NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | The Middle (R) | The Goldbergs (R) | Modern Family (R) | The Goldbergs (R) | Motive | |
CBS | Hawaii Five-0 (R) | Criminal Minds (R) | CSI (R) | |||
CW | Arrow (R) | The 100 | ||||
FOX | So You Think You Can Dance | |||||
NBC | World Music Awards | NBC News Exclusive with Brian Williams: Inside the Mind of Edward Snowden | ||||
Misc | Rogue (DirecTV) Melissa & Joey/Baby Daddy (ABC Family) | Million Dollar Listing: New York (Bravo) | Catfish: The TV Show (MTV) |
Archives for May 2014
Funny Business: Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham Talk PLAYING HOUSE
I spoke with Jessica St.Clair and Lennon Parham, the incredibly talented stars of the USA Networks breakout hit, PLAYING HOUSE. The show surrounds the lives of Maggie (Parham) and Emma (St.Clair) while they tackle motherhood and best friend hood. (that’s totally a thing) I did a review of this show a couple of weeks ago and my fondness for the show has grown tremendously since then. I can’t stress enough how truly wonderful, adorable, and special this show is. I urge everyone to make a date with your couch this Tuesday night at 10:00and watch an all new episode of PLAYING HOUSE.
How did you both come up with the concept for the show?
Jessica: Well Lennon and I are real life best friends and we have been writing together for I don’t know maybe six or seven years now. We met at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in New York like a million years ago and we did a show for NBC called BFFS, we had such a blast doing that. We really like to write about what we are going through in our lives and we were about to get pregnant before we wrote this show. We thought since we are already spending sixteen hours a day together what would it be like if we had a baby and raised it. That’s sort of how it came about, and I remember saying to Lennon “this is a crazy idea, that’s insane that two best friends would raise a baby together” and she said “no we have to do it”. We named it “Two Ladies and a Baby” because the worse our titles are the better the ideas are. (Laughs) And then we actually ended up getting pregnant.
Lennon: While we were shooting.
How did you both decide who would play Emma and who would play Maggie?
Lennon: Well we kind of write for ourselves and we write to our dynamic so we just were writing characters that were close to us. It just naturally made sense that me, Lennon would play a character that would be more of a home body and be the one who was pregnant and having her life thrown up in the air. Jessica would have been…
Jessica: More ballsy, business broad! (laughs)
Lennon: If we hadn’t gone into comedy that might have been our other life.
Jessica: Exactly! And Lennon and I really wanted to write this one instead of in New York or LA where so many shows are set, we kind of wanted to go back to where we kind of were raised, which was places like that. There’s a real charm to it and also a nice sense of belonging that I think GILMORE GIRLS did a really good job of, and we’re big fans of that show so we thought we would borrow the charm of a small town from that but fill it with all of our comedy improviser friends from the UCB.
Lennon: Because we came up through the UCB theater and everybody does everybody else’s stuff we have access to all of these guys who we’ve known since they are like seventeen and we were doing tour shows in the middle of nowhere, and now they all have their own television shows or are on THE LEAGUE, VEEP or SNL, so we just call in favors and they come and do our show and for a whole week we get to play with a new best friend.
Jessica: It’s a lot like we all went to college together honestly because UCB was sort of like grad school, all twenty one or twenty two and in Zach Woods’ case he was seventeen. We all really learned how to be comedians together and it was amazing that we get paid to do this.
Jess you mentioned GILMORE GIRLS, I read in an interview recently that Lennon has never watched it before. Have you watched it since then, Lennon?
Lennon: I have not watched it, I will never watch it probably. Otherwise our show would become GILMORE GIRLS because she is so obsessed with it.
Jessica: Listen I don’t know why she continually hurts me by not watching it. I just had to accept it. In every long term relationship there are compromises, you have to accept that this person is not going to fully give you what you want. That’s where Lennon will constantly let me down.
Lennon: I am the only person who is preventing our show from turning into GILMORE GIRLS.
Jessica: It’s true.
How will the shows dynamic change once the baby comes?
Jessica: You know we made a conscious effort in this season to not have the baby come until episode 9 because we were more interested in the first season exploring what it’s like for these two friends to kind of come back together and get used to each other again and get into the same kind of scrapes they used to get into in high school and the kind of anxiety and excitement that goes along with being pregnant. So we don’t have the baby until episode 9, we were going to have that as our finale and then we said we’d rather have it as the second to last episode and then show everyone in the finale episode what life is going to be like in season two for these girls. I think there is a big fear that when you have a baby on a show then everything gets super boring, and so what we show in episode 10 is that these girls are still going on these amazing adventures they are just doing it with a baby strapped to them. And the hell’s angels might be involved!
