Happy Sunday! This week: exciting renewals, major industry news, and another heap of pilot casting …
Good news, USA fans! White Collar and Covert Affairs return June 7.
Renewed: Syfy’s Being Human, NBC’s Community, Parks and Rec, The Office.
Major news that has the potential to eventually chance how you watch TV: Netflix outbid a bunch of premium networks for Kevin Spacey’s new drama series, so they’ve officially entered the original programming game.
HBO is developing a drama about Russian spies living in the U.S. in the 1980s. My dad and I will be ALL OVER this one. They’re working on a new rural crime drama series with Philip Seymour Hoffman, too, which made me think “Oh, of course” until I remembered that Hoffman isn’t actually Truman Capote. In other premium cable news, Starz is developing a supernatural crime drama.
Notable guest star news: Grant Show to Burn Notice, Lisa Tucker to Vampire Diaries, William Forsythe to The Mentalist, Brendan Hines to Castle. The Good Wife will have Martha Plimpton, Mamie Gunner, and Aaron Staton before the end of the season. Alimi Ballard and Matthew Willig will recur on NCIS.
90210 has lost its showrunner.
Pilot updates:
17th Precinct adds Esai Morales.
American Horror Story will star Connie Britton, so now all the disgruntled Glee fans who swore off Ryan Murphy shows have to decide whether Tami Taylor is enough incentive to break that rule already.
Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea adds Lenny Clarke, and have we settled on a way to abbreviate that title yet?
The Assistants will star Heather Locklear. As a celebrity employing assistants, not as an assistant herself, natch. Also: David Henrie.
Awakening will guest star Marco Grazzini, who is also a regular on Poe.
Bad Mom adds Frances Conroy and Tom Everett Scott.
Cooper & Stone will star Vanessa Ferlito.
Damage Control adds Josh Malina, but it sounds like a recurring gig, not regular. Alas.
Free Agents adds Mo Mandel.
Georgetown adds Tiya Sircar, Kevin Zegers, and Boris Kodjoe. Prettiest pilot ever?
Good Christian Bitches adds Kristin Chenoweth, which is perfect, no? David James Elliott will play her husband.
Hallelujah adds Brett Cullen and Jonathan Scarfe. I like them both, but goodness, isn’t this show done casting yet?
Happily Divorced has been almost picked up by a station I never watch. Yay?
Hart of Dixie will star Scott Porter. Yay!
Heavenly will star Lauren Cohan and Ryan Eggold.
How to Be a Gentleman will star Kevin Dillon and casts Mary Lynn Rajskub.
I Hate My Teenage Daughter casts Kevin Rahm and Chad Coleman.
Identity adds Bree Turner.
Little in Common rounds out its star casting with Alanna Ubach and Lombardo Boyar.
Lost and Found adds Tom Grinnell.
Lovelives casts Amanda Loncar and Sean Maguire.
My Freakin’ Family adds Cybill Shepherd.
My Life As an Experiment adds Donald Sutherland, so I might actually have to watch it.
Other People’s Kids adds Tom Arnold.
Reconstruction adds Robert Knepper.
REM has cast a whole bunch all at once (which I kind of wish more shows would do): Wilmer Valderrama, Steve Harris, BD Wong, Laura Allen, Dylan Minnette. Also, there’s finally a plot description at that link, and geez, Kyle Killen has a thing for guys leading double lives, huh?
Revenge adds Christa B. Allen, Madeleine Stowe, Henry Czerny, and Joshua Bowman.
The River, which I keep confusing with The Crossing (which is now Reconstruction) adds Leslie Hope and Thomas Kretschmann.
The Secret Circle continues its casting with Jessica Parker Kennedy, Shelley Hennig, and Phoebe Tonkin.
The show formerly known as S.I.L.A. will star Jimmy Smits as the mayor of LA. Also: Noah Emmerich and Emma Dumont, Luis Chavez.
The sports radio comedy (untitled? Sports Radio? It’s unclear) will star Damon Wayans.
The one about the detective who remembers everything will star Dylan Walsh as her former on-the-job partner/romantic interest.
The untitled Zooey Deschanel show adds Damon Wayans, Jr., and honestly, I did not realize there were two Damon Wayanses until they were both cast this week.
The supernatural medical drama with Jennifer Ehle adds Julie Benz, so we should probably just declare No Ordinary Family dead.
One of those other untitled comedies will star Christina Applegate. And another will star Michelle Trachtenberg. Another adds Maulik Pancholy. People, please start naming your comedies so I have some hope of keeping them straight.
Photo Courtesy of USA Network
