Tag Archives: television

From the Hollywood Reporter: South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone probably saw this coming, and to their credit, simply didn’t care. The most recent episode of South Park, “Band in China,” has been generating loads of media attention for its sharp critique of the way Hollywood tends to shape its content to avoid offending Chinese government censors in …

TV Line reports: Move over, Alec Baldwin. There’s a new Donald Trump in town. Harry Potter vet Brendan Gleeson has been cast as President Trump in CBS Studios’ four-hour limited series based on former FBI Director James Comey’s bestselling book, A Higher Loyalty. Jeff Daniels will star as Comey in the as-yet-untitled project, which is being written and directed by …

From the Hollywood Reporter: Rachel Maddow is heading to The CW’s Batwoman. The MSNBC host — currently enjoying a big ratings bump amid talk of a presidential impeachment — will have a key role in the Ruby Rose-led drama. Maddow takes on the role of Vesper Fairchild, a character from the Batman comics. Fairchild is a television and radio personality …

From the Hollywood Reporter: Diahann Carroll, the captivating singer and actress who came from the Bronx to win a Tony Award, receive an Oscar nomination and make television history with her turns on Julia and Dynasty, died Friday. She was 84. Carroll died at her home in Los Angeles after a long bout with cancer, her daughter, producer-journalist Suzanne Kay, …

Market Watch reports: Disney is banning Netflix ads across its TV networks, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, ahead of the launch of the entertainment and media giant’s Disney+ streaming-video service next month. Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ report said Disney told staffers not to accept ads from any rival streaming services, but later …

The New York Times reports: The category is “Groundbreaker.” On Sunday night, Billy Porter became the first openly gay man to win the Emmy for best actor in a drama. “I am so overwhelmed and I am so overjoyed to have lived long enough to see this day,” said Porter, 50, while accepting the award. The actor won for his …

From an interview with Britain’s Daily Mail: After a tumultuous year and a half, which saw Roseanne Barr fired from her own successful sitcom revival, the star is stepping back on stage in a new comeback comedy tour. She feels like there is more to her departure from ABC than just the shocking social media post and wonders if there …

From the Hollywood Reporter: RuPaul of RuPaul’s Drag Race continues to build his Emmy collection, winning best host of a reality or competition program for the fourth consecutive year on Sunday at the Creative Arts Emmys. As a result, RuPaul is now tied with Survivor host Jeff Probst’s record for most wins in the category. Backstage, RuPaul explained he was …

The Verge reports: Ewan McGregor’s long-rumored Obi-Wan series is officially coming to Disney+, the company confirmed today. McGregor was onstage at D23, the company’s biennial convention, to make the announcement. “It feels so nice to say,” McGregor said. Disney and Lucasfilm originally planned a feature-length theatrical Star Wars spinoff, according to a Hollywood Reporter story from 2017. But after two …

USA Today reports: “Dancing with the Stars” cast a wide net in its search for Season 28 celebrities revealing a field that ranges from former Trump aide (Sean Spicer) to supermodel (Christie Brinkley) to the latest “Bachelorette” (Hannah Brown). Spicer, 47, who reportedly turned down a “DWTS” offer shortly after leaving the White House in 2017, is a lightning rod …

Deadline reports: CBS and Viacom have agreed to a price for their long-awaited merger and plan to formalize the deal with an announcement after the close of trading today, sources tell Deadline. The “exchange ratio” — how many shares of each company will be traded in the all-stock translation — had been a major consideration in negotiations over recent days. …

People Magazine reports: Mario Lopez is facing backlash over comments he made in a recent interview that suggested it was “dangerous” for parents to label their kids transgender. In a statement to PEOPLE on Wednesday, Lopez apologized for his remarks. “The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were,” …

Newsweek reports: Mario Lopez is being criticized for claiming it’s “dangerous” for parents to support children who identify as transgender. The 45-year-old television personality made his comments in June during an appearance on The Candace Owens Show, a video series on the PragerU YouTube channel, but they sparked blowback on social media this week. Owens compared a child expressing a …

Deadline Hollywood reports: CBS stations in more than a dozen markets, including New York and Los Angeles, have gone dark on AT&T’s DirecTV satellite systems, DirecTV Now internet-delivered bundles and U-verse cable systems. The dispute went public earlier this week, with the usual exchange of harshly worded statements. The carriage contract between the CBS stations and AT&T-owned satellite giant DirecTV, …

The Boston Herald reports: The criminal case against “American Beauty” actor Kevin Spacey has been dropped the Cape and Islands District Attorney announced today citing “the unavailability of the complaining witness.” An 18-year-old man, the son of former WCVB anchor Heather Unruh, accused the former “House of Cards” star of groping him at a Nantucket bar. During a July 8 …

The Verge reports: Netflix has released a trailer for its upcoming science fiction series Another Life, starring Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff. The 10-episode series premieres on July 25th, and it looks like a fun cross between the first-contact film Arrival and the Syfy Channel’s Dark Matter. The series seems to have the feel of some of the big, goofy science …

TV By The Numbers reports: Are Americans growing tired of the Trump show? President Donald Trump’s interview with ABC News made serious headlines last week before its airing in full Sunday night, but according to the ratings, viewers were not all that interested in the hourlong special. The interview had fewer viewers than Celebrity Family Feud, which aired in the …

The Daily Beast reports: During her appearance on David Letterman’s show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Ellen DeGeneres shared that her stepfather sexually abused her as a teenager. DeGeneres said her mother married “a very bad man,” who would grope her and once tried to break into her room, leading her to climb out a window in order to …

The Birmingham Herald reports: Alabama Public Television chose not to air PBS’s Arthur episode that included a same-sex marriage. APT preempted the episode by showing a re-run of Arthur. Mike Mckenzie, director of programming at APT, said APT was notified by WGBH and PBS in mid-April about the episode entitled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” and decided to show …

People Magazine reports: Tim Conway has died at the age of 85. He passed away at 8:45 a.m. in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, his rep Howard Bragman confirms to PEOPLE. The beloved actor is best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show, winning viewers over with characters like the Oldest Man and Mr. Tudball, whose accent …