Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson team for Apple TV+'s Down Cemetery Road / Steve Buscemi boards Wednesday / The Conners films tacked-on series finale
PLUS: Long-lost video of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano three years after The Sopranos finale resurfaces.
Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson team for Apple TV+'s Down Cemetery Road from Slow Horses author
They'll star in the thriller series based on British mystery writer Mick Herron’s 2003 debut novel Down Cemetery Road, the first in his Zoë Boehm series. Herron wrote the Slough House series, which was successfully adapted by Apple as Slow Horses. Led by Slow Horses writer Morwenna Banks, Down Cemetery Road "centers on Sarah Tucker (Wilson), who becomes obsessed with finding a neighbor girl who’s disappeared in the aftermath of a house’s explosion in a quiet Oxford suburb," per Deadline. "After enlisting the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm (Thompson) in her quest, the pair find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead." As Apple TV+'s Jay Hunt explains, “Down Cemetery Road has all the hallmarks of Mick Herron’s funny and acerbic writing, and I’m delighted we will be bringing it to life for Apple TV+ with such a stellar cast. Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson will make it an unmissable companion piece for Slow Horses on our service.”
Steve Buscemi boards Wednesday
The beloved actor and former Boardwalk Empire star is expected to play the new principal of Nevermore Academy in Season 2 of the Netflix series.
Long-lost video of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano three years after The Sopranos finale resurfaces
The late Gandolfini and Edie Falco reprised their HBO roles as Tony and Carmela Soprano in a 2010 video made to lure LeBron James to the New York Knicks. The video marked Gandolfini’s final appearance as Tony three years before his death in 2013. Other celebrities also participated, including Harvey Weinstein and Spike Lee. Former ESPN star Pablo Torre unearthed the video for his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. As The Sopranos expert Alan Sepinwall points out, "this part of the video raises many more questions than it answers," including: "Why would the Knicks choose two characters so closely associated with New Jersey — at a time when a different NBA franchise, the Nets, still played in the Garden State — as part of a pitch for LeBron to come to the Big Apple?"
In “serious limbo,” The Conners filmed a tacked-on series finale — Not Dead Yet is "heavily on the bubble"
ABC has two scripted series whose fate hasn’t been decided. While The Conners recently celebrated Episode 100 and is a sturdy ratings performer, it "has found itself in serious limbo," reports Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, who adds that the cast has not been approached yet about returning for Season 7. "This time, the focus has been on renewal negotiations. If they are successful, I hear The Conners will likely be picked up for a seventh and final season," reports Andreeva. “…But in an indication how real the possibility is for the show to end this season, I hear a tag scene was shot that would be added to the Season 6 finale should it become a series finale." Meanwhile, Not Dead Yet's future is looking bleak, says Andreeva, but its supporters inside ABC may find a spot for the Gina Rodriguez-led comedy next season.
Sesame Workshop writers vote to authorize a strike
The Writers Guild of America announced today that if the children’s television production company behind Sesame Street does not reach a deal with the union by Friday’s deadline, Sesame Workshop writers will go on strike. “The writers that Sesame Workshop hires are deeply committed to the work that we do. Like the Workshop itself, we are mission-driven and child-focused and we work hard at telling stories that contribute to the Workshop’s curricula inspired by heart, curiosity, community, kindness, diversity, equity and inclusion,” the WGA Sesame Workshop negotiating committee said in a statement.
Amazon greenlights Travis Kelce-hosted Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?
The Super Bowl champion Kansas City tight ended will host the spinoff of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? that has contestants attempt to answer 11 grade-school-level questions with the help of a classroom full of celebrities. “I grew up loving game shows, and I’m excited to be following in the footsteps of so many TV icons by hosting my very first one with Are you Smarter than a Celebrity?,” says Kelce. “The original show is a great success, so to be bringing a new format with everyone’s favorite celebrities to the screen, will definitely be entertaining. I’m just happy to be on the hosting side of the equation here and excited to see how these famous faces keep up.”
Tyler Perry strikes a new deal with BET that includes renewal of eight shows, plus new scripted series Route 187
As part of Perry's new multi-year deal with BET Media Group, BET has renewed Sistas for Season 8, The Oval for Season 6, Assisted Living for Season 6, House of Payne for Season 6 (and 12th season overall). The deal also includes the renewals of BET+'s Zatima, Ruthless, Bruh and All the Queen's Men. Meanwhile, according to Variety, Route 187 is believed to be a crime drama about violence that takes place on a bus route.
Emily VanCamp to lead Canadian legal procedural Prejudice, about a sex worker turned litigator
In Prejudice, created by Celeste Parr, the Canadian actress will play "a rising Toronto litigator whose career and marriage to a senator are thrown into upheaval when her past as a sex worker is publicly exposed," per Deadline. "Scorned by her field and social circle, she launches her own law firm dedicated to defending the likewise silenced and delegitimized." VanCamp, whose last regular TV role was on Fox's The Resident, recently welcomed her second child.
Lopez vs. Lopez and Extended Family are on the bubble at NBC as Law & Order: Organized Crime awaits a possible move to Peacock
While Night Court looks like a shoe-in for renewal, "sophomore Lopez vs Lopez and freshman Extended Family are both on shakier ground and heavily on the bubble, but each is believed to have a path to renewal under the right circumstances," reports Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. As for Organized Crime, "there are ongoing conversations about Organized Crime potentially moving to Peacock for Season 5," says Andreeva. "There is a blueprint for that — another series in the Law & Order franchise that started on NBC, Criminal Intent, made a successful transition to another platform, running on USA Network for four additional seasons after the initial six on NBC."
