The Daily Monitor

Final View Of The Monitor

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:07:28 -0400

Former HBO/Six Feet Under actress Lauren Ambrose and her husband, photographer/entrepreneur Sam Handel, are expecting their first child before the end of the year...Former Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel actor James Marsters will appear on the big-screen in the romantic drama P.S. I Love You from Alcon Entertainment and writer-director Richard LaGravenese. Based on the bestselling novel by Cecelia Ahern, P.S. stars the Oscar-winning Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler (Phantom of the Opera) in the story of a young widow who has to fulfill 10 monthly tasks left by her late husband to air her grieving process. Marsters will apparently play the late hubbie's best bud in the film, which will commence production in October in New York and Ireland...Paget Brewster will portray a new FBI profiler on the CBS hit drama Criminal Minds. Brewster most recently starred opposite Hank Azaria on Showtime's heralded drama Huff. She will soon also appear in TNT TV-movie, A Perfect Day...Actor Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, the creators of Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken, have signed a two-picture deal with Dimension Films. The initial film will be a stop-motion animated Christmas holiday feature titled Naughty or Nice, which will be written and co-directed by Senreich and comic book writer Geoff Johns. Along with Green, they will also produce. Green will direct the voice-overs and provide the voice of at least one of the main characters. The second project, a live-action untitled comedy, will be written by Tom Root, co-head writer/co-producer/director of Robot Chicken. Details of the project are being kept under wraps. Green, who supplies the voice of Chris Griffin on FOX's Family Guy...FOX, meanwhile, is developing an animated series with Robert Smigel, the comedian made famous by his vulgar puppet Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Animals, which Smigel will pen with Greg Cohen (King of the Hill), will be a satire of suburban life with animals. Adam Sandler will serve as a producer. Smigel and Sandler worked together on Saturday Night Live during the early 1990s, and Smigel later appeared in Sandler's movies. Smigel and Cohen worked together on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, on which Smigel was the first head writer, and on TV Funhouse, the Comedy Central spinoff of Smigel's animated staple on SNL...CBS is moving forward with a pilot commitment to Genius Bar, a multicamera comedy from scribes Josh Sternin and Jeff Ventimilia. Based on an idea by consumer marketing expert Krishnan Menon, the project explores the interactions between people who work at a place similar to the Genius Bar at the Apple stores and the cool, hip and beautiful employees at a nearby Abercrombie & Fitch-type store...Peace out, everyone, as this is my final blog for The Daily Monitor. From here on in, I will be concentrating on my Retro TV WaterCooler and MV's exciting new Classic TV section. Stay tuned.

NBC's Got New Game, Sheen Takes The Farm

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:19:01 -0400

NBC will debut a new game show, 1 vs. 100, for a five-week run on Fridays starting October 13th (not so great a date to stary anything) at 9 PM after Deal or No Deal, then move the show 8 PM the next week as a lead-in for the season premiere of Las Vegas. Consequently, Crossing Jordan, which was set to land in the 8 PM Friday slot on the 20th, now has an uncertain future...Jewel, who sang Good Day on The CW's recharged 7th Heaven premiere, has signed to host the the fifth season of USA's talent competition show Nashville Star...Thespian Rena Sofer (Coupling, Blind Justice) will guest star on FOX's 24 and NBC's Heroes. She'll play the wife of Paul McCrane's Graham on 24; while on Heroes, she'll portray the spouse of Adrian Pasdar's aspiring politician...NBC's 30 Rock star Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who paired together on the Weekend Update skit for NBC's Saturday Night Live, are expected to star in Baby Mama, a feature comedy from Universal (that will be directed by former SNL writer Michael McCullers)...Lifetime is in negotiations to order a pilot for a legal thriller entitled, Conspiracy, which is about a young Washington attorney who, after winning a highly publicized case for a large pharmaceutical company, realizes she was given falsified documents and that her client was guilty. As she seeks the truth and puts her life in danger, she learns that her prestigious law firm is the enemy and the conspiracy is much bigger than the initial case...After two months of negotiations, CBS/Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen is thisclose to finalizing a new deal that would make him today's top-paid TV comedy star, earning him approximately $350,000 per episode. The top-paid TV sitcom star award of all time, however, goes to Ray Romano, who earned $2 million per seg for the final season of CBS' Everybody Loves Raymond in 2004-05 (and we once thought $1 million per episode was a lot for Jerry Seinfeld during his hey-day a few years back on his NBC last-name-titled no-sitcom)...Speaking of Raymond (and hey-days, for that matter), double-Emmy-winning actress Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond), will star in The Scene, Theresa Rebeck's critically acclaimed play about an ambitious producer of a morning TV news show, which opens January 11th at NYC's Second Stage's West 43rd Street theaterComedy Central has renewed The Showbiz Show With David Spade for a third season, still leaving Spade time to join the cast of CBS' midseason comedy series Rules of Engagement...I actually screamed, "Yes!" in my living room last night after watching those two slimey, sheriff-impersonating bad guys get shot on CBS's new super-riveting show, Jericho...Peace, please.

