It's entirely possible you missed a small revolution that played out on daytime TV this year, in a gay storyline on One Life to Live involving Officer Oliver Fish (Scott Evans, the younger, openly gay brother of Fantastic Four star Chris Evans) and Kyle Lewis (played by straight actor Brett Claywell), an old college friend whose sensitive hunkitude draws Fish out of the closet. Sure, gays on TV are nothing new, but Kish, as fans began to lovingly refer to them, shattered the age-old image of the gay eunuch, while demonstrating, in a New Year's Eve consummation scene for the ages, that two masculine men in a committed relationship could make sensitive love without the use of a Lady Gaga backing track or cardboard box of sex toys. (Pottery Barn candles of varying heights, on the other hand, are another story.) It was transfixing, paradigm-busting stuff, heralded by media advocacy groups and perfectly timed to coincide with the gay marriage legislation fiascos of 2009.
Unfortunately, it didn't add up to ratings, which were some of the lowest in One Life to Live history. Last week, both men were informed by producers that the storyline is being dropped and that the characters would be written out of the show by April. We approached Claywell, who was still a little stunned by the news but upbeat, for the real story. What we found was a brave, thoughtful and affable actor who seems to realize he was just a party to something big.
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NBC may have banned Conan O'Brien from performing on TV airwaves until September, but the comedian is quickly making his presence known across nearly every other platform: First with Twitter, and then with a Web site promoting his 30-city Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour, and now with plans for a documentary that could put Coco in a nation of rejoicing multiplexes before he's allowed back on television.
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Forcing past stomach butterflies is apparently a difficult trick on American Idol. The more fortunate performers conquered their nerves for "Rolling Stones Week" and emulated Mick Jagger by strutting, rooster-dancing, Tyler Grady-conjuring, and daring to sing. Their success was sometimes so grand that Johnny Depp threatened to base his next film character on a kooky old coot somewhere in the room. Hide, Lacey Brown! We rank the night's renditions one by one -- with helpful visual aids -- after the jump.
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Some people use their vacation days to catch up on the DVR, finally test out that freebie foot massager or pick up the last of the dry cleaning. Jimmy Kimmel uses his vacation days to fly across the country and drum up some anti-Leno sentiment on the Late Show with David Letterman. At least that's what he tried to do last night, when the ABC host recalled every high and low of ConanGate: Kimmel's episode-long impersonation of Jay Leno, that devastating 10@10 sucker punch and Leno's self-pitying interview on Oprah. Surprisingly though, Letterman refused to engage in the very bashing he participated just two months ago, calling the Late Shift Deux a "just a whole lot of fun" -- like at the old Comedy Store! That clip, as well as the other highlights you missed last night while dreaming of an RJ Berger solution to your hellish high school year, after the jump.
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· The man behind that legendary Magnum P.I. mustache, Tom Selleck, is in final negotiations for a leading role on CBS' untitled Burgess/Green drama pilot. The project, formerly known as Reagan's Law, centers on a family of New York cops who struggle to balance political demands with their sense of duty to the community. Selleck would play Michael, a dashing NYPD chief of police who lives with his father (Len Cariou), the ex-chief in Brooklyn. Donnie Wahlberg will round out the clan as Michael's detective son. [THR]
The president books a last-minute cable gig, Tracy Morgan teams up with Syfy, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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It looks as though Syfy's most popular franchise is spinning off once again. The network's executive VP of development Mark Stern told The Hollywood Reporter yesterday, "We're looking for other ways to spin off Battlestar beyond Caprica. That world is so rich. We're sitting down with (executive producer) Ron Moore and his team. It would not necessarily be a traditional series." More details about a future space opera are expected to emerge at the network's upfronts. [THR]
Jessica Simpson's VH1 series The Price of Beauty, wherein the pop star visits different countries and investigates cultured ideas of attractiveness, is not quite the National Geographic expedition you had in mind. In last night's premiere, Simpson showed us five qualities that make her a societal observer, with five quotes that will leave you feeling super-proud of our international relations. Read her musings from Thailand after the jump.
