Tv.com News

A-MAH-ZING NEWS

... USA! USA! USA! Never been more proud to be 'Merican than now! Because in the event that ABC decides to cancel the very funny comedy Happy Endings, USA Network might be eyeing a rescue boat for the series. While USA isn't known for its comedies, bringing on a critics' favorite might be exactly what the network needs to jumpstart its foray into laughers. USAh-mah-zing! [Deadline Hollywood]

BUSINESS TIME

... Cinemax has ordered a pilot for Quarry, a 1970s-set drama about a Vietnam War marksman who returns home and starts working as a contract killer after life back home gives him the finger. It's loosely based on the books by Max Allen Collins. [TV Line]

... NickMom has picked up its first original series, ordering 13 episodes of Instant Mom. The comedy stars Tia Mowry as a young party girl who marries an older man with three kids, turning her into an—WAIT FOR IT—Instant Mom!!!! In case you're wondering, NickMom is a block of primetime programming that takes over Nick Jr. after the kids have gone to bed and the moms can't find the remote control because the kids ate it. [Nickelodeon via press release]

... Syfy is expanding its reality efforts with the new series Exit, based on the Japanese program Dero!. It's a reality series where teams compete to escape a series of rooms filled with puzzles and obstacles. Exit will debut June 4 at 10pm. [Syfy via press release]

... TLC has ordered a spin-off of its reality garbage Breaking Amish. Called Breaking Amish: Brave New World, the show will actually be the second season of the show about the Amish kids from Season 1 entering the real world again, but with a new show title. Meanwhile, the "real" second season of Breaking Amish will feature a new cast of Amish kids experiencing life off the farm for the first time. Confused? You should be. Screw you, TLC. [TLC via press release]

... USA has announced premiere dates for its summer shows. I'm only going to say this once, so pay attention:

June 6 – Burn Notice, the series debut of Graceland

June 12 – Royal Pains, Necessary Roughness

July 16 – Covert Affairs, Suits

July (TBD) – Summer Camp

... Nerds, it's time to rise up and stop the exploitation of your geekdom by television execs looking to cash in on your earnest fandom. AMC has ordered Geek Out, a reality show that gives fans a unique experience based on whatever they obsess over, be it comic books, video games, movies, or hopefully even My Little Pony. [Deadline Hollywood]

CASTING NEWS

... Saturday Night Live's Nasim Pedrad has joined the cast of NBC's ensemble comedy pilot from standup John Mulaney. She'll play a school teacher. If the comedy goes to series, she'll leave SNL, so I bet she's crossing her fingers pretty hard right now. [EW]

... Sam Shepard (The Notebook, The Right Stuff) will replace Chris Cooper in Discovery's scripted series Klondike. The drama is about some guys who go gold-digging in some very cold places in 1890s Canada. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The Walking Dead has promoted Chad Coleman (Tyreese), Sonequa Martin-Green (Sasha), and Emily Kinney (Beth, sweet, sweet Beth) to series regulars for Season 4, which means Beth might be able to release a whole album of fireside songs next year. [TV Line]

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GIRLS PROBLEMS

... Girls is losing one of its boys. Christopher Abbott, who plays Charlie (Marnie's on-again-off-again boyfriend) on the much-talked-about HBO show, is leaving the series. Why? Let's play multiple choice: a) Lena Dunham, b) Lena Dunham, c) Lena Dunham. If you answered "shameless Girls creator Lena Dunham," you're correct! The two allegedly butted heads going into the production of Season 3, so Abbott did the whole "fuck you I quit" routine. Since appearing on Girls, Abbott's star has brightened, and he'll move on to other projects he has in the works. [NY Post]

BUSINESS TIME

... Science Channel is ordering The Moaning of Life, starring An Idiot Abroad's Karl Pilkington in a new set of adventures. This time, Karl will travel the globe and see how other cultures deal with entering middle age. [TV Guide]

... Adult Swim has ordered the shortform live-action series Hole to Hole, from South Park's Pam Brady and Chelsea Lately's Arden Myrin. The comedy is a parody of 1980s detective shows and follows two sexy billionaire sleuths. [Deadline Hollywood]

... BBC America has put a premiere date on the final season of the U.K.'s Being Human: June 8. The Beebs also dated the interesting-looking zombie miniseries In the Flesh, about zombies that are reintegrated into society. Look for that three-parter to start on August 3. [BBC via press release]

... Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, and Investigation Discovery (which are all part of the same network family) have announced their respective programming slates, and they're full of all the wacky stuff you'd expect from these bonkers channels. Among the highlights: two Discovery shows that feature people being dropped off in remote places completely naked, a TLC show called My Teen is Pregnant and So Am I, the eel fishing Animal Planet show called Eel of Fortune, and Investigation Discovery's Evil In-Law, which tells harrowing tales of overeager mother-in-laws. Television at its finest! [Discovery via press release]

... Disney Channel has given the greenlight to Mighty Med, a live-action comedy about two kids who work in a hospital for superheroes. Bradley Steven Perry (Good Luck Charlie) and Jake Short (A.N.T. Farm) will star. [Disney Channel via press release]

... Syfy is developing a new drama. There aren't many details on the project, but what we do know goes something like this: A meteorite hits a plane and the only two survivors go on the run from the government but have no idea what happened. So it's going to be one of THOSE shows. [Deadline Hollywood]

MORE CNN DESTRUCTION

... CNN's Ali Velshi is leaving the network for the soon-to-be-launched Al Jazeera America news network. You may know Velshi for his outstanding work wearing windbreakers and standing in flooded intersections during weather catastrophes. [Deadline Hollywood]

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GEEK NEWS

... The Sandman author and graphic-novel god Neil Gaiman will write an episode of Doctor Who, his second, for the upcoming season. Gaiman's episode will run in the spring and—get this—feature the villainous tin cybogs known as the Cybermen. The Cybermen first debuted in 1966 and last appeared in the 2011 episode "Closing Time." [BBC America via press release]

BUSINESS TIME

... Approximately 66.8 million viewers tuned in to watch election coverage last night, down slightly (6 percent) from the 2008 election. Maybe some people saw Barack Obama versus white guy and figured it was a repeat? Early numbers suggest NBC won the ratings war, with an average of 12.56 million viewers in primetime. CNN took home the cable prize with a 4.9 rating in the adult demo, but Fox News claimed most overall viewers with 11.6 million. No spoilers! Don't tell me who won yet, I still have it on my DVR. I'm going to watch it as soon I get through all these Super Bowls that I have piled up. [TV By the Numbers]

... The third season of Downton Abbey will premiere in the United States on January 6. That should be plenty of time for you to perfect your scoff at those who don't watch it. [Vulture]

... Two projects from Black List writer Thompson Evans are in the works. Fox is developing Night Hunters, about two cops who pose as cab drivers, and NBC is working on Max General, about the goings-on in the trauma center of a hospital. Cops and doctors! Doctors and cops! We get it, TV! [Deadline Hollywood]

... Chelsea Handler is getting behind another female comic by producing a new show. Fortune Feimster, who writes and co-stars in Handler's Chelsea Lately, will star in the project Discounted, about two half-sisters who try to keep their family furniture business running. The way Handler is sheparding projects for her Chelsea Lately crew, the janitor will have an NBC sitcom in no time. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Sundance Channel has unveiled its development slate for next season, and it features some very serious dramas. Valentines is based on the Olaf Olafsson novel and follows the love lives of a high-powered New York attorney and his three stunning daughters. Behind the Sun is set in mid-'80s Malibu and is about a family that discovers the only child is allergic to the sun. The Descendants is not based on the movie of the same name, and instead focuses on a sheriff who teams up with neighboring Native Americans after tragedy strikes his family. T looks at the life of a transgender man and his emotional present and flashes back to his days as a college lesbian. And Death in the Modern Age is about a man who fakes his own death to start over after his current life goes to shambles. [Sundance via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... Actor Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) has taken the lead in the HBO project The Missionary. He'll play a young American who gets tangled in the Cold War while in Germany. This was the role that Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul was set to take before scheduling commitments intervened. [Deadline]

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GAME OF THRONES NEWS

... Look, it's a poster! (And there'll be a trailer, too, later tonight.)