What can you tell us about tonight’s episode?
Jessica: Oh my God! Next week is a favorite of ours.
Lennon: Our favorite for sure.
Jessica: In next weeks episode Zach Woods who plays Lennons brother..
Lennon: Informs me that he’s going on a date and that he’s been courting a woman online for three months. I am immediately suspicious and overprotective of him because he’s my brother.
Jessica: So she thinks he is being catfished, and that the beautiful woman that he has fallen in love with online is actually a really big fat dude with an inverted wiener.
Lennon: So I take matters into my own hands and I spy on him on his date.
Jessica: To make sure when this fat dude with the inverted wiener shows up he’s not crushed.
Lennon: But I dress up like a DUCK DYNASTY sort of man, then Jessica and I are forced to go on a double date with Zach and his date dressed as duck dynasty man and his date Jandana, which is Jessica’s name in this scene.
Jessica: It is as close to Lucy and Ethel as you can get and this character that we call Bocefus that Lennon becomes is fully realized as some of Meryl Streeps transformation.
Lennon: (Laughs)
Jessica: She treats me like a piece of meat.
Lennon: And you like it.
Jessica: And I like it!
You can watch PLAYING HOUSE Tuesdays at 10:00 on USA Network. And you can follow Jessica and Lennon on twitter at @Jessica_StClair and @lennonparham
Victoria Nelli loves TV so much that she is paying $30,000 a year to learn about it in College. When she’s not learning about TV she enjoys writing about her favorite shows, interviewing anyone in the industry that will let her, and ranting about how underrated Parks and Recreation is. She is very much aware of her Netflix addiction, and no she will not be seeking help anytime soon. You can follow her on Twitter @VictoriaNelli
Meet THE NIGHT SHIFT: Scott Wolf, Freddy Rodriguez, Daniella Alonso, Robert Baily Jr. and Jeananne Goossen Dish on Their Hot New Medical Drama Series
One would imagine that working in an emergency room that life would be orderly, clean and would strictly follow rules and guidelines so as to not endanger patients. But life even in the E.R. is messy, complicated and rules have to be bent or broken just to save lives. Doctors, nurses, administrators, and all necessary staff that populate a hospital E.R. have to find interesting and creative ways to navigate the demands of their jobs and the realities of the world they work in.
Everyone from the new trauma surgeon who has his first day on the job to an experienced surgeon looking to hone his skills to a psychiatrist called into to consult has to find a way to work in the chaos. Personal feelings, relationships, fears and insecurities, and egos all have to be set aside. Saving lives requires a level of dedication and commitment to those who come in looking for care. Miracles may be sought and somehow the E.R. doctors, nurses and crew find a way to make those miracles a reality.
In the new NBC drama series THE NIGHT SHIFT, it highlights the unique pace of life in an E.R. along with the even more unique personalities drawn to such an environment.
In exclusive video interviews, co-stars Scott Wolf, Freddy Rodriguez, Danielle Alonso, Robert Bailey Jr. and Jeanne Goossen talked about their characters and the unique qualities that make those characters essential and valued members of a medical team in THE NIGHT SHIFT: [Read more…]
Breaking TV News: In Honor of Gay Pride Month Showtime to Re-Air Full Seasons of QUEER AS FOLK and THE L WORD
Press Release: SHOWTIME is bringing back its groundbreaking series QUEER AS FOLK and THE L WORD in June in honor of gay pride month. All seasons will air on SHOWTIME® SHOWCASE from June through November. From June 2nd through June 30th, back-to-back episodes of both critically-acclaimed series will be offered Monday through Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Then, starting on July 3rd, back-to-back episodes will air every Thursday night through November 13th. Subscribers can also catch up on the full five seasons of QUEER AS FOLK and the six seasons of THE L WORD on SHOWTIME ON DEMAND® and the network’s authenticated service SHOWTIME ANYTIME® starting this summer. These iconic series were hailed for tackling important issues and shattering stereotypes, and were both honored by the GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding Drama Series. Viewers can expect more from THE L WORD executive producer and creator Ilene Chaiken in the form of a documentary which will premiere on SHOWTIME this summer. [Read more…]
Preview: THE HAVES & THE HAVE NOTS
It’s mother versus mother and friend versus friend as THE HAVES AND THE HAVES NOTS returns tonight at 9 p.m., and Renee Lawless warns that her alter ego, rich bitch Katheryn Cryer is in full-blown take-no-prisoners mode!
