Late-night is back and Strike Force Five is over / Joe Manganiello to host Deal or No Deal Island / Naked Attraction is "most popular" on Max
PLUS: Dan Harmon is "frustrated, ashamed and heartbroken" over Justin Roiland allegations, says they haven't communicated since 2019.
Late-night shows are coming back next week, resulting in the end of Strike Force Five
While Real Time with Bill Maher will get a jump start returning this Friday, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver returns on Sunday. On Monday, Oct. 2, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert will also be back with their respective late-night shows. It's not clear when the host-less The Daily Show will return. "Now that the WGA strike is over, we’re so excited to say we’ll be back this Sunday with a new episode!" tweeted the Last Week Tonight Twitter/X account. "That’s right, after five long months, we’re finally going to let John out of his hole. But we promise, he’s been very happy in there. He's had water and toys and everything." The end of the writers' strike means the end of Strike Force Five, the strike-themed podcast co-hosted by Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, Colbert and Oliver. "Their mission complete, the founding members of Strike Force 5 will return to their network television shows this Monday 10/2, and one of them to premium cable on 10/1," the Strike Force Five podcast tweeted. "Of course, in a greater sense , the Strike Force 5 will never end, because Strike Force 5 is not a place. Strike Force 5 is not a people, Strike Force 5 is barely a podcast...nay, Strike Force 5 is an idea. An idea that five men could talk on top of each other for 12 episodes. And maybe somebody would listen. As we say goodbye, we would like to thank all those somebodies. Truly, you were the heroes. We were mostly the heroes, but you were in there, too." Strike Force Five also apologized to Conan O'Brien, “who agreed to do the pod, but Stephen forgot to send him any possible dates, and then the strike ended."
Joe Manganiello to host Deal or No Deal Island, NBC's island-based spinoff of Deal or No Deal
"Legendary" Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel announced Manganiello as the host of a new Deal or No Deal series that will see 13 players transported to the elusive Banker’s private island to compete for cash. Mandel will serve as executive producer.
Dan Harmon is "frustrated, ashamed and heartbroken" over Justin Roiland allegations, says they haven't communicated since 2019
In a Hollywood Reporter profile, Harmon speaks for the first time about his estrangement from his fellow Rick and Morty co-creator Roiland and the misconduct allegations that led to Roiland's firing from their hit Adult Swim show. “The easiest thing for me to say about Justin has been nothing. Easy because he isolated so well and easy because I’m nobody’s first choice as a judge of anything or anyone," says Harmon, interviewed after NBC News published a report earlier this month accusing Roiland of using his Rick and Morty fame to pursue young fans. "This is where I’d love to change the subject to myself, to what a piece of crap I’ve been my whole public life,” he says. “I would feel so safe and comfortable making this about me, but that trick is worthless here and dangerous to others. It’s other people’s safety and comfort that got damaged while I obsessed over a cartoon’s quality. Trust has now been violated between countless people and a show designed to please them. I’m frustrated, ashamed and heartbroken that a lot of hard work, joy and passion can be leveraged to exploit and harm strangers.” (As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Harmon was embroiled in his own misconduct scandal in 2018 when Community writer Megan Ganz accused him of treating her “like garbage” after she had rejected his romantic advances. In an earlier interview, Harmon said he and Roiland began growing apart after the success of Season 1, when Harmon added a bunch of Community writers for Season 2, resulting in Roiland thinking Harmon was making Rick and Morty his show. “If anything, what I wanted was for Justin and I both to be able to be increasingly lazy and not show up for work. That was the dream,” says Harmon. “We’d be these rich idea men. He could roll around and go, like, ‘What if a genie had a butt instead of a dick?’ And I could be like, ‘Yeah, and plus, we’re going to make people cry about it, and that’s going to make them freak out. It’s a story about a genie butt dick, but then we’d win an Emmy, and it’d be more ironic than ever.’ And then I’d come to find out later that it was like, ‘Oh, Harmon brought in his Harmon writers,’ and, man, that is not how I saw it.” Harmon says the last time he communicated with Roiland was over text in 2019, a conversation that left him in tears. “He said things that he’d never said before about being unhappy, and I remember saying to him the last time we spoke in person, like, ‘I am worried about you, and I don’t know what to do about that except to give you all the string and also just say I’m scared that you’re not going to come back.’ But then this conversation became unprecedentedly confrontational.” Harmon added “I think that’s as far as I get to take the story.”
Dancing with the Stars fans are upset over Matt Walsh's "unfair" elimination after one episode
"Fans were incredibly displeased with this result," says Fletcher Peters of the Veep alum's quick elimination with pro dancer Koko Iwasaki. "For starters: Dancing with the Stars doesn’t usually eliminate a couple on the very first night. The show used to have a first dance, then would allow the handful of folks in the bottom a chance to save themselves in one more round. Now, however, the series is booting stars immediately. This change up, which happened last season when DWTS arrived on Disney+, infuriated fans. Walsh and Iwasaki could’ve had a bad night! They deserve one more chance." Walsh appeared in the Dancing premiere after bowing out last week and opting to return once the writers’ strike was settled.
Naked Attraction quickly becomes Max's "most popular" show
The controversial 7-year-old British dating show featuring full-frontal nudity has surged to capture the top spot on Max streaming service’s “Most Popular” series list a week after its U.S. release with zero fanfare.