BUSINESS TIME (CABLE EDITION)

... TV Land has ordered the reality show Forever Young from Ashton Kutcher's production house. The half-hour show will get six episodes of five people under the age of 30 living in the same house as five people over the age of 70, meaning it will be the first time people under the age of 30 have been on TV Land. That's going to make for some weird orgies. Forever Young debuts April 3. [TV Land via press release]

... Discovery has ordered a fourth season of Gold Rush, a reality show about people digging for gold. Meanwhile, your favorite show that got canceled is still canceled. [THR]

LAST NIGHT'S SORT OF INTERESTING RATINGS NEWS

... The CW's The Vampire Diaries did better in the ratings than ABC's and NBC's offerings in the 8pm hour last night, a victory the little network can't claim very often. TVD scored a 1.3 rating against ABC's Zero Hour (1.1), NBC's Community (1.1), and Parks and Recreation (adjusted up to a 1.4 in final ratings), placing third in the hour after NBC's comedies were averaged out. Good night for The CW or bad night for ABC and NBC? [The CW via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... The Beek is booked! James Van Der Beek will be elbows deep in vagina in the new CBS pilot Friends with Better Lives as Will Stokes, gynecologist. The show follows a group of 30-something friends who are all envious of each other's lives. [EW]

... Margo Martindale (Justified, The Americans) continues to make the rounds. She'll star opposite Will Arnett (provided Up All Night gets trashed) in a CBS comedy pilot from Greg Garcia. Arnett stars as a recently divorced dad, and Martindale will play his mom who is going through relationship problems of her own. Martindale heads back to CBS where she previously co-starred in A Gifted Man, although I don't really think we should count that. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Desmond Hume (real name Henry Ian Cusick) has joined The CW pilot The Hundred. The Lost and Fringe actor joins the sci-fi pilot about juvenile delinquents sent back to Earth to make it inhabitable again after it's destroyed by nuclear missiles. Cusick will play an officer on the ship that travels back. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Typecast ghost actor Mark Pellegrino has been cast in The CW's pilot The Tomorrow People, the remake of the British sci-fi series about a select group of youngsters with special powers. Pellegrino will play an evil doctor who thinks these specially powered people are dangerous. [Deadline Hollywood]

... CSI:NY's Hill Harper is moving over to Covert Affairs on the USA Network. Harper will play a CIA agent in the drama. It's believed that CSI:NY won't be returning next season, but even if it does, Harper is totally outta there. [Deadline Hollywood]

... NEWS FLASH! Maksim Chmerkovskiy might be leaving Dancing With the Stars! Oh no! [TMZ]

... Jane Lynch (Glee, commercials, lots of magazine covers like three years ago) has agreed to be the host of NBC's Hollywood Game Night. The show features celebrities playing games with non-celebs and will probably be canceled before its first commercial break. Honestly, who the hell is running things at NBC? A lobotomized, suicidal slug? [Deadline Hollywood]

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THE WHEELS ARE FALLING OFF NEWS

... Discovery Channel is putting an end to its long-running docu-reality series American Chopper after 10 years of fixing up motorcycles. The show is considered one of the pioneers of the popular genre of "family business" reality series, so if you don't like those, blame this show. Cancellation is nothing new for American Chopper, which has changed networks and names multiple times throughout its run. Which I guess means that if you're the kind of person who believes in hope, there it is! [EW]

BUSINESS TIME

... Showtime has renewed Web Therapy for a third season. The show stars Friends' Lisa Kudrow as an online therapist and features tons of guest stars. Season 3 will feature Matt LeBlanc, Meg Ryan, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, among others. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The Big Bang Theory isn't going anywhere. This week's episode scored the series' biggest audience ever with 17.4 million viewers, or just a few million off from the entire population of Florida. That's an insane number not only for a show that leads off a primetime block, but for this season, which is seeing ratings drops due to highly competitive time slots, cable, online viewing, pirating, football, lost remotes, Words with Friends, cats that require too much attention, and those damn kids of yours. [EW]

... Mark Wahlberg is producing a reality pilot at A & E focusing on a quartet of tough women in Boston. Inspired by the sisters of the lead characters in Wahlberg's feature The Fighter, the show will follow the ladies as they juggle jobs, family, and relationships. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The CW is developing Book Club, a drama that follows a multi-generational group of people connected through... a book club! It's based on the documentary by Hope Hartman. I love it when scripted series are based on documentaries because it means things can stop making sense and nothing has any meaning anymore. [THR]

CASTING NEWS

... Arrow has booked True Blood's Janina Gavankar to play a cop who's on the case when a designer drug called Vertigo hits the streets. If Gavankar shares a scene with Katie Cassidy, I may just melt. [TV Line]

... Kim Delaney will not be returning for the next season of Army Wives. If you want to know how she'll be written off, follow the link, but there's a huge spoiler in there! [TV Line]

... Entourage alum Constance Zimmer will join Grey's Anatomy in a recurring role as... (will she be a doctor? Or will she be a patient? Find out by following the link!) [TV Guide] Okay fine, a doctor.

... Lost's Rebecca Mader is joining 30 Rock for an episode. She'll play a temptress, which mean she won't have to do much acting hubba hubba seriously she's like meow meow ruff ruff pant pant AHHH-OOOOOGA! Wolf whistle. Look for her in one of the series' last episodes. [TV Line]

... Mykelti Williamson (Justified) will appear in Fox's Touch in a recurring role. He'll play a cop who has "seen it all." Williamson is also known for having "seen it all" when it comes to shrimp in Forrest Gump. [THR]

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GUARANTEED RATINGS BOOST NEWS

... The greatest football match in all the land, the Super Duper Bowl, will be broadcast by CBS this year. That means CBS will not only have to brush up on its young person lingo so as to deal with a mass influx of young people, it will have to pick one of its shows to air a new episode after the Super Bowl and reap the rewards of a drunken audience too comatose to change the channel. This year, the lucky show is Elementary, the updated Sherlock Holmes procedural starring the very cool Jonny Lee Miller. In case you were wondering, CBS aired an episode of Undercover Boss the last time it broadcast the Super Bowl, in 2010. [CBS via press release]

BUSINESS TIME

... Disney XD has renewed Kickin' It for a third season. The comedy is about a group of kids who punch and kick their way into your hearts... by breaking your sternum and cracking your rib cage! Don't trust their lovable hijinks! [Disney XD via press release]