Chevy Does Mel?; The Coreys Return

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:43:12 -0400

Chevy Chase, way late of Caddyshack, Fletch, and a two-time Emmy winner for as one of the founding Prime Time Players of NBC's original Saturday Night Live, will return to prime-time and the Peacock net as a guest-star on Law & Order Friday, November 3rd (which will be the show's initial sweeps segment). Apparently, Chase will portray a celebrity somewhat reminiscent of Mel Gibson, and his recent incarceration, release and subsequent numerous embarrassments...Speaking of embarrassments, Big '80s film stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman are now the stars of a new A&E reality series, presently entitled, The Coreys: Return of the Lost Boys. The show will chronicle the more recent events in the life and times of the stars of such screen non-classics as License to Drive, Dream a Little Dream and, uhm, you guessed it - The Lost Boys...Olivia Newton-John, the most beautiful woman in the universe, spent her birthday Tuesday as a guest judge on American Idol which returns to FOX in January...Martin Short, Susan Lucci, Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and CNN host Nancy Grace are among the boldfaced names slated to compete this Fall on Celebrity Jeopardy!, which will also include the likes of Regis Philbin, Rachael Ray, James Denton, Doug Savant, Christopher Meloni, Drew Lachey, Carson Kressley, Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Kaczmarek, Joely Fischer, Dana Delany, Mario Cantone, Steve Schirripa, Bebe Neuwirth, Paul Shaffer, Sam Waterston, Soledad O'Brien of CNN and fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi...Meanwhile, Martha Stewart is looking to book Eminem on her Martha TV show. "We play his music during breaks to keep people very lively and they love him," Stewart told AP Radio in a recent interview...Rock legend, Aerosmith lead singer and recent Two And A Half-Men guest star Steven Tyler revealed to Access Hollywood that he has been fighting a secret battle with hepatitis C...USA/Monk star Tony Shalhoub was one of those helping to feed 2,500 homeless and impoverished people on L.A.'s Skid Row Sunday in front of the Fred Jordan Mission on Sunday...Russell Crowe has vehemently denied claims he's seeking to portray his late friend Steve Irwin in a film about the wildlife expert's wonderful life and tragic death. In an interview with TV's Extra, Crowe said: "It's appalling to me. It offends me very deeply, so awful that I have to deal with millions of people thinking I would dance on my friend's grave"...Bob Hoskins will star opposite Canadian actor Nicholas Campbell in The Englishman's Boy, a two-part, four-hour miniseries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Hoskins will play an ambitious film producer in 1920s Hollywood who asks a young Canadian scribe, portrayed by Michael Therriault, to find an elusive Western thespian (Campbell) whose life will provide the storyline for a new movie. Hoskins is presently in theaters with Hollywoodland, the story of TV's first Superman George Reeves...Shana Goldberg-Meehan is reteaming with ABC and Warner Bros. TV for a politically themed comedy pilot. The yet-to-be-titled project, which Goldberg-Meehan penned and will executive produce, is an ensemble comedy set against a Washington backdrop. This past development season, Goldberg-Meehan created and executive produced a comedy pilot for ABC that starred Marisa Coughlan and Kaley Cuoco (8 Simple Rules/Charmed) as two very different sisters...Former Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon shocked just about everyone in 2003 when she split with her childhood sweetheart Danny Mozes, and commenced a gay relationship with Christine Marinoni. Cynthia, who played the very straight-uhm-laced lawyer Miranda Hobbes in the family-challenged series, recently told New York magazine: "I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn't a struggle, there wasn't an attempt to suppress. I met this woman, I fell in love with her, and I'm a public figure"...Peace, please.

Kelley Goes For Straight-Out Legal Laughs

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:31:15 -0400

Judy Reyes, who portrays the sharp-tongued nurse Carla on NBC's doc-com Scrubs was hospitalized last Wednesday with a fractured pelvis...FOX has teamed up with scribe-producer David E. Kelley for a legal-themed comedy pilot about group of jurors of a high-profile trial who are sequestered in a motel. Kelley, on board as an executive producer, will supervise the comedy's co-creators, Steve Baldikoski and Bryan Behar, who will pen the pilot script. Kelley recently suped Five Finger Discount, a comedy script for FOX, and helped to develop a potential half-hour spin-off of his Emmy-winning legal drama The Practice, starring Camryn Manheim. For the moment, Kelley's central focus is Life on Mars, the sci-fi crime drama he's scribing for ABC. His legal drama Boston Legal is in its third season on the Alphabet net...Jane Seymour (who played a physician on CBS' Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman way before her recent short run on The CW's Smallville) is scheduled to appear on the Monday, October 23rd episode of How I Met Your Mother. Here, she'll portray one of Marshall's (Jason Segel) hot law professors. Barney, played by the astounding Neil Patrick Harris (who, like Seymour, once played a TV doctor in the guise of ABC's classic Doogie Howser, M.D.) decides to bed Seymour in order for Marshall to receive better grades. Also guest starring in the seg: Bryan Cranston, as Ted's (Josh Radnor) mean boss Druthers. Meanwhile, why doesn't CBS just change the title of the marginally-funny Mother to The Neil Patrick Harrris Show and get on with it...I'M LOVIN': The Class on CBS, Heroes on NBC. I'M STILL HATIN': 7th Heaven on The CW, The New Adventures Of Old Christine on CBS...Peace, please.

