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Showing posts with the label Parks and Recreation

The Daily Beast: "NBC's Disastrous Season"

Poor Peacock. NBC continues to flail in last place, with new shows like Outlaw and Undercovers bombing and veterans like The Office eroding. Over at The Daily Beast, I take a look at the current state of NBC in my latest feature, "NBC's Disastrous Season," in which I offer six possible ways to save the Peacock. What do you think of NBC's current crop of programming, from highs like Chuck, Community , and Parks and Recreation to lows like Chase, Undercovers, and The Event? Do you agree with my assessment and my suggestions? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Channel Surfing: Psych Has a Twin Peaks Experience, HBO Orders Apatow/Dunham Pilot, SNL, Modern Family Casts Cam's Mom, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I'm not even a Psych fan and this made me blissfully happy. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that USA's Psych is staging a Twin Peaks -inspired episode that will also feature original cast members Sheryl Lee, Sherilyn Fenn, Dana Ashbrook, Catherine Coulson, Ray Wise, Lenny Von Dohlen, and Robyn Lively. Um, yes please. The episode, co-written by series star James Roday, will air sometime this fall and will revolve around "a quirky Northern California town that has been rocked by the death of a high school student." Sound familiar? Coulson will even play a "mysterious Woman with Wood," a tongue-in-cheek take on her Log Lady from Twin Peaks . Sign me up. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that HBO has given a pilot order to an untitled comedy written/directed by 24-year-old Lena Dunham ( Tiny Furniture ) and executive produce

Channel Surfing: NBC Dumps Parks and Rec Repeats, Smallville Return, Creative Arts Emmy Winners, Grey's Closure and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Good news for Community ; bad news for Parks and Recreation . The Futon Critic is reporting that NBC has opted to forgo repeats of Season Two of Parks and Recreation for the remainder of the summer, instead using the Thursday 9:30 pm timeslot for a second round of Community repeats. [Editor: While I applaud NBC for recognizing the potential of Dan Harmon's Community , I wish it weren't at the expense of Parks and Rec , which won't even return for its third season until "midseason."] Planned repeats for August 26th and September 2nd will instead be filled by Community episodes... which means that the airwaves will be Pawnee-free until the series returns at a to-be-determined point later in the season. ( Futon Critic ) SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that John Glover will return to the CW's Smallville to reprise his role as Lionel Luthor in a multiple-episode story arc on

Channel Surfing: Dexter Lures Miller, Jordana Spiro Out at Love Bites, Greenblatt Exits Showtime, Gene Hunt, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Showtime's Dexter is on a casting role. Variety 's Stuart Levine is reporting that Jonny Lee Miller ( Eli Stone ) is the latest to board the serial killer drama, signing on to appear in a multiple-episode story arc on Season Five of Dexter . Miller will play "a mysterious man who ends up tangled in a storyline with Julia Stiles, who is beginning her first season on the skein." ( Variety ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Jordana Spiro has exited NBC's midseason romantic anthology series Love Bites . Spiro's participation in the series was always in second position to her role on TBS comedy My Boys , which returns for its fourth season next month. "Although the odds appear slim that TBS will renew the show for a fifth season (season 4 premieres July 25), it was a risk NBC apparently wasn’t willing to take," writes Ausiello. "It’s unclear if her role will be recast.

Channel Surfing: Showtime Renews Secret Diary, Details on HBO's Blogger Drama Tilda, Parks and Recreation, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. The Hollywood Reporter 's James Hibberd is reporting that Showtime has renewed Billie Piper-led dark comedy Secret Diary of a Call Girl for a fourth season, which would be the series' last. The series, which airs on ITV2 in the UK, is expected to return in early 2011 and the final season would likely focus on the relationship between Piper's Belle/Hannah and her best friend Ben (Iddo Goldberg). ( Hollywood Reporter 's The Live Feed ) UPDATE: According to Showtime's press release, "Season Four, which will be comprised of eight, half-hour episodes, will follow Belle (Piper), an internationally successful author, torn between her career and her feelings for her best friend Ben (Iddo Goldberg). Additionally, Season Four will feature a storyline where the high-end London call girl visits New York City." The Wrap's Hunter Walker has details on HBO's latest pilot, Tilda , the Diane Keaton-led comedy wh