... CBS is finally going to embrace Hulu and will put thousands of episodes on the streaming-video site early next year. The majority of shows, which will largely consist of programs from the network's vast library of older series, will be available only for Hulu Plus subscribers. Hulu is a group effort between Comcast (NBC), Viacom (Fox), and Disney (ABC), and CBS had long been the lone holdout/non-participant. Though CBS has finally decided to join the fun, it's still far off from being one of the Hulu gang. You can watch current CBS shows on CBS.com. Thank you, this has been a message from your pals at CBS. [CBS via press release]

... Those kids from Jersey Shore are getting back together for a fundraiser to help rebuild their stomping grounds after Superstorm Sandy damaged the area. Restore the Shore will air on November 15 from MTV's Times Square studio and encourage kids to donate to relief efforts. If this goes well, the cast of Jersey Shore will hold another benefit to unclog that toilet they destroyed a few seasons ago. [EW]

CASTING NEWS

... Aisha Tyler, who your mom knows from The Talk and you should know from Archer, will soon be known to your kid sister as Jake's mom from Glee. The actress will guest-star on the Fox musical-comedy-drama later this year. [TV Line]

... One Direction is performing on The X Factor on November 8! Woooooo! One Direction for president! Wooooooo! [Fox via press release]

... Criminal Minds is inviting Michelle Trachtenberg (Gossip Girl's Georgina) to come on for a guest role in its eighth season. She'll play a stalker who goes a little crazy in Episode 12. [EW]

... The ageless Jane Seymour is stopping by Fox's comedy Ben and Kate. Seymour will stop shilling heart-shaped pendants to play BJ's mother in an episode next year. David Hornsby (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) will also guest-star in the episode, as an entrepreneur who got rich off of one of Ben's ideas. [TV Line]

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A REAL IMPROV-MENT FOR THE CW?

... Whose Line is it Anyway? is coming back! But on The CW! The improv show aired for several years on ABC with Drew Carey as host, but it will return with Aisha Tyler behind the desk. Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, and Colin Mochrie return as performers. The original was fantastic, but will it be as good this time around, and will The CW's audience like it? Look for the revival this summer. [CW via press release]

BUSINESS-TYPE DEALINGS

... Drop Dead Diva has undropped dead, rising from the grave of cancellation to earn a fifth season. The show had been canceled by Lifetime in January, but the network and studio that produces Drop Dead Diva agreed to new terms, which include a smaller budget. A big blow for divas everywhere, to be sure. [THR]

... TNT has ordered six episodes of the docu-drama (read: "reality show") Life Flight. Cameras and probably cameramen will follow real-life air ambulances in Texas as helicopters (technically the people inside the helicopters) save peoples' lives. Look for it in early 2014. [TNT via press release]

... NBC has set a date for Ready for Love, the latest terrible reality dating show to pollute our civilization. From producer Eva Longoria, a bunch of women will drool over a handful of guys. Anyway, Tuesday March 26 from 9pm to 11pm would be a good time to not watch NBC. After that, the series will move to its regular time of Sunday at 8pm starting on March 31. [NBC via press release] 

CASTING NEWS

... Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) has joined Showtime's new drama pilot The Vatican, a thriller combining religion, politics, and some of the coolest robes you'll ever see. Kyle Chandler stars as the Cardinal of New York, and Friel will play his faithless, hard-partying sister. [Showtime via press release]

... Parminda Nagra, who I last saw being really old but looking really young in Fox's brain-busting Alcatraz, has been cast in ABC's drama pilot Reckless. This show sounds pretty complicated, but it goes something like this: A guy tries to get his wife out of an international jail by bypassing laws. Nagra will play the guy's coworker. Honestly, I've read the pilot's logline 58 times and I still don't get it. [THR]

... DJ Qualls (Supernatural, Legit) will guest-star on TNT's Perception. Now you know. [TNT via press release]

SAD NEWS

... Bonnie Franklin, who played Ann Romano on the '70s and '80s series One Day at a Time, passed away at the age of 69 from pancreatic cancer on Friday. [New York Times]

NBC, STILL STINKING UP THE JOINT NEWS

... After the Oscars' In Memorium segment left Andy Griffith out of its montage of famous people who died over the last year, Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC decided to take matter into its own hands. Instead of airing Thursday's NBC 9pm to 11pm lineup of The Office, 1600 Penn, and Law & Order: SVU, WKYC aired a Matlock movie from 1992. Only 1600 Penn was an original episode, and the others were repeats. The station plans to air another Matlock movie next week in the same time period. [THR]

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FOUR SEASONS AND A WEB SERIES MAYBE? NEWS

... After a great respectable start to its long-delayed fourth season, Community got dumped on Valentine's Day when it showed up for Episode 2. Ratings crashed 42 percent to a 1.1 in the adult demo, a series low. Obviously the "holiday" didn't help (ratings were down all across the board, but none were as steep as Community), but is the drop it a sign of something more? The saga continues next week. [Deadline Hollywood]

BUSINESS TIME

... ABC's new show Zero Hour (hee hee, this show) also had a bad night. The series debut embarrassed ABC with the network's worst in-season scripted premiere ever, grabbing a 1.3 rating in the adult demo (even Work It premiered to a 2.0 rating). You mean a conspiracy thriller about frozen Nazis and clocks and monster babies didn't click with people on Valentine's Day? [Deadline Hollywood]

... TV Land has ordered Giant Baby to series. The sitcom stars Kirstie Alley as a woman who reconnects with the son she gave up for adoption after his adoptive mother passes away. Rhea Perlman and Michael Richards also star, making TV Land the most star-studded network around for people who just woke up from 20-year comas. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Lifetime is developing a miniseries based on the life of Cleopatra, that Egyptian hussy who put a fire in the loins of so many men back in the old days. The plan is to make it a four-hour extravaganza, most likely with incredibly cheesy dialogue, terrible acting, and the worst green-screen effects since the network's last project. Absolutely I'm watching! [Deadline Hollywood]

... Good news for Cleopatra is bad news for Renee Zellweger. Lifetime has passed on her pitch for the TV pilot Cinnamon Girl, about four ladies coming of age in late-'60s Los Angeles. [THR]

CASTING NEWS

... Coach Taylor will now be Cardinal Taylor! Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler has grabbed the lead in the Showtime drama pilot Vatican. He'll play Cardinal Thomas Duffy, the Archbishop of New York in the thriller set against the politics of the Catholic Church. You should be very excited about this. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The B---- is back. Krysten Ritter is following her role on Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 with a role in the NBC comedy pilot Assistance. She'll play the lead, a woman caught between her "work husband" coworker, her real-life fiance, and her insane boss. <3 U Kristen will U B mine? [Deadline Hollywood]

... Torchwood's Burn Gorman (he played Owen) has joined AMC's pilot Turn. The period drama is set in 1778 and follows a small group of spies known as the Culper Ring who helped sway the tide in the War of Independence. [THR]

... iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove has joined NBC's pilot Girlfriend in a Coma. The comedy stars Christina Ricci as a woman who wakes up from a coma to find she has a 17-year-old daughter. I'm really hoping that she was pregnant when she went into the coma, otherwise some horny doctors have a lot of explaining to do. Cosgrove will play Ricci's daughter, which I suppose works for me. [Deadline Hollywood]

