Casting News
Sean Bean will replace Brendan Fraser as the lead character in the pilot of TNT’s Legends. Bean, who portrayed fan-favorite Eddard Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones, will play Martin Odum, “a deep-cover operative who has an uncanny ability to transform himself into a different person for each job.” There are indications that the story might initially revolve around his search for his own identity. Now, here we have a premise and an actor that should make you hope for good entertainment, the keyword here being “hope”.
In what is probably a tribute to Arrow’s success, the CW (or more precisely Warner Bros. TV, the production company behind Amazon) has started the search for the young woman who will portray the most famous Amazonian ever, and by that I don’t mean a resident of the luxuriant forest down south. Deadline Hollywood reports that the actress should be in her early to mid-20s and at least 5’8” (or taller) if she wants to have a shot at being TV’s next Wonder Woman. Amazon will focus, a bit like Smallville before it on the same network, on the years before the heroine dons her costume and embraces her destiny. The future Wonder Woman has apparently lived in a secluded country and mostly spent her time on the battlefield, so she is in awe in front of everything our world has to offer (McDonald’s, dysfunctional political systems, and reality TV?) and is equipped with the biggest heart and the most refreshing (read “blunt”) personality. There might be one or two “superpowers” thrown in there but nothing is clear at this point. Note also that ongoing casting is happening while the project hasn’t been picked up yet, so this is technically also "Development Projects" news, which means everything might crash and burn before May 2013 when the following fall season line-up will be announced. A personal favorite would have been Bridget Regan as Wonder Woman, but the CW’s story has age requirements that just won’t do. (The image below is an artistic rendition of Bridget Regan as Wonder Woman by Kaliweir.)
Piper Perabo will recur on NBC’s Go On in a 3-episode story arc. The star of USA’s Covert Affairs will play Simone — a former member of the support group — who returns to therapy and develops a relationship with Ryan (Matthew Perry). Let’s hope a fling (as opposed to the funny and touching tease we had with Lauren Graham) will not derail what is without a doubt the best new comedy of the season.
Series Pick-Up News
Once in a while, CBS breaks with its prudent and predictable project selection pattern and steps out of its comfort zone with surprising decisions. The popular network has just given a 13-episode straight-to-series order (meaning no need to pitch a pilot) to Under the Dome, a project based on Stephen King’s 2009 bestselling novel. The series is a supernatural thriller set in a small town in Maine, Chester’s Mill, suddenly surrounded by an invisible dome. The event itself has terrible consequences, but it soon appears human frailty is about to make things even darker. If you feel a post-apocalyptic whiff here, you are spot on, which is not to say the success of NBC’s Revolution had anything to do with the pick-up. Co-executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Under the Dome is slated to air during the summer (alongside the resurrected Unforgettable), so its first season is unlikely to go beyond 13 episodes.
Programming News
Following last week’s cancellation of Emily Owens, M.D., the CW has just announced that the soon to be vacated time slot will be given to midseason replacement Cult, which will premiere on February 19 at 9 p.m. EST. Cult centers on a young inquisitive production assistant on a TV show (Jessica Lucas) and a blogger (Matt Davis) who investigate fans that might be recreating crimes from the show in real life. Besides the fact that the evening line-up is not exactly the best pairing (the new series will follow soap Hart of Dixie), I hope Mammie Gummer (Emily Owens) finds her way back to TV as soon as possible in a production with better chances of survival.
FX’s The Americans, starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys will premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 10 p.m. EST. The new series centers on two KGB spies (Russell and Rhys) posing as an American couple in Washington D.C. during the Reagan presidency. The story will dabble with a growing romance in the fake relationship and an attraction to American values and way of life. On paper and with that cast, the show looks promising, so we will not make fun of it... yet.