Channel Surfing: Sarah Chalke in at Mad Love, BTS at Parks and Rec, Jason O'Mara in Talks for Terra Nova, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. There is major recasting underway at CBS' comedy Mad Love , which is allegedly thisclose to scoring a thirteen-episode midseason order from the network. According to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, Sarah Chalke ( Scrubs ) is said to be in talks to come aboard the comedy, where she would replace Minka Kelly ( Friday Night Lights ) as Kate on the Sony Pictures Television and CBS Studios-produced project. Meanwhile, Lizzy Caplan ( Party Down ) has backed out of the project after she couldn't commit to the series and her role, Connie, will also be recast. (It's the second wave of recastings on the pilot as Dan Fogler and Ashley Austin Morris were previously replaced by Tyler Labine and Lizzy Caplan respectively.) ( Deadline ) Hollywood Reporter 's Carita Rizzo offers an insightful behind-the-scenes look at NBC's critically acclaimed comedy Parks and Recreation , which recently wrapped its second season, by spending the

Channel Surfing: No Ordinary Family Cuts Two, Emily Deschanel Talks Booth/Brennan Romance, HBO Axes Tim, Parks and Rec, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that ABC's upcoming superhero drama No Ordinary Family is undergoing some casting changes as Tate Donovan ( Damages ) and Christina Chang ( CSI: Miami ). The actors respectively played the family's doomed pilot and a detective at the precinct where Michael Chiklis' character worked as a police sketch artist. An unnamed source close to the production told Ausiello that the decision was storyline-based and that producers hoped to bring both actors back in a guest starring capacity if their schedules allowed for it. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos has an interview with Bones star Emily Deschanel, in which she asks the actress about the will-they-or-won't-they romance between Brennan and David Boreanaz's Booth. So will the star-crossed duo ever come together? "[In] the 100th episode we came very close,&quo

Meet the Press: Angela Bromstad and Jeff Gaspin Talk NBC's Fall Schedule

While NBC's upfront presentation isn't scheduled to get under way until tomorrow morning, the Peacock's top brass did answer some questions about the schedule and the new programming announced earlier today . Jeff Gaspin, Chairman, NBC Universal Television Entertainment, and Angela Bromstad, President, Primetime Entertainment, NBC and Universal Media Studios, hosted a conference call with reporter this afternoon, to discuss NBC's fall schedule, its new pickups, and other programming and scheduling issues. While I won't recap the entire call, here are a few tidbits from that call, organized by topic, from Chuck and Law & Order to Parenthood and The Event . Chuck : " Chuck came out of the wild card and performed very well for us," said Bromstad. "We think it will come back stronger in the fall." "Where we felt we could be consistent this year, we felt we should, which is why Chuck stayed on Mondays at 8," said Gaspin. Chase : &q

Channel Surfing: Allison Janney Heads to Lost, Damon Lindelof Speaks, Chuck Fans Plan Flash Mob, Veronica Mars Update, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. SPOILER! "Presence," huh? TV Guide Magazine 's Will Keck attempts to get to the bottom of just who Allison Janney ( The West Wing ) will be playing on the May 11th episode of Lost by going right to the source: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who are being rather cagey about Janney's mystery role. "We were so happy that she was able to do this," said Cuse. "It was really hard for her because she was getting ready to shoot a pilot, but she squeezed us in. Then once we saw her in this part we were like, 'How could anyone else have done this but Allison Janney?'" Lindelof wasn't giving Keck anything either: "We’ve been talking about this character for awhile and how nervous we were that we wouldn’t find the right actress," he said. "When we first started talking about this character in the writers room we called her 'Allison Janney' under the assumption that we wo