... The versatile CCH Pounder (The Shield) has hopped on board CBS's pilot The Advocates. The legal drama follows a pair of lawyers fighting for the little guys, and Pounder will play their boss. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Desperate Housewives vet Felicity Huffman has grabbed the badass lead in Fox's pilot Boomerang. She'll play the matriarch of a family of trained assassins who work for the U.S. government. [EW]

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TIME TO STOCK UP ON CHIANTI NEWS

... NBC's woeful 2013 will get a boost on April 4 when Hannibal makes it debut. The drama comes from Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller and revisits the universe of Red Dragon, better known as the story that kicked off the legend of Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal slides into the 10pm slot left vacant by Do No Harm. [TV Line]

AXE HER COMEDY NEXT, PLEASE

... E! has canceled Whitney Cummings' talk show Love You, Mean It after three months. Don't worry, her NBC sitcom Whitney is doing fine. [THR]

LOTS OF AWESOME CASTING NEWS

... Minnie Driver has joined NBC's comedy pilot About a Boy. David Walton will star in the adaptation of the Nick Hornsby book as a man who forms a friendship with his pint-sized boy neighbor. Driver will play the boy's recently divorced mother. [TV Line]

... Jason Isaacs (Awake) is giving television another shot and has chosen a safer premise this time by joining CBS's drama pilot Surgeon General. Isaacs will play the titular medical expert. [TV Line]

... Rupert Grint, redhead Ron from the Harry Potter films, is the lead in CBS's single-camera comedy (??? On CBS???) Super Clyde. Grint will play a fast-food worker who decides to become a super hero. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Royal Pains has promoted Ben Shenkman to series regular for next season. Shenkman plays Dr. Jeremiah Sacani in the USA Network drama. [TV Line]

... Glee (and recently Justified) vet Mike O'Malley will star in the NBC comedy pilot Welcome to the Family, a potential series about culture clashing. O'Malley will play the father figure of a white family that's folded into a Latino family when his pregnant teen daughter marries her Hispanic boyfriend. Rob Schneider does not star in this, but you'd think he would. Note to self: Write a comedy about a Caucasian person marrying a Latino person and sell it to CBS. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Jason Ritter (The Event) has joined Fox's comedy pilot Friends & Family, an adaptation of the BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey. Ritter will play Stacey. I mean Gavin. [EW]

... Jonathan Taylor Thomas has crawled out from under his rock and will guest-star on Last Man Standing, reuniting him with his old TV dad Tim Allen. He'll play the manager of a restaurant that Kristin tries to work for. Looks like I can keep my JTT Teen Beat posters up a little longer. [E! Online]

... Breaking Bad's Dean Norris has been cast in CBS's summer miniseries Under the Dome, as the series villain. Based on the Stephen King novel, Under the Dome details what happens when a small town is cut off from the rest of the world after a mysterious dome appears over it. Norris's character uses the opportunity to take over the town. [EW]

Bonus: exclusive photos of Dean Norris researching the role.
(thanks for the awesome image, Edlyn!)

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LET'S START WITH CASTING NEWS TODAY

... The CW's spin-off of The Vampire Diaries is keeping its originals for The Originals. Claire Holt has signed on to reprise her role as Rebekah, Klaus's vampy sister. She joins Joseph Morgan, Daniel Gillies, and Phoebe Tonkin as the core four. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Private Practice star KaDee Strickland has joined NBC's pilot Bloodline. The drama follows a girl caught between a pair of feuding families in the modern suburbs. Strickland will play the girl's mom. Oh, and she's destined to be killed by her daughter. [TV Guide]

... Nick Gomez, who played sneaky con Tomas on The Walking Dead, will next appear on Dexter. He'll play a hitman who tangles with Deb. [TV Line]

... CBS's drama pilot Hostages is putting together quite the formidable cast. Dylan McDermott, recently seen chopping people up and masturbating in American Horror Story, has landed the male lead in the series opposite Toni Collette, who plays a surgeon who's ordered to operate on the president but ends up getting wrapped in a crazy conspiracy that somehow involves the kidnapping of her family. McDermott will play an FBI agent. Whether or not he masturbates on office furniture is TBD but I'm leaning yes. [Deadline Hollywood]

... That dancing maniac Jennifer Beals has signed on to the ABC drama pilot Venice. She'll play the matriarch of a family in this modern-day take on Romeo & Juliet. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Virginia Madsen has joined NBC's update on the classic tale of the Hatfields and the McCoys, cleverly titled Hatfields & McCoys. She'll play the momma of the McCoys. [TV Guide]

I'D LIKE TO SEE THIS SHOW NEWS

... AMC is developing an adaptation of the Dan Simmons novel The Terror, a very scary book! Set in 1847, the show would follow a Royal Navy expedition as it explores the arctic, but instead finds a very scary monster that wants to eat everyone! This sounds very scary and I want it now! [Deadline Hollywood]

BUSINESS TIME

... ABC Family has scooped up two more reality shows, Dancing Fools and The Vineyard. There are no details on Dancing Fools except that it's an unscripted comedy hosted by Baby Daddy star Melissa Peterman, but given the title Dancing Fools I'm going to take a guess and say it will feature people wearing dunce caps. The Vineyard stinks of MTV, with a group of 20-somethings living in Martha's Vineyard and groping each other near a pile of empty Corona Light bottles and discarded capri pants. Both shows are set for a summer debut. [ABC Family via press release]

... Prepare to kill yourselves, because VH1 has ordered Wicked Single, a reality show that follows young Bostonites looking for love. Of course it airs March 17, St. Patrick's Day, so grab your green Red Sox cap, put it on backwards, and drive off a cliff. [VH1 via press release]

... Everyone else is using this line, so I may as well too. The Jeff Probst Show has been voted off the island after one season. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Ryan Seacrest has teamed with A & E for a docu-series titled Montecito. Set in the California town, it will follow rich ladies who might be getting more than dancing lessons from their ballroom dancing coaches if you know what I mean. (I mean boning.) Look for six episodes later this year. [THR]

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YOUR NEXT FAVORITE NEW SHOW NEWS

... FX has ordered 13 episodes of The Bridge, a great-looking new series from Homeland writer Meredith Stiehm. The drama stars Diane Kruger and Demian Bichir as detectives on opposite sides of the U.S.-Mexico border who work together to stop a serial killer. The order means that Stiehm is leaving the Homeland writers room, where she penned the excellent episodes "The Weekend," "The Vest," and "The Choice," among others. Look for The Bridge to debut in July. [FX via press release]

BUSINESS TIME

... The BBC has canceled its critically acclaimed drama The Hour after two seasons. The Emmy-nominated show starred Ben Whishaw, Romala Garai, and Dominic West (McNulty!) as members of a news team in 1950s England and aired in the U.S. on BBC America. [Deadline Hollywood]

... After a solid start, Fox's The Following is starting to lose some of its audience. Last night's episode suffered the biggest drop the series has seen yet, with 17 percent of last week's audience opting to watch something else and leaving 7.7 million viewers and a 2.4 rating. Those are still solid numbers, however, and The Following is performing well once DVR numbers are factored in. No panic-button pressing yet! [EW]

