CBS announces fall premiere dates, including an hourlong “Big Bang” season premiere
“NFL Thursday Night Football” kicks off CBS” fall season on Sept 11, while “Madam Secretary” and “The Good Wife” have their premieres on Sept. 21. “The Big Bang Theory” returns Monday, Sept. 22 with back-to-back episodes. CBS is also using season premiere week for the finales of “Under the Dome” and “Extant.”
“Portlandia”s” Carrie Brownstein headed to Amazon
Brownstein has signed on to the comedy pilot “Transparent,” playing Gaby Hoffman”s best friend in the comedy about a Los Angeles family with serious boundary issues.
Maria Bello and Joan Jett to star in Lifetime”s “Big Driver,” based on the Stephen King book
Olympia Dukakis will also star in the film based on King”s horror novella.
Karen Gillan takes a topless selfie to promote her new show “Selfie”
“Her new show is also called ‘Selfie,' because that”s how marketing works,” as the Radio Times notes.
“Tyrant” is the latest show that can”t stop using rape cliches
The FX drama takes many “sexual assault or woman-in-peril shortcuts” to show a male character”s darkness, says Maureen Ryan, The result is that the women “are mostly placeholders — even the ones who aren't kidnapped or raped,” says Ryan. “But even if all the other characters on the show, male and female, were fascinating, I don't think it would matter. The presence of well-drawn characters who do not get raped, assaulted or attacked does not give a program a free pass to engage in these cliches. I'm just so tired of violence against women being used as storytelling No-Doz — something to juice up the proceedings and then discard at will.”
Why can”t “Big Brother” stop casting racists and homophobes?
Despite all the bigotry last season, casting this year “did not change at all,” says a “Big Brother” exec producer – and that”s resulted in yet another bigoted contestant.
Snooki wins lawsuit against perfume maker that used her name
A New Jersey company marketed its perfume “Snazzy” by calling it “our version of Snooki by Nicole Polizzi.”
“America”s Next Top Model” alum”s husband commits suicide weeks after reports she hooked up with male celebs
Katie Cleary, who competed in “Top Model's” 1st season and later worked as a “Deal Or No Deal” suitcase model, was photographed in Cannes last month with Leonardo DiCaprio and Adrian Grenier. Weeks later, her husband, Andrew Stern, shot himself in the face.
Here”s your first look at “Downton Abbey” Season 5
ITV has teased 20 seconds from the 5th season.
Animal Planet renews “The Pool Master” after 1 episode
The backyard improvement series will be back for a 2nd season next year.
A.J. Hammer exits HLN
His departure comes four months after his “Showbiz Tonight” show was canceled.
“The Bachelor” Ben Flajnik declines to talk about Courtney Robertson”s new tell-all
Robertson”s book “I Didn”t Come Here to Make Friends: Confessions of a Reality Show Villain” is out today, but Flajnik doesn”t want to “relive the nightmare.”
Why it matters that “Tyrant” cast a white actor in a half-Arab leading role
White British actor Adam Rayner, producers say, was the best actor they could find, even considering all the other actors with Middle Eastern backgrounds. The problem, says Daniel Fienberg, is that Rayner is merely average in the role. “Although Rayner's performance doesn't hurt ‘Tyrant,'” says Feinberg, “the white-washing of the main character only serves to underline the condescending and vaguely paternalistic tone of the entire show.”
American TV needs a complex Middle East drama – “Tyrant” is not it
“There”s not a fleshed-out character in the show,” says James Poniewozik, “beginning with Barry”s stock-villainous brother Jamal (Ashraf Barhom), who we immediately meet raping a subject with her own husband and children still in her house. To a person, the characters are types: the shallow American kids, the dissolute playboys, the noble protesters and journalists, the cynical advisers, sneering elites and sad-eyed children. The problem isn”t that Tyrant portrays a troubled region as troubled; it”s that it doesn”t use its time to begin to make this world as real as ours.” PLUS: “Tyrant” tries to skirt controversy by being lazy and contrived, it settles on Middle Eastern stereotypes, it comes close to even embracing those stereotypes, it feels small for such a big drama, Adam Rayner is an uncharismatic cipher, FX has Russian- and Spanish-speaking characters but can”t have Arabic speakers?, “Tyrant” has all the urgency of a position paper, the pilot has a lot of potential but it”s unclear where it”s going, this is a step in the right direction for its portrayal of Muslims on TV, and read the dramatic backstory of “Tyrant.”