Milano Makes Comeback; Oprah Goes Radio

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:34:50 -0400

Former Charmed/Melrose Place/Who's The Boss star Alyssa Milano has agreed to star in the comedy pilot for ABC, entitled, The Comeback, which is about a 30-year-old woman who has a gay brother and a hot boyfriend. Uhm, she'll play the woman...Former Becker star Nancy Travis, Sara Paxton and Chelsea Hobbs are featured in the Lifetime original movie The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker. The flick is about an intelligent and forthcoming college freshman (Paxton) who falls into the world of nonstop partying and binge drinking, with debilitating consequences. Travis portrays her mother, and Hobbs plays her roommate. Principal photography has been completed on film, which is set to debut next spring...Jane Lynch has been hired to co-star opposite Christine Taylor (the former big-screen Marcia, Marcia, Marcia Brady) in CBS' untitled comedy pilot, which is being executive produced and directed by Ben Stiller. Fran Kranz and Modi also have been cast in the project, from CBS Paramount Network TV. Written by Ajay Sahgal, the singe-camera comedy stars Taylor as a version of herself - a successful Hollywood thespian who remains linked to her small-town ties. Lynch will play Taylor's mother. Kranz will play Taylor's brother, while Modi has landed the role of the house manager. Stiller is set to recur as Taylor's husband, which is type-casting, natch, as the Benster is Taylor's hubbie in real life...Ray Giuliani has replaced Dan Jbara as executive producer on talk/relationship strip The Greg Behrendt Show, while The Dr. Keith Ablow Show executive producer Diane Rappoport has been replaced by Cathy Chermol...Oprah Winfrey is launching her own channel, Oprah and Friends, on today's XM Satellite Radio, with shows hosted by her and a plethora of popular personalities from her TV chat show, including her best friend, Gayle King, fitness expert Bob Greene and renowned poet Maya Angelou...Meanwhile, Kansas City resident Patrick Crowe is having a good ol' time promoting Oprah for president on his website, while Winfrey's lawyers aren't at all amused. Check it out at http://www.oprah08.net, which comes complete with a campaign song, volunteer sign-up, and a link to purchase one of his Oprah for President T-shirts. Shoot, I'd buy one - and actually vote for Oprah in the process...Apparently, Farrah Fawcett wants Heather Locklear to play her in a TV-movie about the life and career of the former Charlie's Angels star...Peace, please.

