There's been a major reversal at the top levels of the FlashForward writers table, as co-showrunner/EP Marc Guggenheim has departed the ABC series, leaving duties for the show's back-nine order to series creator, David Goyer. Goyer, a scifi and fantasy writer who's penned the Blade series and Christopher Nolan's Batman films, was considered less of a known factor in series TV, and was paired with the more experienced Guggenheim, who has mulitple series under his belt, including Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Brothers & Sisters and Eli Stone.
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This afternoon, The Oprah Winfrey Show announced that it would welcome Sarah Palin to the daytime deity's golden-threaded couch for a sweeps appearance that will surely bump Going Rogue: An American Life up on the Amazon best sellers list. A coup for any author, especially a first-time one, the interview is already being touted as a "world exclusive." You'd think that Palin fans would celebrate the impending appearance en masse, but instead they've taken to various Palin fan pages to warn the former Alaskan governor against Oprah a.k.a. "the enemy."
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Dancing With the Stars's resident pro Derek Hough was forced to drop out of last night's competition when a "105-degree fever" swept him off his feet and into bed, where he phoned his escalating symptoms into his Mormon fan base via People magazine: "My whole bed was drenched because I sweated so much. I had to sleep in the bathtub." Whether or not he'll be back for Michael Jackson's tribute performance tonight is still up in the air, but his fellow stars are taking precautions against Hough's virus. Lacey Schwimmer is "living off Emergen-C," Aaron Carter is "using hand sanitizer every five seconds," while Mya suggests massages "to get rid of toxins." Will the talents' homeopathic preventatives keep them from joining Tom Delay on the losers bench?
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It always starts this way: A specialized network builds a constituency with influential programming, then gradually alters its format to accommodate a wider audience. But I don't know if anyone saw that coming with The Weather Channel, which announced today it will augment some of the cable's most influential programming on cable with weekly, weather-themed Hollywood movies. First up on Oct. 30: The Perfect Storm, followed by March of the Penguins, Deep Blue Sea, and Misery -- yes, that Misery, which begins in a blizzard. Great. Surely Menage a Tornado, Born in a Tsunami and other stimulating Weather Channel original programming isn't be far behind. [AP]
All actors and actresses have insecurities, even if those insecurities double as their most bankable assets. Just ask Movieline-proclaimed "Voiceover Queen" Kristen Bell, who spent the bulk of a recent USA Today interview lamenting the "high-pitched" sound of her own money-maker. An endearingly candid admission, yes, but also a strange disclosure given that the Gossip Girl narrator is promoting Astro Boy, in which Bell lends her trademark cheerful voice to leading character Cora.
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We figured Gossip Girl's much-ballyhooed gay kiss would rake in ratings, and -- effeminate sigh -- we were wrong. The scene in question wasn't even a libidinous victory for the fan-fic community; Chuck Bass pulled out of the lip-lock with the acceleration of a flying, Hanna-Barbera-looking werewolf. The full video, plus learned episode analysis, after the jump.
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Aside from Anderson Cooper and Derek Jeter, few men will take up two hours of primetime television tonight. Rocky Carroll, who stars in both CBS's hugely popular NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, is no stranger to endurance performances, coming from a rich Broadway background that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and nominations for a Tony and Drama Desk awards.
Movieline caught up with the man who plays NCIS Director Leon Vance shortly after the premiere of the NCIS spin-off to discuss America's fascination with crime and medical dramas, his initial doubts about working in television and why he is grateful his first stop out of college was not Hollywood.
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Back when Tracy Morgan's literary broadsides against former SNL colleagues Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri were first revealed, the world snapped to attention, but since then, Morgan's dirt-rehashing buzz has been usurped by the ultra-candid Bronson Pinchot. Still, when Morgan appeared on Today this morning to promote his new book, host Matt Lauer pressed him on the allegations he'd made.
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Ratings winner The Biggest Loser is birthing a spin-off workout series called Losing It with Jillian, starring Loser trainer and arguable homo sapien Jillian Michaels. The show will follow Michaels as she moves in with families and helps them get in shape, eat healthily, and sweat in a captivating way. She's perfect for her own show, as she boasts intrinsic star qualities like Linda Hamilton's adamantium body and Paula Abdul's hot, simian stare. I lost three pounds just writing that sentence. While all of this sounds expected thus far, Losing It with Jillian's eeriest objective is explored after the jump.
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Just two weeks after NBC TV chief Jeff Gaspin attributed the Jay Leno Show's tumbling ratings to it's primetime lead-ins, local NBC affiliates are blaming their programming lead-in for the free-falling news numbers: The Jay Leno Show. Local networks depend on their news for advertising revenue, an income stream dried up by the recession, and now Leno's nose-diving viewership. The LA Times mentions that for now, the network is buying support by "[giving] each of the affiliates additional commercial time to sell." Meanwhile, NBC maintains that "there is erosion in broadcast television each year." So by transitive property, if Leno's ratings continue to drop, NBC affiliates should skip Leno and complain about his primetime lead-ins? [LAT]
Even though Gossip Girl is no stranger to homoerotic action, tonight's Chuck Bass gay kiss promises a boost in ratings and frenzied analysis tomorrow. Heroes quashed any chance of a lesbian make-out ratings bump last week by preemptively leaking photos and video, but GG has remained tight-lipped on the kiss, begging the question: Will Chuck Bass seem just as smarmy making out with a man?
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While Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" reacquaints viewers with the week's news, it also brings to light notable, lesser-known medical conditions. Pathological liars, delusional deaf ladies, and muttering bastards have all taken a turn at the "Update" desk, and I'm not just talking about Chris Kattan. On Saturday's show, Kristen Wiig played Tamara Parks, a "recovered" sufferer of Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder who burst into multiple orgasms during the course of her sit-down. Is she SNL's most tragic case yet?
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Beginning Friday, ABC will launch an expensive skywriting campaign to promote the November 3 premiere of V. To draw people's gaze upwards, just as the series' spacecraft does in the sci-fi opener, the network is enlisting skywriters to draw gigantic V's over 26 U.S. landmarks. The skywriting will be done multiple times a day at each at each large market site (Sorry, Ackerhurst Dairy Barn) until the series launches. Had ABC decided to ditch the sissy cloud messages and launch its own UFO-like objects, we know someone that could have helped. [Hollywood Reporter]
We've finally reached October on Mad Men, that beloved time of year when temperatures and colors swing radically with the seasons. And that's just referring to Betty Draper, whose mild fuming over the years escalated to near-meltdown levels in last night's episode. Read on and recollect (with plenty of spoilers, as usual).
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In her first interview since taking over Maura Tierney's role in Parenthood, Lauren Graham told Michael Ausiello that fans shouldn't expect her new character to have many Gilmore Girl similarities: "She's a single mom, yes, but I don't think the tone of the show is the same. The sound of Gilmore Girls, that voice, is so unique to Amy [Sherman-Palladino]. It's a grown-up show, too. It doesn't have some of the more whimsical elements of [Gilmore Girls]. It's more realistic." Harsh words for Stars Hollow. And what about that mythic cinematic reunion of Lorelai and Luke? Graham teased Gilmore superfan Ausiello with this mock pronouncement: "[It's] in the can. It's coming soon to a theater near you." [EW]