... There's something about FX's The Americans that causes viewers to take their sweet time watching it. The second episode of the season, which saw a dramatic, 39 percent decrease in viewers compared to the pilot, rebounded in a big way when DVR numbers were factored in. The Episode 2 audience increased 58 percent with delayed viewing, according to FX, adding 1.15 million viewers for a total of 3.11 million viewers. Phew. [FX via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... Last Resort's Andre Braugher has a new job. He'll star alongside Andy Samberg in Fox's untitled comedy pilot about a motley crew of New York detectives. Braugher and his commanding presence will obviously play the captain of the precinct. More Braugher on television is always a good thing. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Arrow's Felicity has been given a raise. Emily Bett Rickards, who plays the computer geek, will be a series regular when the show returns for Season 2. [E! Online]

... Billy Campbell (The Killing) has joined Fox's pilot Delirium, a dystopian future drama set in a world where love is outlawed and a procedure can make it disappear. Yeah, it's called marriage! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha okay I'm going home now. [TV Line]

... Breaking Bad's Badger, real name Matt Jones, has joined CBS's comedy pilot Mom. The multi-camera comedy stars Anna Faris as a single mom kicking an alcohol dependency in Napa Valley. Badger will play her ex-husband. [TV Line]

SAD NEWS

... Storage Wars participant Mark Balelo committed suicide today following a drug arrest on Saturday. Balelo, who appeared in a few episodes of the A & E show as an auction house owner, was found dead in his car. The apparent cause was carbon-monoxide poisoning. [TMZ]

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RATINGS FOR ZOMBIES, "MUSIC," AND AN ADORABLE BOY-GIRL

... The Walking Dead returned from its midseason break and promptly set new series records as it continues to be television's hottest property among cable, network TV, or otherwise. Last night's ho-hum episode drew 12.3 million viewers, and plenty of them were young enough to earn a 6.1 rating in the adult demo. Both numbers qualify as series bests for The Walking Dead, which becomes even more impressive when you consider that it was up against the well-rated Grammys. Heck, 4.1 million viewers even tuned into Talking Dead. This thing is unstoppable, and no showrunner will stand in its way. [AMC via press release]

... Speaking of those Grammys, 28.37 million viewers watched the awards show for what passes as "music" these days. The CBS broadcast brought in a 10.1 rating in the adult demo. Despite those impressive stats, the broadcast was actually down from last year, when the Grammys rode Whitney Houston's then-extremely-recent death to near-record ratings. As for the results, a bunch of awards went to people I've never heard of because all I listen to is '40s improvised jazz pop on my gramaphone. [CBS via press release]

... Justin Bieber hosted Saturday Night Live this week, and the episode did worse than the one hosted by Adam Levine. Awwwww, all the Beliebers tried desperately to stay awake and watch but couldn't make it past 8:30 pm. [Deadline Hollywood]

BUSINESS TIME

... The G4 makeover is official, and the network that once focused on video games will become (hold your vomit) The Esquire Network, as in Esquire Magazine. Network GM Adam Stotsky said it will be for "The modern man, what being a man today is all about." One of its first shows will be called Knife Fight, a cooking competition show featuring young chefs. On the plus side, it will air reruns of Parks and Recreation and Party Down. But an NBC executive called it "an upscale Bravo for men." Check please! [NY Times]

... HBO's Veep returns April 14, in case you enjoy good comedy and planning your life. [HBO via press release]

... Musician John Legend's production company sold a script to USA for The Edge. It's about a Harvard Business School grad who joins a financial firm and I'm already asleep. [THR]

... Syfy is developing a four-hour miniseries based on the Philp K. Dick novel The Man in the High Castle, with Ridley Scott on board to executive-produce. The alternate history tale considers what may have happened if Germany and Japan had won World War II and is set in 1962 America. [Syfy via press release]

... CBS's upcoming summer miniseries Under the Dome will be available to stream on Amazon via company's subscriber-only Amazon Prime Instant Video service four days after airing on network broadcast. The deal is unique because new episodes will be available for free on CBS.com for three days after they air on CBS, but will be taken down after that and found exclusively on Amazon's service. This seems more like a test run for both services than anything else. [CBS via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... Josh Holloway, who spent years making us swoon as Sawyer on Lost, is headlining CBS's pilot Intelligence. He'll play part of a special government agency that's centered around one very special man who can see the electromagnetic spectrum thanks to a special microchip embedded in his brain. Does this mean Holloway isn't playing Han Solo in the new Star Wars movies? Because if so, poo to that! [Deadline Hollywood]

... Psych's Maggie Lawson is joining the cast of ABC's comedy pilot from the Cullen Brothers, another sign that Psych will be ending its run after Season 8. Lawson will play a single mom who moves back in with her dad (James Caan) and ends up coaching her son's Little League team. [Deadline Hollywood]

... New Girl will welcome guest-stars Nick Kroll and Bill Burr for an episode next month. They'll play Nick's relatives, his brother and cousin, respectively, in an episode that already includes Margo Martindale as Nick's mother. [EW]

... Lisa Edelstein (House) will appear on an upcoming episode of Scandal as one of Olivia's fixer-uppers. Coincidentally, I just checked in on Scandal for the first time ever and it's the craziest show I've ever seen and I'll never be the same. Do not watch that show without a helmet and a seatbelt. [TV Line]

... Grey's Anatomy's Kim Raver will star in CBS's NCIS: Los Angeles spin-off, playing the female lead opposite John Corbett. Apparently the casting happened the day before the first day of filming, so I'm sure Raver spent all night catching up on NCIS: LA and listening to LL Cool J so she knows what's going on. [Deadline Hollywood]

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MORE LIKE OKAY BOWL NEWS

... The big match yesterday between the Ravens of Baltimore and the 49ers of San Francisco, known by the common folk as Super Bowl XLVII, now has a place in history. Just not where CBS had hoped it would be. 108.41 million people watched the Ravens hoist the Lombardi Trophy, making it the third-most watched broadcast in all of television history. Given the way Super Bowls have been regular record setters, it's a bit of a letdown for CBS, who no doubt had been rooting for the Patriots to beat the Ravens in the playoffs to set up a sexier match-up. A 34-minute power-outage delay in the third quarter with the Ravens holding a comfortable lead probably also led to a smaller audience than last year's record-setter (111.3 million viewers). Elementary landed the coveted post-Super Bowl spot, but because of the delay, it didn't start until after 11pm on the East Coast and netted 20.8 million viewers. That's a series high for freshman drama, but it's also way down from NBC's broadcast of The Voice last year after the big game, which suckered in 37.6 million viewers. In other news, I posted a season-high in calories, taking in the equivalent of a Blue Whale's week. [THR]

PICKUPS, RENEWALS, CANCELLATIONS, AND DATES

... Disney Channel has renewed Dog With a Blog for a second season. The show is a bone-a-fido hit among kids age 2-11 and TV.com writers named Tim. Seriously, did you see the episode when Stan the Talking and Blogging Dog crashed the car or the one where he played online video games and had Avery meet his online friend and pretend it was him but then she ended up liking the boy and Stan got upset and then later they teamed up to kill him online? Classic Stan. [Deadline Hollywood]