Brokaw, LeBlanc, Selleck, Locklear & San Giacomo

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:57:06 -0400

Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, 66, became only the second journalist to be honored with a prestigious West Point award Thursday. The award, named for West Point's fifth superintendent, is given to an American citizen who exemplifies the ideals of the academy's motto, Duty, Honor, Country. And it's only been given to one other journalist in the guise of former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite. Other past recipients of the Sylvanus Thayer Award include General Douglas MacArthur, former President Ronald Reagan and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...Former Magnum P.I. star Tom Selleck returns to ABC's Boston Legal on Tuesday, October 3rd in the role of Ivan Tiggs - Shirley Schmidt's (Candice Bergen) ex-love who's looking to have his post-nuptial deal with his new spouse declared invalid. Schmidt, who authored the post-nup, will face Alan Shore (James Spader) in court to settle the issue. As fans of the show already know, Tiggs still has a thing for Schmidt...The average American home now has more TV sets than people. That statistic was marked within the past two years, according to Nielsen Media Research. There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said...Star Wars creator George Lucas, 62, and who honed his skills as a young film student at USC (graduating in 1966), is giving a little something back to his alma mater $175 million - which is the largest gift in the school's history. His donation topped the previous school record of $120 million, made in 1993 by Walter Annenberg...Former TJ Hooker/Dynasty/Melrose Place star Heather Locklear is set to star in Angels Fall, a Lifetime original movie based on Nora Roberts' best-selling suspense romance novel. Johnathon Schaech is co-starring in the film, the third of four adaptations of books by Roberts that Lifetime plans to run back-to-back on Monday nights in February...Laura San Giacomo will co-star opposite Holly Hunter in TNT's drama pilot Grace. Hunter plays a jaded Oklahoma City police detective who is visited by an irascible angel (Leon Rippy) and offered an opportunity to redeem her life. San Giacomo will play Grace's best friend, a forensic scientist. Bokeem Woodbine will play a death-row inmate who also can see the angel. San Giacomo, best known for her role on NBC's long-running sitcom Just Shoot Me! will next do a multi-episode arc on the CW's Veronica Mars. The stint will reunite San Giacomo with fellow Shoot cast member Enrico Colantoni...A Chinese version of the hit reality series The Apprentice is in the works, although details of the project are shrouded in secrecy. According to a marketing brochure, The Apprentice will be the "first reality television show in China to be fully licensed for production and localization from original North American producers"...Wallflowers leader Jakob Dylan (son of Bob) has joined Columbia Records and is busy recording tracks for use on the new J.J. Abrams-produced ABC drama Six Degrees. Dylan's rendition of the show's theme, Here Comes Now, was produced by Steve Lillywhite and will debut Thursday during the season premiere. Additional tracks will be utilized regularly on the show; Dylan has been recording material in Santa Monica with such musicians as guitarist Lyle Workman, former Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg, keyboardist Patrick Warren and former Gigolo Aunts drummer Fred Eltringham...A majority of the nation's networks have told the FCC that its policy that puts TV station owners at risk of huge fines for a slip of the tongue threatens to end live broadcast television. In papers filed late Thursday at the FCC, FOX, CBS, NBC and Telemundo argued that the government policy already has forced TV writers and producers to alter scripts and has caused network affiliates to avoid airing controversial programs or broadcast them on late at night. ABC was expected to make a separate filing...Seth Meyers will side beside Weekend Update anchor Amy Poehler in a newly streamlined Saturday Night Live this season...Gabriel Byrne has been hired to star in HBO's upcoming half-hour drama In Treatment. The project, based on the popular and critically acclaimed Israeli series of the same name, centers on a therapist (Byrne) who is tranquil with his patients but transforms into a meanie-face, uncertain angry man when he is a patient seeing his own shrink. Also cast in the drama, which has received a five-episode order, is Australian newcomer Mia Wasikowska (who will portray a gymnast with Olympic dreams who is receiving psychiatric treatment...According to Access Hollywood, Rosie O'Donnell showed her boobs to gave co-star Julian McMahon an eyeful when they were shooting a sex scene for the FX Golden Globe-winning drama Nip/Tuck....Watch for tonight's second-season-opener of Ghost Whisperer on CBS. Although the show is getting sillier and sillier every week. Medium, it ain't...After a little more than three years of marriage, Matt LeBlanc's divorce has been finalized. The 39-year-old former Friends star has been granted joint custody of his 2-year-old daughter with wife Melissa LeBlanc (awe, their initials were the same and everything), according to court papers filed Wednesday. Melissa has two children from a previous marriage. The LeBlancs filed for divorce on April 6, citing irreconcilable differences. They will be officially single again on October 6th - three days before my birthday (and John Lennon's)...Peace, please.

Three 6 Mafia & A Half-Dozen (Of The) Other Projects

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 07:58:19 -0400

Rap group Three 6 Mafia will star in a new reality comedy for MTV entitled, Adventures in Hollyhood. The show, which will commence in 2007, will follow the group's main members, Juicy J and DJ Paul, and their entourage as they trek from Memphis to L.A. Three 6 Mafia won an Academy Award for their tune, Its Hard out Here for a Pimp from the quite brilliant, but extremely vulgar flick Hustle & Flow...Gary Scott Thompson, the creator of NBC's Las Vegas is prepping two new shows for next season: Protect and Serve at CBS, an ensemble drama about the professional and personal lives of L.A. street cops, and an untitled NBC show about a former cop who, after losing his family in the World Trade Center attacks, follows his ex-wife to Hawaii...Author Staci Robinson has filed a $40 million lawsuit against the fledgling CW network and its owners, along with producers of the soon-to-debut series The Game, alleging that it copies the concept and characters of her unpublished novel. The suit, filed September 14 in U.S. District Court in L.A., claims Robinson gave a manuscript of the novel to Game executive producer Mara Brock Akil in 2001, when she interviewed for a writers assistant post at Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions. Akil and Grammnet are named as defendants in the suit, along with CW and its owners, CBS and Warner Bros. Both the novel and the show are about a woman challenged by her academic pursuit and a love interest with an NFL athlete, according to the suit. In addition to a claim for monetary damages, Robinson's suit seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent CW from airing the show beginning October 1st...HBO is developing a series of mobile mini-telenovelas designed to entertain Hispanic viewers and provide an English phone book to those on the go. Titled La Traductora (The Translator), the show follows the daily experiences of Carmen, an immigrant and her daughter Maribel, who is frequently translating English for her Mom. The mobisodes are oriented to not only engage but also deliver key phrases in English deemed essential for effective communication in America. The project is being produced by Galan Entertainment whose president, Nely Galan (creator/executive producer of the FOX reality show The Swan)...Songwriter-thespian Kathleen York and Matt Roth will make semi-regular appearances on ABC's Desperate Housewives. York will play Monique, a beautiful redhead mystery woman. Roth will play Art, the newest neighbor on Wisteria Lane who buys Mary Alice and Paul Young's house and is immediately befriended by Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) after he becomes a hero in a tense situation...HBO is launching a music-themed interview show hosted by British rock musician Dave Stewart (of The Eurythmics). The pay cable network has ordered six half-hour episodes of the show to air early next year. Described as "musicians on musicians," the still-untitled project will feature Stewart interviewing fellow musicians about their craft. He already has approached several of his big-name rock-star friends to appear on the program, sources said. The guests also are expected to perform on the show, which Stewart will executive produce with Interscope Geffen A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine, Gene Kirkwood, Howard Klein and Jonathan Prince (American Dreams)...I'm lovin' Jericho (which debuted last night on CBS)...Peace, please.

