• Attention Cord Cutters: YouTube Live TV Service To Launch At $35 Per Month
• LOVE: Benedict Cumberbatch to Star in New Showtime Limited Series MELROSE
• Oscars: How an Accountant’s Tweet Turned Into the Biggest Mistake in Academy History
• YES! Jenna Fischer to Star in ABC’s Emily Kapnek Comedy
• Hottie Alert: Shemar Moore to Star in ‘S.W.A.T’ Reboot for CBS
• Royal Watch: Season 2 of FX’s FEUD Will Focus on Charles and Diana
• Late Night Wars: Stephen Colbert Rides Donald Trump Train To 4-Week Win In Late Night; Jimmy Fallon Tops In Demos
• “The weirdest TV ending since Lost”: Jimmy Kimmel’s take on his very strange Oscars
• Super News: Marvel’s Inhumans casts AMC star as leader Black Bolt
• Casting Coup: The Good Wife’s Archie Panjabi to Star in Fox’s College Sex-Assault Pilot
• Survivor: Jeff Probst reveals big change to voting for Game Changers season
• Smart: Jimmy Kimmel Declares “Trump-Free Tuesday” For Tonight’s ‘JKL’
Archives for February 2017
On TV Tonight: Tuesday February 28, 2017
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
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ABC | Fresh Off the Boat | The Real O’Neals | The President’s 2017 address | American Housewife (R) | ||
CBS | NCIS (R) | The President’s 2017 address | Kevin Can Wait (R) | |||
FOX | New Girl | The Mick | The President’s 2017 address | |||
NBC | The Voice | The President’s 2017 address | The Wall (R) | |||
CW | The Flash | Riverdale (R) | ||||
FFORM | The Fosters | Switched at Birth | ||||
MISC | The Mindy Project (Hulu) | The Haves and the Have Nots (OWN) | Taboo (FX) Being Mary Jane (BET) Teachers/Throwing Shade (TVLand) Hack My Life (truTV) The Detour (TBS) |
Season 2 of FX’s FEUD Will Focus on Charles and Diana
Ryan Murphy’s newest anthology series FEUD is set to premiere on FX on March 5 and focuses on the rivalry between Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) during the filming of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?
Now FX has ordered a second season of the show and that will focus on Princess Charles and the late Princess Diana. There’s no word yet on when the 10 episode second season will premiere — or who will be cast in the starring roles.
Charles and Diana were married in 1981 and divorced in 1996. Diana passed away in a car crash in Paris in the summer of 1997. The pair had extensive tabloid coverage throughout their marriage and particularly during their separation. The existence of Charles’ mistress (who is now his second wife) and the various palace scandals will make for a juicy story for FEUD’s second season.
Netflix Announces Premiere Date for FIVE CAME BACK About WWII and the Power of Cinema
Today Netflix announced a March 31 premiere date for its newest documentary FIVE CAME BACK.
The film is based on Mark Harris’ book “Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War”. Told over three parts and narrated by Maryl Streep, FIVE CAME BACK is the story of “how Hollywood changed World War II – and how World War II changed Hollywood, [told] through the interwoven experiences of five filmmakers who interrupted their successful careers to serve their country, risk their lives and bring the truth back to the American people: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens.”
Five modern-day filmmakers helped tell this tale: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro, Paul Greengrass and Lawrence Kasdan. “Film was an intoxicant from the early days of the silent movies,” says Spielberg in the opening moments of FIVE CAME BACK. “And early on, Hollywood realized that it had a tremendous tool or weapon for change, through cinema.” Adds Coppola, “Cinema in its purest form could be put in the service of propaganda. Hitler and his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels understood the power of the cinema to move large populations toward your way of thinking.”
Benedict Cumberbatch to Star in New Showtime Limited Series MELROSE
Benedict Cumberbatch is taking on a new television role in an upcoming Showtime limited series, MELROSE.