NBC Press Day: Parks and Recreation

"Leslie's gone from big ideas to triage really fast," said Amy Poehler about the upcoming storyline on Parks and Recreation that finds Adam Scott and Rob Lowe arriving in Pawnee beginning May 13th. Adam Scott and Rob Lowe will play state auditors from Indianapolis who arrive in Pawnee to attempt to solve the budget crisis in Pawnee. "Adam and Rob's characters have a good cop/bad cop dynamic," said co-creator/executive producer Mike Schur. (Lowe wasn't in attendance at the NBC press day panel, due to filming on Brothers & Sisters .) The upcoming storyline on Parks and Recreation is ripped from the headlines, with stories appearing of municipalities going bankrupt, which manifests itself when "Pawnee finds itself in real financial trouble," according to Amy Poehler. "It deals with the impact of real people losing their jobs and the comedy of deciding which programs should stay and which should go." Scott's character, Ben, has

Great Scott: Adam Scott Talks Party Down and Parks and Recreation

There's no danger that Adam Scott will ever be the guy known only for a catch phrase in a beer commercial. The boyish-looking 37-year-old actor stars in Party Down , which returns tonight for its second season after receiving critical adoration for its first season, and he'll next be seen in NBC's Parks and Recreation beginning with the final two episodes of the season. (He then segues to a series regular role on the Universal Media Studios-produced comedy next season.) I talked to Adam Scott last month for a feature that ran earlier this week on The Daily Beast about Party Down (which can be read here ). While that feature article focused entirely on Party Down (and also featured quotes from co-creator/showrunner John Enbom and ex-Starz executive Bill Hamm), I thought I'd bring you more details from my lengthy interview with Scott a few weeks back, during which we talked about Party Down and his role on Parks and Rec , and he extracted a piece of dried apple from h

Channel Surfing: ABC to Reair Lost Pilot, No Two and a Half Men Sans Sheen, Hal Holbrook Gets Anarchy, Parks and Rec, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Looks like ABC is trying to make its Lost fans even happier. The Wrap's Josef Adalian is reporting that ABC has scheduled a repeat airing of its two-hour pilot for Lost , which will air Saturday, May 22nd (from 8-10 pm ET/PT), the night before the series finale of Lost , bumping the number of hours the network is devoting to lost to ten that week. The network will be airing the enhanced (read: pop-up) version of the pilot. ( The Wrap's TVMoJoe ) In other Lost -related news, tickets go on sale today at 10 am PT for Lost Live: The Final Celebration, being held May 13th at UCLA's Royce Hall. The event will feature Michael Giacchino conducting a full orchestral performance of original music from Lost , an advance screening of the penultimate episode of Lost and appearances from cast members Nestor Carbonell, Michael Emerson, and Jorge Garcia. Tickets can be purchased here or here . (via press release) RadarOnline.com is re

Channel Surfing: "Parks" and Procreation for Poehler, Diane Farr to "Desperate Housewives," "FlashForward," Gordon Finds "Prisoners of War," and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. The mystery behind Parks and Recreation 's early renewal, said to be due to a production-related issue, has been revealed: star Amy Poehler is pregnant again and the Universal Media Studios-produced comedy will film its third season early in order to accommodate Poehler's pregnancy. "We'll continue production of Season Three as soon as production of season two concludes," an NBC spokesperson told E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos. "And we'll be back next season with new episodes." Which means: Season Three will launch this fall and the cast and crew will likely take a hiatus later than usual... and it means that Poehler's Leslie Knope will not be pregnant on the series. ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) TV Guide Magazine 's Will Keck is reporting that Diane Farr ( Rescue Me ) has been cast in an upcoming episode of ABC's Desperate Housewives "as a character who interacts wit

Channel Surfing: Natalie Morales Joins "Parks and Recreation," Jane Espenson to Write "Game of Thrones" Script, FOX Close to Coco Deal, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Former White Collar co-star (and The Middleman star) Natalie Morales has landed a recurring role on NBC's Parks and Recreation , according to Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello. Morales has signed on to Parks for a multiple-episode story arc in which she will play Lucy, described as "a smart and funny busgirl at a local Pawnee bar." [Editor: Hollywood Reporter 's Nellie Andreeva, meanwhile, indicates that Morales will be appearing "in at least two episodes," the same ones that are set to feature guest stars Rob Lowe and Adam Scott.] ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files , Hollywood Reporter ) The Chicago Tribune 's Maureen Ryan is reporting that Caprica executive producer Jane Espenson--who previously wrote for Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer --will write a script for HBO's upcoming fantasy drama series Game of Thrones , based on the George R.R. Martin nove