Joey Lawrence Steps All Over Mario Lopez

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:27:09 -0400

More than a week after her son mysteriously died beside her hospital bed, Anna Nicole Smith remains in the Bahamas as Daniel Smith's death was apparently not a suicide or homicide. With toxicology tests pending, the official cause may not be publicly known before a jury inquest starting Oct. 23. The 38-year-old former reality TV star, who gave birth to a baby girl three days before her son's death, is expected to be summoned...South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker chose their 10 most beloved episodes of the long-running Comedy Central show to appear on the new South Park The Hits: Volume 1 DVD, in stores Oct. 3. The new DVD also includes four bonus episodes and The Spirit of Christmas, a never-released animated short. SP commences its tenth season on Comedy Central on Oct. 4. The show debuted August 13th, 1997 - a date that marked the downfall of American television...Floaters is a new sitcom starring Lauren Cook, and it's about three twentysomething gal pals who share a Manhattan walk-up, temporary status at the same workplace, and yearnings for more. It also only airs online each Monday through Friday in teensy installments that, by week's end, complete a half-hour episode...There's something wrong with the new syndicated daily talk-variety hour, The Megan Mullally Show, though not yet sure exactly what it is...Friends and fans, including Hollywood stars and Australia's prime minister, bid farewell to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin at a service that was filled with both tears and much laughter in tribute to the ground-breaking Discover Channel star who introduced the "environment" the mainstream like no other...Joey Lawrence knocked 'em dead last night with a performance on Dancing With the Stars. Mario Lopez, once considered the easy-win on the show, tripped all over his ego...Peace, please.

Was Rosie Right This Time?

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 07:33:25 -0400

ABC has given the go-ahead for The Imposter, a reality show set for next summer that will search for the best celebrity impersonator in the country...HBO has cancelled Lucky Louie, the controversial and very odd family sitcom created by and starring comedian Louis C.K...Showtime has renewed the drama series Brotherhood for a second season with 10 additional episodesason...ABC has given the green light to Complications - a medical drama from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and feature scribe Amy Holden Jones...FOX has given the go-ahead to The Minister of Divine - a multicamera comedy pilot based on Richard Curtis' British show The Vicar of Dibley...Curb Your Enthusiasm star Susie Essman has been hired to host the upcoming Bravo reality series Better Half - a sixty-minute show in which experts in various professions will train their spouses to take over their jobs...The IATSE on Monday announced a labor agreement covering 40 members of the production crew on the new Jimmy Kimmel-hosted game show Set for Life, set to hit ABC's primetime schedule this season...Teri Polo, Barry Bostwick and Robert Mailhouse have signed on to star in The Hallmark Channel original movie Love Is a Four-Letter Word - a two-hour film about two divorce lawyers who are representing clients divorcing one another and who fall in love while settling the case. Polo and Mailhouse portray the lawyers, and Bostwick plays one of the clients...Baywatch/Knight Rider/America's Got Talent personality David Hasselhoff is the most watched TV star in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records...The examiner who performed a second autopsy Sunday on Daniel Smith, reality star Anna Nicole Smith's 20-year-old son, said he could not yet determine the cause of death...Rosie O'Donnell's commentary yesterday on ABC's The View comparing radical Islam to radical Christianity is causing controversy. Why? She was right. A radical Christian, in the form of Timothy McVeigh, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19th, 1996 in Oklahoma City. Remember? On April 17, 1995 McVeigh reportedly picked up a 20-foot Ryder truck from Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City. The truck was filled with roughly 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, and nitromethane, a highly volatile motor-racing fuel—a mixture also known as Kinepak or ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil). At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, the truck exploded in the street in front of the Murrah building. About 90 minutes later, McVeigh was stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper for driving a vehicle without a license plate, who then arrested him on a firearms charge. Two days later he was charged in the bombing. His friend Terry Nichols, also a radical Christian, was arrested in Kansas, and formally charged with the bombing on May 10...Peace, please.

