io9 – We got a few minutes to ask some tough questions of the man who only tosses softballs at V’s alien visitors. Scott Wolf talked about playing corrupt, ambitious journalist Chad Decker, and the pitfalls of sucking up to aliens. Spoilers…

Click to Read

io9 – What’s the secret connection between Quentin Tarantino and Felix Gaeta? What relationship between Bear McCreary (in person) and Starbuck did we almost see? We’ve got the exclusive answers, from Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion Season Four.

Thanks to Titan Books for sending us these exclusive extracts from the BSG season 4 companion book, out now to coincide with the release of the direct-to-DVD “The Plan.” No, they won’t explain that whole “Opera House” thing, but they are pretty fascinating.

So here are five things you never knew about Battlestar’s final season: Click to Read More

Contact Music – ASHLEE SIMPSON-WENTZ has been dropped from U.S. TV series MELROSE PLACE.

The singer/actress landed the role of Violet Foster, a small-town girl new to Los Angeles, in the remake of the 1990s soap opera.
But Simpson-Wentz’s part has now been cut from the show, along with co-star Colin Egglesfield’s character Auggie Kirkpatrick.
Executive producer Todd Slavkin says, “We felt that once the murder mystery (involving their characters) was resolved, the tone of the show was going to shift … and (Simpson-Wentz’s) character would move on.”

Simpson-Wentz and Egglesfield took the news “like professionals” because they were warned they could be dropped from the programme.
Slavkin says, “They knew ahead of time (that leaving was a possibility); it wasn’t a complete shock.”

Hollywood Reporter – ABC might not be able to simulate spaceships hovering above cities as in the show’s premiere episode, but the network came up with the next best thing to promote the launch of its alien-invasion drama “V.”

Starting Friday, skywriters will create giant V’s across the sky at 26 U.S. landmarks.

The network is mum on where and when the V’s will strike, but such places as the Statue of Liberty and the Capitol Records building are under consideration. The skywriting will be done multiple times a day at each site until the series launch at 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

“V” is the final new fall broadcast drama to debut. After four episodes, it goes on hiatus until early next year.

TMZ – A TLC official tells TMZ the Heene family approached the network “months ago” with a reality show idea, but the network passed.

TMZ has learned the Heene family has been pitching a reality show about the wacky family, as one TV source put it, “all over town.”

We’re told Richard Heene pitched a series to Reality Real, as well as RDF Productions. RDF produces “Wife Swap,” on which the family appeared back in March.

We’re also told the Heene’s have made the rounds at the networks, including TLC. Of course, TLC produced “Jon & Kate Plus 8.”

Gawker – TLC was going to switch to Kate Plus 8, a show about professional paparazzi-dodger Kate Gosselin and her brood after her divorce from ex-husband Jon Gosselin. Now they’re calling the whole thing off. Thank God almighty, free at last.

The New York Post reported this morning that the show got the ax, and People filled in the details later. TLC is going to eke out a few extra episodes with previously-filmed footage, but is then packing up its trucks and looking for the next freak show to exploit. The whole thing will be over by early November.

Apparently, Jon had some sort of epiphany about the damage the show was causing to his kids and won’t allow them to be filmed. Without them, then this is just a show about a sad lady with a bad haircut living in Pennsylvania, and no one wants to watch that. Well, no one was watching anyway. The ratings had slipped from more than 10 million for the episode where the pair announced their divorce to just over 1 million for recent episodes. Maybe if those numbers were a little healthier TLC would have fought a little bit harder.

But we’re glad they didn’t. The day we don’t have to look at pictures of Jon riding his ATV or Kate dropping off her kids will be the day that Jesus is reborn.

TMZ – The hit FOX show “Glee” is chorus non grata at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
… and we’ve learned NBC is behind it all.

Read more

TMZ – Ellen DeGeneres made a plea to “Idol” nation today — telling fans not to blame her for Paula Abdul’s departure from the show.

An excited Ellen called in to “On Air with Ryan Seacrest” this morning, where she said she doesn’t want people to think she’s “evil” for taking Paula’s job.

Though Paula has yet to comment on the switch, Ellen also said, “I hope Paula is okay with it.”

The Examiner – This is the first part of a three-part series. Check back here tomorrow for part 2, and Thursday for part 3.

I don’t know if you heard this or not, but something kind of major happened yesterday. One of the largest media companies in the world announced the acquisition of the largest comic book company in North America. Maybe you read about it.

Yesterday I posted a “Breaking the Internet in half” column discussing some of the knee-jerk comments that popped up after the announcement. I’m revisiting the issue because the comments haven’t gotten any better in the past 24 hours. Some folks have taken a step back to really start thinking about the long-term ramifications of the acquisition, but there are others that are like this, which I just read, and responded to, from Newsarama:

“This is all just terrible. Disney is a souless company that eats up younger more vibrant creative companies… This merger is just terrible. It will come back to bite Marvel, and the industry, over the next few years.”

“This was a money decision. And a bad one. Probably the worst. Marvel has had the best few years of it’s [sic] life.”

Today and tomorrow, I’d like to examine in more detail both extremes of the comments, and inject a little common sense. On Thursday, I’m going to go into more detail into an aspect of the story that isn’t getting enough examination, and one that may end up being the most important.

Read More

Chicago Sun Times – Tribune Co. at last made it official today — it has sold the Chicago Cubs to the Ricketts family.

The company said the deal was for $845 million and allows Tribune to retain a 5 percent ownership stake. Company boss Sam Zell used the retention of a small interest to reduce taxes from the sale.

The sale includes Wrigley Field and Tribune’s 25 percent interest in Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

Closing on the sale still requires consents from Major League Baseball and the federal bankruptcy court.

Tribune is in bankruptcy and negotiating with lenders over a $13 billion debt load. How the proceeds of the Cubs sale will be handled will be decided at future hearings.

Read More

Newer Posts »