... GSN (the Game Show Network) has ordered 40 episodes of Minute To Win It, the competition where contestants do silly things with household items for cash. It used to air on NBC. [GSN via press release]

... Discovery is getting irie, brah. The network has announced two ganja-themed shows set to debut February 20: Pot Cops, which isn't about cops who get stoned and try to shoot criminals, and Weed Country, following the battle between pot growers and cops in Northern California. [Discovery via press release]

... Syndicated talk show The Ricki Lake Show has been canceled. Will someone break this news to Ricki? She's waiting in the studio talking to a vase. [Deadline Hollywood]

PILOT PICKUPS AND PASSES

... CBS has ordered a trio of pilots to beef up its development schedule. Single-camera comedy Crazy Ones comes from David E. Kelley and stars Robin Williams as the father half of a father-daughter team in the world of advertising. Anatomy of Violence comes from the producers of Homeland and follows a criminal psychologist who teams up with a young female detective. And Intelligence is about a U.S. Central Command agent who has a microchip planted in his brain that allows him to see electromagnetism. [TV Guide]

... MTV has ordered a pilot presentation for Watching the Wilsons, a partly improvised comedy spoofing the world of reality television. It would focus on a Kardashian-like family, but be partly scripted like most of the other reality shows out there. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Showtime has passed on the potential Chew series, which is a total bummer. The show would have been based on the comic series about a detective who can get psychic information from eating food. It also would have been awesome. Sad. [MTV]

CASTING NEWS

... Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor, who just booked a role on Law & Order: SVU, will star in Amazon's comedy pilot The Onion Presents: The News, a fictional behind-the-scenes look at the fictional news network. [Deadline Hollywood]

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OUCH

... The series premiere of NBC's Do No Harm did not do too well. According to Nielsen, 3.1 million viewers tuned in to see the pilot last night, good for only a 0.9 rating in the important 18-49 demographic. That makes it the lowest-rated scripted show ever on the four major networks. Ever. EVER. WORST EVER. Worse than Cavemen, Lone Star, and Work It. Guess it's time to dust off another season of The Voice. [TV Line]

BUSINESS TIME

... Speaking of terrible, TBS's Men at Work has a Season 2 premiere date: April 4. [TV Line]

... Even if you don't have a Netflix subscription, you can watch the first episode of its exclusive new original drama; the company has made the pilot available for free. I watched it. It's okay. [Netflix]

... Lifetime has picked up the drama Witches of East End with a 10-episode series order. The show stars Julia Ormond, Rachel Boston, and Madchen Amick as witches on Long Island. [Lifetime via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... Breaking Bad's Anna Gunn has landed the lead in Bravo's pilot Rita. Gunn will play an outspoken teacher at a private school who has three teenage kids of her own. Then she gets diagnosed with cancer and starts making meth. Ugh, I take that "joke" back. Pretend you didn't read that. [Deadline Hollywood]

... NBC's pilot The Gates is replacing Aasif Mondvi in its cast after hiring him earlier this week. Taking his spot as a driven lawyer in this comedy about the parents of elementary school kids will be Ally McBeal's Greg Germann. [TV Line]

... Rob Riggle is trying TV again. The former Daily Show correspondent will star in Fox's pilot The Gabriels, a single-camera comedy about a neurotic family living among pleasant people in the Midwest. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Lily Rabe will return to American Horror Story for Season 3! No word on what role she'll play or what Season 3 will be about other than the very cryptic "it will involve a romance." [Ryan Murphy's Twitter]

... Revenge's Emily VanCamp is getting richer. She's landed a major gig in Marvel's next Captain America movie, though details on her role haven't been announced. [Deadline Hollywood]

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TO QUEENS BOULEVARD, BRO! NEWS

... The much-talked-about Entourage is closer to actually happening as studio Warner Bros has given the project the official green light. Creator Doug Ellin is attached to direct from a screenplay he wrote, but there's no timetable in place yet. Remember when Entourage used to be good? Me neither. The burn center is thattaway, Entourage. Meanwhile, HBO is looking at a Bored to Death movie but it isn't looking at a Deadwood movie. [Deadline Hollywood]

RENEWALS AND PICKUPS

... Comedy Central has picked up a second season of its new sketch show Kroll Show starring Nick Kroll, because it's funny. Look for 10 more episodes next year. [Comedy Central via press release]

... Katie Couric's daytime talk show Katie has been renewed for Season 2. Katie owns the market on closeted athletes who fall in love with pretend women online, so she should be good. [Disney-ABC via press release]

... ABC has finally found a use for babies and has given a series order to Bet On Your Baby, a game show in which parents wager on their toddlers' ability to accomplish tasks against rival tykes. The winner gets $50,000 to put toward their kid's college fund (a.k.a. Mommy's drinking habit). If it's successful, expect Babies in Danger: Baby High Diving to follow. [ABC via press release]

... Not challenged enough with working with just babies, ABC will also try partnering with an even more difficult and childish group: Canadians! (Canada, follow Entourage to the burn center.) The network will import the 13-episode Canadian series Motive for the summer. The procedural has a bit of a twist: The killer and victim will be revealed at the beginning of each episode, and the rest of the time will be spent discovering the motive of the crime. Only in Canada! In America all we care about is who and what, because we need to spend the extra time figuring out 1) how to pay for hospital bills and 2) the rules of hockey. [Deadline Hollywood]

WILL PILOT SEASON EVER END?

... Fox is in final talks to commission a pilot from 50 Cent that's animated and wait a second that doesn't sound right. [Double-checks story] Yup, that's right. The show would be loosely based on Fiddy's childhood and follow a goodnatured kid who gets into trouble around his neighborhood. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Add two more pilots to Fox's development slate. Wild Blue comes from the very busy Graham Yost (Justified) and is a drama set on an aircraft carrier. Gang Related is a gritty drama about a gangster who infiltrates the San Francisco Police Department's gang task force. Wait a second. Something is wrong here. These both sound good. Fox, are you feeling okay? [EW]

... ABC has ordered Bad Management, a single-camera comedy from the star of the British series Pulling, Sharon Horgan. She'll play a conceited boss of a department store who has her authority challenged by a young upstart. [Deadline Hollywood]

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS (A.K.A. RUSSEL BRAND STUFF)

... We already knew Russell Brand's BrandX With Russell Brand would be expanding to a one-hour format when it returns next week. What we didn't know is that it will air live. Seriously, I would trade this guy back to England for *gulp* Gwyneth Paltrow IMMEDIATELY. [FX via press release]

CASTING NEWS

... Django Unchained star and fine actor Christoph Waltz will host Saturday Night Live on February 16. He'll be joined by Alabama Shakes as the musical guest. [NBC via press release]

... NBC's straight-to-series Dracula has made a few casting choices, adding Game of Thrones' Nonso Anozie and Merlin's Katie McGrath. Anozie, who played Xaro Xhoan Daxos in the second season of Game of Thrones and is still stuck in a vault somewhere, will play the man who knows the truth about Dracula's darkest secrets. McGrath, who played Morgana on Merline, will play the chatty BFF of Dracula's muse. [TV Line]

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REALITY RENEWALS BOTH GOOD AND BAD

... Bravo has renewed Top Chef for an eleventh season! [Bravo via press release]

... TLC has renewed Toddlers and Tiaras for a sixth season! [TLC via press release]

... MTV has renewed Buckwild for a second season! [MTV via press release]

SMASH CRASH BOOM RATINGS NEWS

... NBC's Smash returned for its second season last night, and you didn't care. The once critically adored and apparently now universally hate-watched musical drama pulled in 4.5 million viewers and a 1.2 rating in the adult demo. That's no bueno for a show that NBC once had high hopes for. The two-hour premiere also had the advantage of starting in a viewer-friendly hour of 9pm rather than the 10pm slot it will air in next week and beyond. However, ABC was sneaky and scheduled a special edition of The Bachelor against it, and it might have stolen some of the audience. Did YOU watch Smash? [TV By the Numbers]

NEW SHOWS ALERT!