Real Dead Body Appears On CSI; Vanished Gets Company Online

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:49:43 -0400

A man's body floated up near where a crew was filming a scene for the CBS crime show CSI: Miami. The body washed up early Friday in Biscayne Bay at Bicentennial Park, which film crews were employing as a helicopter staging ground for aerial shots of a fictional offshore investigation for the mega-hit CBS show...Meanwhile, the creator of the CSI franchise has partnered with LL Cool J to develop The Man, a CBS drama in which the veteran rapper-actor will play a cop with a busy domestic life. The undercover LAPD officer spends the nights running sting operations to break criminal rings, and the days raising his three adopted kids - an abused boy with aggression issues, a former prostitute he placed in community college and a skateboarding young dude who is a recovering drug addict. The cop's cover is being "the man" - the go-to guy in LA's upper crest...What's being described as a "warm and friendly" 90-minute biographical documentary, HBO's Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, about the life and career of Barry Goldwater, was produced by granddaughter CC Goldwater with Tani Cohen and director Julie Anderson, employing the usual field experts, close relatives, newsreel clips and a ton of home movies filmed by Goldwater himself...Reveille Llc. is teaming with the scribes-producer Marc Abrams and Michael Benson (who are just ending their co-executive producer ties for HBO's Entourage) to form Catapult Llc. in order to produce a bunch of diverse shows, some of which they themselves will write...The New York Television Festival ended with an awards ceremony on Sunday, which included screenings of an animated pilot called Squid Dragon Legend and the comedy pilot Split the Difference, each of which earned two. Squid, which was produced, written and animated by Nick Cogan, won the award for Best Animation Pilot and the MSN Artistic Achievement Award. Split, which took home the award for Best Comedy Pilot and the viewer's choice TV Guide Audience Award, is a mockumentary about a TV advertising agency and was helmed by Bruce Hurwit, written by Joe Narciso and executive produced by Hurwit, Narciso and Mary Egan Callahan...FOX has extended its online streaming experiment to three more shows: Justice, a drama, and the comedies, 'Til Death and Happy Hour; all three are joining Prison Break and Vanishedon the list of FOX series that are available free and without commercials on 40 Websites, including Fox.com, AOL.com, Google, MSN.com, TV Guide.com, IGN.com and Yahoo.com...Peace, please.

Horton Hears And Does A Lot (@ ABC)

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 07:51:20 -0400

TV reality star Duane Dog Chapman and two co-stars on his show were arrested yesterday in Hawaii on charges of illegal detention and conspiracy in the bounty hunters' capture of Max Factor heir Andrew Luster on June 18, 2003, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico...An estimated 6.9 million viewers tuned in to former ABC/View prima donna Meredith Vieira's debut on NBC's Today show seg on Wednesday. Thank goodness the world's remaining 500 billion population tuned out...Apparently, Anna Nicole Smith is supporting a formal inquest to decide how her 20-year-old son died while visiting her in the hospital (three days after she gave birth to her baby girl)...NBC/Law & Order star Sam Waterston (who plays Jack McCoy on the series) received the 2006 Empire State Archives and History Award Wednesday night from the New York State Archives Partnership Trust for his many performances as Abraham Lincoln (which has spanned various stage, TV, film and public reading performances)...THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL is canceling its long-running show Dayside, creating a new program with Martha MacCallum. Dayside co-hosts Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy are prepping for a morning show that will commence in 2007 on somewhere on FOX. MacCallum will anchor the 1-2 p.m. ET show, The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum, which will replace Dayside beginning September 25th. She will anchor the show from the Fox News Channel control room. Additionally, Jane Skinner will become a permanent part of the anchor team at Fox News Live, which airs from 2 to 3 PM...Director and former thirtysomething star Peter Horton has signed a new two-year general agreement with ABC and Touchstone Television, during which he will continue as an executive producer on Shanda Rhimes Grey's Anatomy, as well as on an upcoming pilot created by Rhimes. Horton also recently joined ABC's new Touchstone TV drama Six Degrees as a consultant...Former big-screen Batgirl (and one-time big-time fatgirl) Alicia Silverstone has been hired to co-star on NBC's midseason comedy series The Singles Table, about five strangers who bond after sitting together at the singles table at a mutual pal'ss wedding. After allegedly lengthy on-again, off-again negotiations, Silverstone signed on to portray one of the strangers, named, Georgia, a successful physician who realizes that she lacks a life. Silverstone replaces Pascale Hutton (who played the part in the pilot), and who has moved on to ABC's midseason drama drama, Traveler...Lolita Davidovich has been cast opposite Lili Taylor in Lifetime's drama pilot State of Mind...FOX has greenlit a yet-to-be-titled pilot for a multicamera comedy from vet scribe/producer Victor Fresco, which will be about an outrageous grandpa who moves in with his overworked, overscheduled grandson. Fresco will pen and executive produce the project via his general agreement with 20th Century Television. As part of the deal, Fresco also serves as a consulting producer on NBC's super-hit comedy My Name Is Earl...Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender is switching from its once-a-week slot to weeknights at 6:30 commencing September 25th...Peace, please.