S.W.A.T.'s Season 7 finale left its story "open," despite being written before its un-cancelation
That's according to original cast member Kenny Johnson, who was written off the show ahead of the Season 7 finale. Johnson tells TVLine that the Season 7 finale leaves things "open" despite being written as S.W.A.T.'s final episode. Last week, CBS un-canceled S.W.A.T. and ordered an eighth season just two days before the final day of filming on Season 7.
Sex and the City debuts at No. 6 on Netflix's Top 10, while Ripley ranks No. 8
3 Body Problem held onto the No. 1 spot for the second week in a row, despite a significant decline in viewership from the previous week. Sex and the City attracted 2.5 million views in its first full week on Netflix, while Ripley had 2.3 million views.
Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt to star in Lifetime's The Bad Orphan
Brandt will also executive produce the TV movie about a troubled adoption.
Chris Stapleton will help Jimmy Kimmel Live! relaunch its outdoor stage for the first time since the pandemic
The outdoor stage, located in a parking lot behind Kimmel's 103-year-old studio building, hasn't been in use since February 2020. Stapleton will perform on Wednesday night.
Phillipa Soo joins Ryan Murphy's ABC medical drama Dr. Odyssey
The Hamilton alum will co-star with Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson in the series that is believed to be a medical procedural set aboard a cruise ship. Details of her character are being kept under wraps.
Sylvester Stallone posts Tulsa King Season 2 set picture amid background actor controversy
The actor did not address the accusations that he disparaged background actors on his Paramount+ show. Instead, he wrote in an Instagram post, “Ringing the bell on location for Tulsa King part two” next to a photo of him dressed in character as mafia capo Dwight ‘"The General" Manfredi.
FX's Snowflakes assembles its cast
Lucy Freyer, Malik Estella, Owen Thiele, Amita Rao and Jack Innanen will star as a group of 20-something co-dependent housemates who are trying to be good people, despite being neither “good” nor “people” yet.
Jeopardy! producers defend selecting Amy Schneider as the producers' pick for the upcoming Masters tournament
Executive producer Michael Davies and fellow producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss cited on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast ratings and skill for picking Schneider, whose selection has been met with some backlash. “Understand that we get a lot of data, and we’ve talked before about how we share the buzzer data, how we see the players. We’re also evaluating constantly how people are playing against a certain level of material, which is another very important thing,” Davies explained, per TV Insider.
Katy Perry has to cover her top with a pillow in response to an American Idol wardrobe malfunction
"I need my top to stay on," Perry says in an Instagram video that shows her holding the chrome piece to her chest while a team of Idol crew members attempted to fix it during a commercial break. "If it’s not fixed, this show is gonna get more than it wanted."
Christina Applegate reveals she was asked to join Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 10 years ago
"I was asked to be a Housewife for Beverly Hills," Applegate said on her and Jamie-Lynn Sigler's MeSsy podcast. "They asked me to be one 10 years ago, and what's funny is I ended up becoming really good friends with the executive producer of it because our kids went to school together and he's like, 'Oh yeah, we asked you.'"
The Beatles' rare 1970 documentary Let It Be will be shown restored on Disney+
Peter Jackson’s team, which restored the vintage footage to make 2021's The Beatles: Get Back for Disney+, has used the same process on the documentary Let It Be, which has been out of circulation since the early 1980s. "The original film has been notorious for being the one item in the Beatles’ catalog that Apple seemed to want to suppress rather than exploit," explains Variety's Chris Willman. "Let It Be has not been officially in circulation in any form since the early 1980s, although muddy-looking bootleg copies have been widely available. Those boots were lifted off VHS and laserdisc versions that came out in the early days of the home video revolution; the movie never made it to a release in the DVD era, much less Blu-Ray or streaming."
Seth Meyers was heckled by Andy Samberg in his Jimmy Kimmel Live! debut
Meyers' first guest appearance on his fellow Strike Force Five podcast co-host's show also saw a brief cameo by his brother Josh Meyers as California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
HBO's An American Bombing: The Road to April 19 explores what led to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing
Premiering tonight, the documentary “looks at the surge in homegrown political violence through the story of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, showing the roots of anti-government sentiment and its reverberations today, along with the emotionally charged warnings of those who suffered tragic losses in the deadliest homegrown attack in U.S. history,” says HBO.
Hacks Season 3 trailer reveals time jump
Jean Smart's Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder's Ava Daniels return in a season set a year after Season 2. Hacks Season 3 premieres May 2 with two episodes.
Netflix's A Man in Full trailer evokes Succession
Jeff Daniels, Diane Lane, Lucy Liu, Tom Pelphrey, Sarah Jones and William Jackson Harper star in the David E. Kelley limited series based on the novel by Tom Wolfe, starring Daniels as a real estate tycoon about to lose all his power. A Man in Full premieres May 2.
Grantchester's 9th and final season gets a premiere date and trailer
Season 9, premiering as part of PBS' Masterpiece on June 16, will mark Tom Brittney‘s swan song as vicar Will Davenport.