... ABC Family has ordered a pair of new shows, and one of them is from Jennifer Lopez! Lopez is executive-producing The Fosters, which nukes the traditional family model to smithereens and follows a pair of moms raising an ethnic mix of biological and foster children. Twisted, renamed from Socio, follows a 16-year-old boy who becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation when a classmate is found dead. Both are scheduled to scorch up your summer. [Deadline Hollywood]

... ABC has ordered another weird unscripted show, a summery little ditty called Whodunnit?. The series will involve contestants using forensic techniques to solve fake murders. [EW]

CASTING NEWS

... 666 Park Avenue star Dave Annable has joined NBC's multi-camera comedy pilot Joe, Joe & Jane. It's about a Joe caught between his best friend and his wife. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the best friend (Annable) is Joe, and the wife is Jane, but don't quote me on that. Also scoring a new job at NBC is Ben and Kate's Echo Kellum, who joins the network's untitled multi-camera comedy pilot starring Sean Hayes as a father caught between raising his teenaged daughter who just moved in and his needy boss. Kellum will play a coworker of Hayes' character. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Miguel Ferrer (Robocop and only Robocop) has gone from kinda rich to super rich. He joined NCIS: LA last year as the recurring character NCIS Assistant Director Owen Granger, but will now be upped to series regular. What's more, he'll also star in the potential NCIS: LA spin-off in a regular capacity playing the same character. Drinks on Miguel! [Deadline Hollywood]

... Also joining the NCIS: LA spin-off is John Corbett, best known as Aidan from Sex and the City. Corbett will play a retired agent who works as a consultant. [TV Guide]

... Donal Logue (Terriers, Sons of Anarchy) will jump on over to the second season of BBC America's Copper, where he won't have to shave the awesome face rug he recently grew. No word on how this affects his role on SoA, but I'm sure he'll be able to do both. [THR]

... CBS's pilot Beverly Hills Cop has grabbed a pair of actors. Kevin Pollak will play the Beverly Hills Police Department's in-house lawyer, and David Denman (The Office) will play one of the department's detectives. This will get a series order, says I. [TV Guide / Deadline Hollywood]

... Margo Martindale (Justified) has been cast as Nick mom's in a March episode of New Girl. She'll also appear on FX's The Americans. TV is better with this lady on it. [TV Line]

CHEVY CHASE TRIED TO FIGHT JOE MCHALE NEWS

... Joel McHale went on the Howard Stern radio show and talked about the drama with Chevy Chase on Community, and he didn't look particularly comfortable while doing so.

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ABC OPENS UP ITS CASKETT

... Castle fans, this one's for you. ABC has asked for an extra episode of the semi-romantic procedural to add to the current season, bringing the total to 24 episodes. The show just aired its thirteenth episode last night, and the bonus episode means one extra paycheck for its stars, one less repeat we'll have to suffer through, and one tiny price hike on the DVD set. [TV Line]

RATINGS FOR THE DOGS AND RATINGS THAT DOGGED IT

... Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl IX set a personal record on Sunday, netting 12.4 million unique viewers over the course of its day-long run. That's up from last year's 8.7 million viewers. The infamous Super Bowl blackout boosted ratings 54 percent as viewers tired of watching Shannon Sharpe argue with himself by taking every possible stance on a subject did some channel-surfing and realized that puppies said more about football than the broadcasters did once their planned coverage was interrupted. [THR]

... Note to self: Don't debut a show the day after the Super Bowl. The hungover and rioting masses did not tune into David E. Kelley's new TNT medical drama Monday Mornings. Only 1.34 million viewers showed up once same-day DVR numbers were factored in. The second episode of Dallas's second season didn't do much better, hitting a series low. [Deadline Hollywood]

BUSINESS TIME

... NBC is rolling out the past and has ordered a pilot for the remake of Ironside, the '60s drama about a police detective who continues to be a badass after he's put in a wheelchair by an on-the-job shooting. The handsome Blair Underwood (The Event) will star. This sounds like a great way to bring in that 18-49 year old demographic! [EW]

... ABC has ordered a multi-camera comedy pilot starring John Leguizamo. The show would be loosely based on Leguizamo's life as a husband and father living in New York. Ooh! I hope they include that time he played Violator the fatso clown in Spawn! [Deadline Hollywood]

... HBO has signed a development deal with George R.R. Martin, author of the "Song of Ice and Fire" novels that Game of Thrones is based on. Martin is also an executive producer of the HBO fantasy drama, and usually writes one episode per season. Disgruntled "Song of Ice and Fire" fan: "He could have used the time he spent signing the contract writing the next book, sheesh!" [Deadline Hollywood]

CASTING NEWS

... Friends co-stars Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox will reunite on NBC's Go On when the latter guest-stars. Cox will play a woman who Anne sets up with Ryan in an April episode. [THR]

... Charles Michael Davis (The Game) has landed a role in The CW's The Originals, the proposed spin-off of The Vampire Diaries. Davis will play Marcel, a vampire protégé of Klaus. The Originals will be introduced as a backdoor pilot in the April 25 episode of The Vampire Diaries. If The CW likes what it sees, it will order The Originals to series for next season. [Deadline Hollywood]

... CBS's summer series Under the Dome, based on the Stephen King novel, has cast True Blood's Aisha Hinds. Hinds, who played Lafayette's weird witch doctor friend in the HBO vampire drama, will play a Los Angeles-based lawyer who gets stuck in the small town of Chester's Mill when a mysterious shield surrounds it, trapping its inhabitants inside. [TV Line]

... Grey's Anatomy's Brooke Smith will pop up on Showtime's Ray Donovan in a recurring role. She'll play a nurse taking care of the title character's ill brother. Ray Donovan, about a Hollywoof "fixer," debuts on June 30. [THR]

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FOX WANTS MORE OF ITS OTHER NEW GIRL NEWS

... The back-nine order Fox awarded to The Mindy Project earlier this month apparently wasn't enough. Fox is asking for an additional two episodes of the Mindy Kaling comedy to bring its first-season order up to 24 episodes. Now if only Fox would actually air an episode of The Mindy Project; the show has been preempted due to presidential debates, might miss time due to baseball, and will also make way for some silly election coverage in the first week of November. [Deadline Hollywood]

GOOD SIGNS FOR THREE NEW SHOWS NEWS

... ABC has ordered a pair of scripts for both Last Resort and 666 Park Avenue, two bubble shows that are fighting for full-season pickups. This is far from a guarantee that the shows will survive, but it at least means ABC is considering keeping them. I mean, hey, ABC didn't ask for more scripts of The Neighbors, right? Oh wait... [Deadline Hollywood]