Sedgwick Closes In On Big Screen

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:06:14 -0400

James Cromwell, the awesome star of such classic films like Babe and who commenced his TV career playing Archie Bunker's bud on All in the Family, has been hired to play father the Emmy-winning Kiefer Sutherland on the huge FOX hit, 24. Also joining the cast: the Emmy actor and comedian Eddie Izzard, as Darren McCarthy, a potential threat to agent Bauer and his friends. Look for the new season excitement to commence in January...Glenn Gordon Caron is looking to follow up his hit NBC series Medium with a second supernatural show, this time for CBS. Apparently, The Meant to Be's, will be a romantic drama about a young woman who dies, but in order to "pass over," she must return to Earth and help people improve their lives. Sounds an awful lot like one of my scripts, MarkAngel. And it just goes to show that the industry doesn't buy ideas ('cause I got a million good ones that "they" have passed on; they buy "writers" with a "name" or with whom various execs attended school at UCLA, USC, Yale or Harvard)...FOX has granted the go-ahead to for a comedy pilot developed by My Wife and Kids co-creator Don Reo and Rescue Me co-creator/star Denis Leary. The yet-to-be-titled single-camera comedy will be about two teen boy and his grandpa, both theives...TNT/Closer star Kyra Sedgwick will star opposite Dwayne The Rock Johnson in Walt Disney Pictures' family football comedy The Game Plan, about a football player who learns that he has a daughter and follows his journey to become a father. Sedgewick will play Johnson's ruthless, over-the-top sports agent who doesn't care about the daughter...A woman involved in a traffic collision with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has been charged with drunken driving...Gray's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey and his wife, Jillian, are expecting their second child...Peace, please.

Wayans Goes Underground On Showtime

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:42:30 -0400

Damon Wayans' new comedy show, The Underground, debuts on Showtime, Thursday, at 10 PM. He's calling it In Living Color on steroids, which refers to the 1990s skit-show that was created by his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans. Damon, of course, recently starred for five seasons on ABC's My Wife and Kids, with which he apparently was not too happy. And that makes two of us. I thought Wife was a highly offensive family show littered with vulgarity...One episode into its fourth season, HBO's gritty cop drama The Wire has been renewed for a fifth and final year. The pay cable net's option was influenced by healthy reviews for the program's present season, which is set in the drug-laden streets of West Baltimore...HBO and BBC 2 have partnered for Stuart: A Life Backwards, a TV-movie produced by the Academy-Award winning Sam Mendes. Based on Alexander Masters' memoir of the same name, Stuart is about strange association between a homeless man and a writer. Masters adapted his book to the small screen, with director David Attwood (To the End of the Earth) at the helm. Benedict Cumberbatch (Starter for Ten) and Tom Hardy (The Virgin Queen) star in the flick, which has commenced filming in London and Cambridge...The judges were way too harsh on Jerry Springer during last night's season premiere of Dancing With the Stars on ABC. Trust me, I'm no fan of Springer and his "evil" TV show, but you gotta give him the man props: he's the senior contestant; he's never done anything close to dancing; he gave 100% to his performance. So, those judges need to step back (or off) and start doing their jobs in the correct manner. Either way, we'll find out if the home-audience agrees with them tonight..Last night's sneak-peek of ABC's Men in Trees with Anne Heche wasn't half-bad. And she's lookin' pretty hot...CNBC personality Alexis Glick signed on second in command behind business exec behind Neil Cavuto at FOX News Channel, a move that some suggest Fox is prepping a potential business network...ESPN's first regular-season Monday night NFL game under the new contract drew the cable network's biggest audience ever. But I dunno - it's just not the same with on Monday Night Football on ABC - where it all began. Even though I never watched one single Monday night game in my life (except maybe for the commercials)...Gosh - has it really been a year since Commander-in-Chief debuted on, was mucked around with, and was cancelled by ABC?...Peace, please.