Katy Perry to lend her voice to Peppa Pig
Perry will help the British preschool animated series celebrate its 20th season by voicing a new character, Ms. Leopard, a dress maker who assists with the preparations for the first-ever Peppa Pig wedding between Mr. Bull and Mrs. Cow in the three-part Peppa Pig Wedding Party Special.
Diane Wiest won't return for Mayor of Kingstown Season 3
The Oscar-winning actress, who played the matriarch of the McLusky family, is exiting due to "story-driven" reasons, reports Deadline.
Long Island Medium's Theresa Caputo is moving to Lifetime with Raising Spirits show
Theresa Caputo: Raising Spirits will "follow the medium as she explores the next phase of her personal life and embarks on a tour, including sold-out shows in London," per Deadline. "She will continue her medium sessions including with celebrities to help loved ones carry on without the departed as she balances her own divorce and becoming a grandmother."
WGA agreement with the studios reveals an official definition of a "hit" streaming series
It's hard to quantify what makes a hit streaming show, with viewership counted based on everything from "at least two minutes watched" to hours viewed and minutes viewed. "But the new WGA contract — seeking as it in part did to secure better residuals for these mysteriously measured streaming series — has spelled out the exact metric that earns a writer a 'viewership-based streaming bonus' for a popular series," explains TVLine's Matt Webb Mitovich. "The writer(s) for series as films 'that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or in the first 90 days in any subsequent exhibition year, get a bonus equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual,' the summarized contract reads, 'with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime” (the same formula used by Netflix and Disney+, to name two)."
ALSO:
Writers celebrate "incredible" WGA deal: “We just… saved this profession?”
How the WGA negotiated a "great deal" to end the writers' strike
CNN Max launches, looking an awful lot like CNN
CNN's new 24/7 streaming hub on Max can't officially be CNN due to cable contracts. But while the new weekday schedule of CNN Max features several new hours led by anchors such as Jim Acosta, Fredricka Whitfield, Rahel Solomon and Jim Scuitto, "a significant chunk of the service is built on CNN’s linear morning, late-afternoon and primetime schedule," says Variety's Brian Steinberg. When all is said and done, Max viewers will be able to see everything from Kasie Hunt’s Early Start and CNN This Morning to the usual evening lineup of Wolf Blitzer, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Kaitlan Collins, Abby Phillip and Laura Coates."
Advertisers are getting a "major discount" from Fox News for tonight's second Republican presidential debate
The first debate last month cost advertisers $495,000 per 30-second spot on Fox News. The same 30-second spot during tonight's Fox Business debate cost just over $200,000, according to Semafor's' Maxwell Tani, who quotes one ad buyer as saying "the GOP primary race has become a snoozer."
Netflix announces a Devil May Cry anime series
Netflix announced that it is teaming up with Capcom for a new animated series based on the action video game series Devil May Cry. Castlevania's Adi Shankar will serve as showrunner, while Studio Mir handles animation.
Who was the better SNL host — Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce?
Swift and Kelce, who've emerged this week as the most famous power couple, have one thing in common: they've each hosted Saturday Night Live just once. Swift in 2009 and Kelce earlier this year. Cracked decided to compare Swift and Kelce's hosting stints and found that Swift is the better performer. ALSO: Travis Kelce dishes on his podcast about Taylor Swift attending his game.
NBC Universal settles Columbo profits lawsuit
The heirs of the late Columbo co-creators William Link and Richard Levinson have settled their lawsuit against NBC Universal after accusing the studio in a 2017 lawsuit of shortchanging them on profit. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, "although Columbo has generated $600 million in gross revenue, the plaintiffs say the studio has only paid the loan-out companies $5 million because it deducted distribution fees."
Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder's creepy Showtime The Curse teaser trailer puts a dark spin on HGTV house flippers
Stone and Fielder play a married couple, Whitney and Asher, who flip houses on a new show called “Flipanthropy,” on the Showtime series. Benny Safdie plays their producer, who harbors some secrets. The Curse premieres Nov. 10 on Paramount+ and air Nov. 12 on the Showtime cable channel.
Cobra Kai creators reveal their Obliterated Netflix trailer
Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald's next series is described as "a high octane Vegas adventure" that "follows an elite special forces team that thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas" — at least, that's what they think. Obliterated premieres with all eight episodes dropping on Nov. 30.
Hayley Atwell voices Lara Croft in Netflix's Tomb Raider: The Legend Of Lara Croft anime series trailer
Atwell stars as the iconic adventurer in the follow-up to the video game reboot trilogy, premiering in 2024.
Josh Gad and Isla Fisher are back in Wolf Like Me’s Season 2 trailer
Their Peacock romantic dramedy's second season premieres on Oct. 19.
Netflix unveils the first look at Maya Erskine-voiced Blue Eye Samurai
Set in 1633 Japan during the Edo period, Erskine stars in the Netflix anime series as Mizu, a hardened fighter whose biracial status is made clear by the blue eyes she inherited from her white father. Blue Eye Samurai premieres Nov. 3.
Ramona Flowers is working for Netflix in a clip from Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Check out a preview from Scott Pilgrim's new anime series, premiering on Netflix on November 17.
Netflix reveals the first look at Kevin Smith‘s new Masters of the Universe: Revolution
The new He-Man animated series premieres in 2024, featuring He-Man teaming up with a surprising ally to take on Scareglow.