I was a huge 4400 fan.] Ron Yuan, Jeremy Ray Valdez, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, and Kelsey Ford will star opposite Ben Whishaw and Clayne Crawford in HBO drama pilot All Signs of Death, based on Charlie Huston's crime novel "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death" that will be directed by True Blood's Alan Ball. Project, writes Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, "centers on Webster Filmore Goodhue (Whishaw) an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale and the loose ends of his own past." (Deadline)

Elsewhere, Ben Esler (The Pacific) has been cast as a series regular role in AMC's Western drama pilot Hell on Wheels, where he will play Sean, described as "an Irish immigrant who opens a show for railroad workers." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

BBC America will debut the six-episode psychological crime drama Luther--starring Idris Elba, Ruth Wilson, Steven Mackintosh, Indira Varma, Paul McGann, Saskia Reeves, and Warren Brown--on Sunday, October 17th at 10 pm ET/PT. Here's how the network, which co-produced the series, is positioning it: "A brilliant detective tormented by the darker side of humanity, Luther shines a light into the hearts and minds of psychopaths and killers, and the shadowy spaces of his own soul. A BBC AMERICA co-production starring The Wire's Idris Elba (Russell 'Stringer' Bell), Luther is a gripping, psychological thriller driven by a brilliant and emotionally impulsive detective. A self-destructive near-genius, Luther might just be as dangerous as the depraved criminals he hunts. In each episode, the murderer's identity is known from the start, focusing the drama on the psychological duel between predator and prey." [Editor: having seen Luther, I seriously recommend you to check out this gripping and provocative series.] (via press release)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Jeremy Davidson (Army Wives) has signed on to ABC's Brothers & Sisters for a multiple-episode story arc, where he will play a new love interest for Calista Flockhart's Kitty--after the death of her husband Robert (Rob Lowe) at the end of last season--whom she meets in Ojai. “He’s very different than Robert,” executive producer David Marshall Grant told Ausiello, “and a very different guy than the kind of men Kitty’s been with her whole life." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Betty White will star in Hallmark Hall of Fame telepic The Lost Valentine, which will air on CBS in early 2011. Project, based on the novel of the same name by James Michael Pratt, will revolve around a "journalist working on a profile of a woman (White) whose husband was declared MIA during WWII." Script was written by Ernest Thompson and Jenny Wingfield; pic will be directed by Darnell Martin. (Variety)

Sobini Films has launched a television division that will be headed up by former Battlestar Galactica associate producer James Halpern, who served as director of development at David Eick Prods. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Please forgive me, but "the Situation isn't going to work out"..I thought that was all he did do?!

Thanks!
Amie
Greer said…
I love Mahershalalhashbaz too and am looking forward to seeing him in a new project! (And what a great name!)
Mimi C said…
NO! JUST NO TO A SPOOKS RE-MAKE.

Ok, I'll stop screaming now. Part of what made that show great was that it aired right after/during the 9-11 and other western terrorist attacks.

To build on Jace's point the tension that anything could happen to anyone at anytime (including the stars of the series)was just sinking in for a lot of us in the west.
Page48 said…
Three months ago, it was an "Alias" reboot for ABC, now it's an "MI-5" reboot.

ABC had an excellent spy show in "Alias", screwed it over and tossed it aside. Now everyone BUT ABC has a spy show, and they are left scrambling to fill a spy show void that, only 4 years ago, they couldn't wait to create.
susclare said…
No, no and no on MI-5. They will ruin just like they did Life on Mars. Part of the appeal of Spooks is that anyone in the cast could go at any moment. The season was short compared to US seasons - therefore the stories were tight. And the view of the U.S. wasn't always great - we were sometimes the bad guys. You think that will happen on ABC?

I've also seen Luther - excellent. However it won't be excellent if BBCA hacks it up for commercial time. Either expand the air time, or don't air it all. Each episode is about 58 mins long with NO commercials. Forgive my rant, but this is something that just ticks me off about BBCA. Jace - can you ask them why they do this and why they don't air the eps for 1:15 or whatever it takes to air the whole episode? What they did to Life on Mars was a disgrace.

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