International TV Intrigue, Exchange & Great Loss

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:07:47 -0400

Daniel Wayne Smith, the 20-year-old son of E! reality show star Anna Nicole Smith, died on Sunday while visiting his Mom at the Doctors' Hospital in Nassauthe where the former Playboy playmate had given birth last week. An autopsy was under way...In view of Steve Irwin's very sad and untimely demise from a stingray barb last week while filming for Animal Planet on the Great Barrier Reef, The Discovery Channel is seeking out new on-screen personalities to fill the void left by one of its best-known and most-watched stars. For my money, and somehow, in great tribute to Irwin, TDC should probably do a reality show that would chronicle the discovery of this new star...Rin Inumaru, the 48-year-old creator of Ojaru Maru - a very successful Japenese children's animated show, allegedly leaped from the roof of her 14-story apartment complex in Tokyo on Sunday. She left a note, addressed to her Mom, in which she said, "I'm not good at my job." Her show followed the adventures of a noble boy who is transported 1,000 years into the future to present-day Japan. It has aired five days a week on national broadcaster NHK since 1998. The 10-minute series is also screened in Spain and Italy. Inumaru also wrote children's picture books and novels...In more news from the Asian front: A new version of The CW's hit reality show America's Next Top Model is forming in China for a January debut. Production on China's Next Top Model will be based in Shanghai, and will pit aspiring supermodels against one another throughout Hong Kong and Macau. The series is scheduled to premiere in primetime on Saturdays on Shanghai Media Group's Dragon TV...Feature film director Mike Newell has signed a three-for-one agreement with ABC and Touchstone Television. Under the deal, Newell will develop three drama teleplays via Touchstone, one of which is guaranteed to be selected as a pilot by ABC. Newell is set to executive produce and helm the pilot...SPIKE TV has granted a go-ahead to The Kill Pit, with John Leguizamo set to star in the eight-hour original scripted drama. Pit, produced by Lionsgate in association with Mandeville, is about a bank heist that goes awry and the hostage negotiations that follow, all over a period of a few days. Leguizamo will play the head of the thieves, all of whom happen to be a band of American soldiers who recently returned from the Middle East...CNN Headline News will delete its 4-6 PM ET newscast in order to increase its editorial resources in other areas. Co-anchors Thomas Roberts and Kathleen Kennedy will remain at the cable news channel in as-yet-unspecified roles. To fill the time, two newscasts will be upped by sixty-minutes each. Those are newscasts anchored by Christi Paul and Mike Galanos, and by Chuck Roberts and Linda Stouffer...Former JAG star Catherine Bell has been hired to star opposite Kim Delaney in a drama pilot for Lifetime entitled, Army Wives. Penned by Katherine Fugate, Army is an ensemble drama about a brassy babe (Sally Pressman) who weds a soldier, moves her brood to a military base and befriends a diverse group of Army wives, three of them played by Bell, Delaney and Brigid Brannagh...Meanwhile, in other spousal TV news, Desperate Housewivesstar Eva Longoria is telling everyone that she will not be doing any more regular TV work following her present stint on the hit ABC series. Consider the media alerted...Peace, please.

HBO, E! & Me

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 06:52:41 -0400

HBO has given the go-ahead for a pilot and subsequent 12 half-hour segments of a scripted comedy show based on the New Zealand folk music satire, Flight of the Conchords, which features Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. The Conchords' credits include a BBC2 radio show and appearances on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien and CBS' The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. They also were featured in an episode of HBO's One Night Stand...FOX has granted the greenlight to a test pilot for a late-night show featuring Steve Schirripa, known for his role as Bobby Bacala Baccalieri on HBO's The Sopranos. Schirripa's credits include the romantic comedy feature Must Love Dogs and an appearance opposite former Sopranos cast member Drea de Matteo on NBC's Joey. He also appears in the romantic comedy That's Amore, due in 2007. The untitled talk show project will be executive produced by Hugh Fink, a co-creator of Comedy Central's The Showbiz Show With David Spade and former head writer on CBS' aforementioned Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson...Spike Lee will follow his documentary on Hurricane Katrina with a scripted drama for NBC set in New Orleans. Titled NoLa, after the local slang for the Big Easy, the project is a multicultural ensemble exploring the post-Katrina lives of New Orleans residents from different social and economic backgrounds. Lee has hired scribe Sid Quashie to write the teleplay, which is being developed via Lee's barter with NBC Universal TV Studio. The two will journey to New Orleans this week to meet with residents...Mark Burnett Productions has signed an agreement with Telepictures Productions to develop a first-run syndicated show starring British hypnotist and self-help guru Paul McKenna. The 60-minute program is expected to center on weight loss, smoking cessation, confidence-boosting and other self-help techniques that McKenna promotes in his best-selling books, including last year's Change Your Life in Seven Days, and his Paul McKenna Training business...Two new original shows are being added to E!'s broadband and wireless content offerings as part of the network's E! Everywhere initiative to get its programming on every available platform. Planet Gossip, which will be available on E!'s broadband channel the Vine @ E! Online as well as via wireless, is a weekly 52-episode series that will feature dish about celebrities from E!'s editorial team as well as from global correspondents who will send updates via webcam. An in-studio host for the show, slated to debut on October 3rd (six days before my birthday), has not been announced...Peace, please.