The five-part limited series is written by David Nicholls and is based on the Patrick Melrose series of semi-autobiographical novels written by Edward St. Aubyn. MELROSE “hilariously skewers the upper class as it tracks the protagonist’s harrowing odyssey from a deeply traumatic childhood through adult substance abuse and, ultimately, toward recovery.” Cumberbatch will play Patrick Melrose, “an aristocratic and outrageously funny playboy who struggles to overcome the damage inflicted by a horribly abusive father and the mother who tacitly condoned the behavior.”
The series will take place in the South of France in the 1960s, New York in the 1980s and Britain in the early 2000’s. “MELROSE will devote one hour to each of the five novels, with each episode set over the course of a few intense days in the life of the protagonist.”
Evening Static: TRAINING DAY, STAR TREK, SUPERGIRL & More!
• Pilot Watch: Rob Riggle To Topline ABC’s Single Dad Comedy Pilot
• RIP: Bill Paxton to Receive Dedication During Thursday’s Training Day
• Music To Our Ears: ‘Moana’ Star Auli’i Cravalho Cast In NBC Pilot ‘Drama High’ From Jason Katims & Jeffrey Seller
• Oscar Ratings Down Double Digits In Demo; 32.9M Viewership Hits 9-Year Low
• Cannot Wait: Star Trek: Discovery to Debut in ‘Late Summer, Early Fall,’ Per CBS Boss
• Scandal: President Trump’s First 100 Days the Focus of Showtime’s Circus Season 2
• It Gets Better: How Supergirl Became One of the Most LGBTQ-Friendly Shows on TV
• Supergirl: Chyler Leigh opens up about Alex’s coming-out story
• MYTHBUSTERS The Search: Looking Back Before the Finale
• The Future is Now: Black-ish’s Season-Long Microsoft Partnership Culminates in Branded Content Spot During Tonight’s Episode
• The Business of Show: Nielsen Is Preparing for Its Total Content Ratings to Go Public This Week
• Study: Millennial men are cutting the cord in droves
On TV Tonight: Monday February 27, 2017
On TV Tonight: Sunday February 26, 2017
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | Oscars Opening: Live From the Red Carpet | 89th Academy Awards | ||||
CBS | 60 Minutes | NCIS: Los Angeles (R) | ||||
FOX | The Simpsons (R) | Son of Zorn (R) | Family Guy (R) | Family Guy (R) | ||
HBO | Big Little Lies | Girls/Crashing | ||||
NBC | Dateline NBC | Neighbours (Movie) | ||||
MISC | The Missing (Starz) | The Walking Dead (AMC) Black Sails (Starz) When Calls the Heart (Hallmark) | The Good Fight (CBS All Access) | |||
SHO | Homeland | Billions |
MYTHBUSTERS THE SEARCH: Looking Back Before the Finale
“Do you miss me yet?” MYTHBUSTERS fans said goodbye to their favorite science reality TV show back in March 2016, and as the Science Channel on cable TV and satellite picked up the franchise from the Discovery Channel, they could sense the demand to keep the fun going. So they came up with a way to do that.
The show’s demise wasn’t that there weren’t plenty of myths to bust and science to test. Fans loved the basis behind the series. But when the show’s producers eliminated three of its most likable presenters (Kari Byron, Tory Belleci, and Grant Imahara), they lost a big chunk of their fan base. Although fans still loved main hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the show just wasn’t the same without the Kari, Tory, and Grant. And when the series did a revamp with just Adam and Jamie, amped up with new graphics and a heftier focus on the builds and the science, it just wasn’t the same good ol’ MYTHBUSTERS. And so, the program fell away the way most successful series peter out in the end.
To try to bring back the MYTHBUSTERS shine, Science Channel came up with MYTHBUSTERS THE SEARCH, a competition to find the next generation of hosts. Tonight is the finale episode.
THE SEARCH uses the same format as most reality TV competitions. Several people show up to be the final winner (in this case, winners), accomplishing various goals to make it through to the next round. At the end of each episode one contestant is usually (although not always) eliminated. After seven episodes, THE SEARCH has gone from ten competitors down to four. Remaining tonight are Martin Pepper, Jonathan Lung, Brian Louden, and Tamara Robertson, after the elimination of Tracy Fanara, Jason Kerestes, Sarah Petkus, Ben Nowack, Chris Hackett, and Allen Pan. Eliminations often occurred because individuals simply didn’t have build skills, or because they didn’t contribute to the team effort, or their contribution led to the team fail. In one instance, the individual, as was often the case, went off to do his own thing, leaving the team to manage the rest of the build on their own.