As the second half of Season 2 kicks off, Wyatt has been arrested, and Lawless says Katheryn is “all about getting her son out of jail!” Unfortunately, that could mean that battle lines will be drawn between Katheryn and her maid/gal pal, Hanna, whose own son is still fighting for his life! [Read more…]
On TV Tonight: Tuesday May 27, 2014
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | Extreme Weight Loss | Celebrity Wife Swap | ||||
CBS | NCIS (R) | NCIS: Los Angeles (R) | Person of Interest (R) | |||
CW | The Originals (R) | Supernatural | ||||
FOX | Riot | I Wanna Marry “Harry” | Fargo | |||
NBC | America’s Got Talent | The Night Shift | ||||
MISC | Pioneers of Television (PBS) | From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (El Rey) | Tosh.0 (Comedy) Playing House (USA) | Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy) |
Meet THE NIGHT SHIFT: Brendan Fehr Talks Portraying a Surgeon with a Secret
Not everyone working the night shift is an adrenaline junkie. For some it is a refuge, a way to escape the pressures of the world and yet do a job they love. One such surgeon is Dr. Drew McAllister (Brendan Fehr). Unfortunately, he made an iron-clad agreement with the Army that they would pay for his medical education if he signed away 10 years of service after he was completed. Now into his second year of residency at San Antonio Memorial, Drew can feel the ticking clock counting down.
Fortunately, Drew has the good luck to be working under T.C. Callahan (Eoin Macken) and Topher (Ken Leung), trauma surgeons who served together in Afghanistan. Drew is learning not only from the best, but from those who understand what is to provide care for medical emergencies in the field. These are not just surgeons waiting for people to come through the E.R. doors, they will go where it they are needed to help. From an airplane crash to a hunting accident to a tornado disaster area, they are trauma surgeons that perform under any circumstance and will do anything to save a life. [Read more…]
Preview: PETALS ON THE WIND
Move over, Andi “The Bachelorette” Dorfman, ’cause you ain’t the only chick with issues competing for our attention tonight! Make room for Cathy Dollanganger, aka the brother-loving, mother-hating, revenge-seeking heroine of PETALS ON THE WIND, the Lifetime movie sequel to FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC airing this eveningt at 9 p.m. EST.
If there’s one downside to this camp fest, it’s that the network — which greenlit PETALS about six seconds after seeing how well its predecessor performed — didn’t think to make it a mini-series. Instead, it jumps forward 10 years (explaining why the young leads had to be recast), skipping one of the more twisted sections of the source material, which is truly saying something given the creepy tale spun by author V.C. Andrews.
For the uninitiated, FLOWERS was the tale of four children locked in an attic by a mother desperate to inherit money from a dying father who believed her marriage to her half-uncle had not produced any children. While locked away, the older siblings, Christopher and Cathy, wound up having sex, while younger brother Cory was killed by poisoned donuts.
Yeah, it’s that kinda story. [Read more…]
Morning Static: DEXTER, SONS OF ANARCHY, SUPERNATURAL & More!
• Sons of Anarchy First Look: Check Out Charlie Hunnam as Clean-Shaven Jax Teller in Final Season Promo Pics.
• Postmortem: Hannibal Boss on the “Devastating” Finale, Pressing the Reset Button for Season 3.
• All My Children Actor Matthew Cowles Dies, Christine Baranski’s Soap Opera Star Husband Was 69.
• Spoiler Alert! Meet The New Characters Who Will Join Game Of Thrones In Season 5.
• Must Read TV: Michael C. Hall on Where ‘Dexter’ Went Wrong and His New Killer Role in ‘Cold in July’.
• The Business of Show: Why Lower Rated Broadcast Comedies Like NBC’s Community Are Hits on Hulu.
• ‘Ray Donovan’ Season 2: ‘There Are Still a Lot of Secrets’
• Rumor Patrol: Netflix in Talks for ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ TV Series.
• ‘Girl Meets World’ review: Failed nostalgia.
• Watch: First Look At Peter Capaldi’s ‘Doctor Who’
• ‘Supernatural’ Season 10: Mark Sheppard Promoted to Series Regular.
• Unexpected News: Quentin Tarantino plans Django Unchained TV series.
• Deal of the Day: Save BIG on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE COMPLETE SERIES on Blu-ray via Amazon.