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Hey, Washington Staters! Any interest in buying this charming Dutch Colonial that's best known as Laura Palmer's house on Twin Peaks? It's a steal at only $459,500. No BOBs allowed. [Redfin]
Have you ever walked down the halls of your high school feeling lonely and dejected, like your life just could not get any worse? And then you slipped into eighth-period gym class, a bully pantsed you, and your entire class realized that your penis was abnormally large? Like, so abnormally large that it was about to change your fortune in life? Well that is the tale that MTV's first single-cam comedy The Hard Times of RJ Berger is telling -- or as we here at Movieline have been calling it -- Hung For the Young.
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Now that American Idol has separated the mellifluous wheat from the pitchy chaff, culling its contestant pool from its initial 3.5 million contestants to a top 12, things are finally, in the parlance of philosopher-judge Randy Jackson, "getting a millionty billionty percent real, dawg." For the unlucky amongst this ultimate dozen, wild dreams of worldwide superstardom are about to be crushed under the heel of a thousand-dollar Simon Cowell loafer and replaced with more measured aspirations to careers on the cruise-ship circuit, where weeks of national exposure lands one the headlining position on the Pacific Princess' Lido Deck Idol Revue. So whom amongst the remaining Idols can we expect to see battling deep into May, and whom should be loading up on seasickness pills for an upcoming maritime musical adventure? Here's how we handicap the Top 12.
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David Letterman has a habit of tipping his hand when talking to an actor or actress about the film he or she is promoting. Either he likes it or he doesn't. In the case that he has seen the movie and likes it, he will gush so profusely that it sometimes makes the promoting participant uncomfortable -- like he did with Natalie Portman about Brothers back in November. And then other times, he's seen movie, and maybe, well, it wasn't for him. That was the case last night when talking to Jennifer Aniston about Bounty Hunter. Unwilling to endorse the movie entirely to viewers, the Late Show host instead raved about Aniston's star quality ("You light up the screen and you say right there, that's worth the ten bucks."), her ability to run around in heels for 90 minutes onscreen and her co-star's (Gerald Butler) convincing American accent. Those rave soundbites, which could find their way onto the back of Bounty Hunter's DVD case, as well as the other highlights you missed last night while attending your first anger management class, after the jump.
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We've survived three weeks of live Idol shows, and we have interesting artifacts to show for it: a front-runner in Crystal Bowersox, a lucky holdout in Tim Urban, and some of the stupidest comments ever from Ryan Seacrest's quartet of justices. Whether it was Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres, Kara DioGuardi, or Randy Jackson, someone always managed to burgle the turd, reference the wrong song, call a piano a guitar, or invent new ways to spread idiocy. But who gave us the dumbest comment of them all? Our winner may surprise you -- with a poetic quote about "reality."
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· It's official -- Betty White is the hardest working woman in Hollywood. The actress-comedienne has agreed to co-star in TV Land's Hot in Cleveland after initially only signing on for the pilot. The Golden Girl will play a snarky but spry caretaker of the Cleveland home shared by three former L.A. residents played by Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick. Hot will begin its 10-episode season in June. Betty White is also set to host the Mother's Day episode of Saturday Night Live and guest-star in an upcoming episode of The Middle. [AP]
Syfy picks up Three Inches, ABC finds someone to run its drug cartel, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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EW.com just broke the news that Paula Abdul will return to network TV as host and a possible judge of a second Star Search reboot, this one for ABC. This is both wonderful news for Paula fans who are missing her patented brand of enthusiastic incoherence on the current season of American Idol, and for Paula herself, who thrives like Tinkerbell at the sound of America's applause. Tweeted Abdul just an hour ago, "I'm headed to the airport....guess where I'm off to now?!?! 😉 xoxo" We know, we know! To Ed McMahon's grave, in search of his blessing. [EW]
Putting cameos and homophobic Cuba Gooding Jr. movies aside, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz haven't expanded much beyond their creepy SNL roles. Luckily, they'll widen their repertoire on a new Will Ferrell-produced sitcom starring Jon Heder as a dream-chasing optimist who ends up moving back in with his parents. But are their roles enough to make the two wayward SNL players/30 Rock visitors small-screen stars?
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