... Fox sent out its November schedule today, and normally this wouldn't be news, but The Mob Doctor is on it. We all figured the freshman drama—which has been getting killed in the ratings—would be canceled by now, and that Fox maybe wouldn't make an announcement because it was hoping we'd all forget The Mob Doctor existed while the World Series took over its schedule. But nope, it's still coming back on November 5 as planned. [Fox via press release]

IN DEVELOPMENT

... Craig Robinson (The Office, that time-traveling hot-tub movie) has signed on to star in a potential comedy from The Office's executive producer Greg Daniels. The untitled project centers on a musician who takes over the music department at a middle school. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Memphis Beat creators Liz Garcia and Josh Harto have sold a supernatural drama idea to CBS. The Big Easy follows a trumpet player who also happens to investigate paranormal mysteries in New Orleans. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Rules of Engagement creator Tom Hertz has another comedy cooking at CBS. And it sounds just as awesome as Rules of Engagement! The new project is a multi-camera (duh) comedy about a young couple that moves in together and next thing you know she's all like, "Why is the toilet seat up?" and he's all like, "Yo I just want to watch football and drink my beer!" [Deadline Hollywood]

SCHEDULE-STRAIGHTENING NEWS

... Next Tuesday will be a bit of a mess on Fox as the network tries to clean things up after this week's baseball rain delays. An hour-long The X Factor will start at 9:30pm and air the portion of this week's episode that was lopped off due to baseball overrun. That means The Mindy Project will miss another week! [TV Guide]

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AMERICAN-BRITISH RELATIONS RENEWED

... BBC America, an American arm of the British network giant, has renewed its drama Copper, about an Irish cop in 1864 America, that's filmed in Canada. It's a wonderful international production that speaks the same language: drinking lots of beer. [BBC America via press release]

IN DEVELOPMENT

... The creators of Hell on Wheels have sold a new drama project to... anyone? Take a guess? The network that is buying everything these days? Yes, NBC. The untitled series would follow a guy fresh out of college who joins an organized crime syndicate. Just like when my friend got a job at Fannie Mae as a recent college graduate. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Former Desperate Housewives showrunner Bob Daily is adapting the British series Rev for 'Merica. Daily's version will see a priest go from a small Wisconsin parish to running an inner-city, multi-cultural church in Chicago. The original British version won the BAFTA award in 2011 for best sitcom, meaning the American version will be extra terrible by comparison. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Comedy Central has ordered Triptank, a weekly collection of animated shorts done in various styles. Right now it's scheduled to air eight episodes next fall. [Comedy Central via press release]

RATINGS RATINGS WELL TECHNICALLY JUST ONE RATING

... Critical darling Nashville scared all the precious TV bloggers on the internet when it posted disappointing numbers in its second outing. Only 6.74 million viewers tuned in, clocking in a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demo. That's down from the respectable 2.8 it put up last week. Hopefully Juliette Barnes writes a song about drinking because of this. But seriously, folks, this show is too good to do this poorly. [TV By the Numbers]

CASTING NEWS

... The jokester who put his penis inside a box and got famous for it has a new gig. Andy Samberg, formerly of the comedy classic That's My Boy, has signed on to star in an untitled cop comedy from a pair of Parks and Recreation producers. Meanwhile, I put my penis in things and all I get is a fine and some tiny human begging me for food! What gives, fate? [Deadline Hollywood]

... Kevin Dunn, last seen huffing Oxygen in a wheelchair in HBO's Luck, will recur on the next season of Veep. He'll play the president's chief of staff and say funny things. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Congratulations, Body of Proof. It's a brotha! Henry Ian Cusick, who played Desmond on Lost, will guest-star on Scandal. He'll play a shrink who's being watched by Megan and Tommy. [EW]

... Brendan Fraser has conquered the big screen, and now he'll bring the skillz he learned in George of the Jungle and Encino Man to television! He's been cast as the lead in the TNT pilot Legends, about a secret operative who's a master at changing identities... but may not even be who he thinks he is. [THR]

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DONE DEALS AND DEVELOPMENT

... TNT has finally given the green light to L.A. Noir, the period drama that was announced like 67 years ago or maybe 18 months ago. It's the project Frank Darabont created after he was kicked off of The Walking Dead and it centers on the world of cops and crimes in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. However, TNT has ordered six episodes to start. That could have something to do with Darabont's notorious attention to detail, which is a euphemism for TOTAL CONTROL. Anyway, the drama stars The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal and Jeffrey DeMunn, as well as Milo Ventimiglia, Neal McDonough, and Simon Pegg. [TNT via press release]

... TNT has also put an adaptation of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein book series into development. This twist on the classic centers on a new version of Doctor Frankenstein, Victor Helios, living in New Orleans 200 years after he thought he killed his beast creation (Victor is staying alive with some tricky science), but the monster is alive and well and living in New Orleans too. So they both get an apartment together and hilarity ensues! Oh wait, that's not right. They battle each other to the death. Was the original Frankenstein story that boring, Mr. Koontz? [Deadline Hollywood]

... CBS has ordered a show called Bake Off to series. It's based on the British series The Great British Bake Off. It's a reality competition program featuring contestants seeing how high they can get I WISH!!!! It's a reality competition featuring Americans baking things. Apparently it's a huge hit in England, but then again, so are baked beans for breakfast. [CBS via press release]

... ABC is adapting the Dutch series Vuurzee under the name of Sea of Fire. The would-be series would follow murders, kidnappings, and teen porn movies that tear apart a small town. Apparently the series drew comparisons to Twin Peaks, which these days means it would probably be a better fit for cable. [Deadline Hollywood]

RATINGS RATINGS RATINGS

... More debatings for the ratings! President Barack Obama and Businessman Mitt Romney got on stage and pointed fingers at each other again last night, and 65.6 million people watched. That's a couple million below the last presidential debate, so maybe they'll get renewed for another debate! NBC beat all other networks with 13.8 million total viewers. [EW]

... Maybe those two million fewer people were watching Emily Owens M.D.? The CW's new medical drama debuted last night against the debates and drew 1.7 million viewers for a 0.5 adult demo rating. That's not that great. [EW]

DIDN'T FIT ANYWHERE ELSE NEWS

... There will be a bit of a crossover episode between Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 on October 30. DTTBIA23 will host, when June makes a video—think fan-made YouTube tribute video—of Chloe in a fake relationship with one of the Happy Endings guys. But which one? [TV Guide]

CASTING NEWS

... Dylan McDermott is joining the rest of his old buddies and guesting on American Horror Story: Asylum. McDermott famously and furiously masturbated in the first season as the cheating husband of the haunted house. He joins fellow returnees Jessica Lange, Evan Peters, and Zachary Quinto in Season 2. [EW]

... Terriers' Donal Logue will guest-star on Sons of Anarchy as a U.S. Marshal. Look for him in the final three episodes of Season 5. [EW]

LOVE IS AN ILLUSION NEWS

... Emily Maynard and Jef Holm, the "winners" of last season's The Bachelorette, have called off their engagement, which means there are two more lunatics out there in the dating pool SO LOOK OUT! [EW]

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