Each episode featured a team build and an individual effort, looking for build skills, science smarts, and on-camera charisma. They looked at such myths and science tests as improvising a weapon from junk in a junk yard, building an ejector seat in a spy car, painting walls with explosives, and shooting blind. Thus, much of their tests were rehashes of old MYTHBUSTERS themes. In tonight’s finale, they will hearken back to water heaters and duct tape to launch Buster on heated-water power and to try to stay afloat on taped up floats. How creative…
I think what irks me most is the lack of originality in the myths the producers choose to test. What I have liked the best has been watching the contestants try to think through the problems and build solutions. The problem is, the show hasn’t really had the time to explore as much of the science as they have to show the team dynamics and the misfires that have led to people being dismissed from the competition. Well, this is a reality contest show after all.
THE SEARCH’s host is Kyle Hill, a podcaster and MYTHBUSTERS superfan. While he makes an amiable host, he hardly adds to the science or the builds, although he is expected to work with each episode’s special guest and the crew to decide who gets the week’s “coveted MVP trophy” for work well done and who gets booted from the competition. And I wonder if he will move on to the new show, if a new show survives this competition. He, at least, has some personality.
As I said, tonight is the finale, which promos say “goes out with a bang.” I don’t know. Each week that I have watched, I am left feeling a bit meh. Here’s the problem. MYTHBUSTERS started out with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who though they weren’t superstars or experienced showmen at the time, had something special that caught the audience’s attention. Adam’s enthusiasm and good humor, Jamie’s curmudgeon stoicism yet devotion to science and common sense made a great team. Then they added the build team of Kari, Tory, and Grant, soon giving them their own focus on the show. They had a great camaraderie, and they were fun to watch. Everyone was fun to watch. This new group — not so much.
The problem as I see it is, these new competitors are definitely MYTHBUSTERS fans. They know science, they have build skills, but they lack charisma. And they have no camaraderie. That they can build on, of course. But none of them “sparkle” on camera like the originals did. None of them shows the passion for science and process that the originals had. They just show the geekiness of playing at MYTHBUSTERS. As Allen Pan said after being eliminated from the competition, “This has been the best summer camp ever.” But summer camp doesn’t lead to a job.
So the question for viewers is, “Do you miss me yet” enough to watch whoever wins this competition, week after week, should MYTHBUSTERS THE SEARCH become MYTHBUSTERS the renewed series? And will the producers be original enough to ramp up the myths and science to make the show interesting enough to watch? For some, this final episode just may be their last MYTHBUSTERS.
Watch the MYTHBUSTERS THE SEARCH finale tonight (February 25) at 9:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. PT), repeated at midnight ET (9:00 p.m. PT) on the Science Channel. According to their Twitter account, “We will be announcing the winner(s) live on air…”
SUPERNATURAL Photos: Winchesters vs. Vampires
Vampires have been a staple on SUPERNATURAL since the end of the first season when the Winchester boys (including John) first came up against them. Since then Sam and Dean have had run-ins with vamps many times — and Dean even became one for a short period of time.
Next week we’re going to see the brothers go up against vampires once again. In “The Raid”, Mary and the British Men of Letters are on a hunt to take out an entire nest of vampires. Unfortunately, the appearance of the Alpha Vampire (once again played by Rick Worthy according to the preview below) means the tables are turned on the Winchester matriarch and her band of British friends. At the same time, the British Men of Letters are doing their very best to recruit the Winchester boys thanks to Mary’s confession that she’s been working with them. In fact, Mr. Ketch is allowed into the bunker for a meeting with Dean. But are the boys prepared to help the interlopers from across the “pond” after their protests at the end of the last episode?
Browse through photos above from the March 2 episode of SUPERNATURAL airing at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.