Neil Patrick Harris boards Dexter: Resurrection / Oscars actually had a 5-year viewership high / Space Ghost voice George Lowe dies

PLUS: Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith to star in Succession creator's HBO movie.

Neil Patrick Harris boards Dexter: Resurrection
The former How I Met Your Mother star will play a character named Lowell on Showtime’s Dexter followup series. Details of his role are being kept under wraps. Harris is the latest big-name actor to board Dexter: Resurrection. He joins a cast that includes Uma Thurman as Charley, Peter Dinklage as Leon Prater, Krysten Ritter as Mia Lapierre, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine as Blessing Kamara, Kadia Saraf as Detective Claudette Wallace, Dominic Fumusa as Detective Melvin Oliva and Emilia Suárez as Elsa Rivera. On Monday, Michael C. Hall and Krysten Ritter were spotted jogging while filming Dexter: Resurrection in New York City’s Central Park.

Oscars viewership was actually up over last year: 19.7 million is the largest viewership in 5 years
After preliminary viewership on Monday showed that viewership for the Conan O’Brien-hosted ceremony was down 7% from last year with 18.07 million tuning in, the final numbers released today show the opposite. According to final live-plus-same-day viewing numbers from Nielsen, 19.69 million viewers watched the 97th Oscars across ABC and Hulu. That's up from last year's 19.5 million. Viewership was also up in the 18-49 demo. It also marks the fourth consecutive year of ratings growth after a low of 10.4 million in 2021. ALSO: Adrien Brody addresses his record-breaking speech.

Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith to star in Succession creator's HBO movie
They'll lead Jesse Armstrong's film, playing “a group of billionaire friends who get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis,” per the movie’s logline. HBO says the film should be released this spring. As The Hollywood Reporter's Rick Porter notes, "what the film doesn’t have yet — or at least, isn’t being revealed yet — is a title. HBO released an image of the first page from Armstrong’s script (see it below), but the title is obscured as if the ink has bled from getting wet. Filming is slated to start later this month in Park City, Utah. It’s likely to be a pretty tight schedule if HBO is planning to debut the movie in the spring (likely in time for Emmy eligibility)."

Scrapped Netflix Prince documentary director Ezra Edelman warns viewers are being served "slop" with celebrity-endorsed projects
The Oscar- and Emmy-winning O.J.: Made in America today broke his silence on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast on Netflix's decision last month to scrap his nine-hour Prince documentary, which he worked on for four years, after pressure from the Prince estate. “Right now, we live in a culture and in a documentary universe, and in some ways in a journalistic universe, where the subject gets to dictate who they are to everybody," Edelman said, per Deadline. "And that is not the way that the Fourth Estate was set up. So, my issue is that in trading for access, you now have a lot of companies and filmmakers making deals with the subject, sanitizing their story and or their image, that to me, it’s like, of course, it serves them. I think the exercise is very hard. I think the danger and the problem I’m finding is that what’s the compromise? Of course, there are movies being made with subjects that have some say in how the story is told or are getting paid for the access, which to me is a no-no, and gets to be a producer of their own story. What happens that these streamers or whoever the distributors are, they get a film about whomever...It’s like they’re being served slop, and they’re getting used to the fact that this is like, oh, I guess this is like f*cking like short rib. And I’m like, it’s not. It’s slop. I think that’s the bigger issue. This film about Prince, to me, it’s a full meal. And it’s not something you can just like tear through. It’s tough at times."

Rachel Weisz to lead Netflix limited series Vladimir
The Oscar winner will lead the series based on Julia May Jonas’ novel of the same name, about a woman’s growing obsession with a colleague. Jonas, a playwright and author, is also a writer and executive producer on the series, with Kate Robin serving as showrunner and Sharon Horgan as an executive producer. Here's the official logline: "As a woman’s (Weisz) life unravels, she becomes obsessed with her captivating new colleague. Full of sexy secrets, dark humor and complex characters, Vladimir is about what happens when a woman goes hell-bent to turn her fantasies into reality.”

George Lowe, who voiced Space Ghost on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, dies at 67
The veteran voice actor died on March 2, a spokesperson confirmed to TVLine, after his longtime friend “Marvelous” Marvin Boone posted of his death on Facebook. Lowe, who began voicing Space Ghost in 1994 on Cartoon Network's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, had been suffering from health problems for years. "It’s a sad day at Williams Street,” said Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen, who was there for Space Ghost‘s launch and knew Lowe for decades. “You all knew him as Space Ghost (and all his other characters), but we knew him as himself, a true character in his own right, one that left an indelible mark on all of us at Adult Swim. Wherever you are, George, we hope you are getting enough oxygen.” Lowe also contributed his voice to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show, American Dad! and Robot Chicken.

Halyna Hutchins' family blasts Alec Baldwin's TLC reality show The Baldwins as a "shameless" attempt to portray him as a victim
The family of the late Rust cinematographer spoke out against The Baldwins via their celebrity attorney Gloria Allred. “As though it is not enough that Alec Baldwin killed their daughter, and that he was not held accountable in the criminal case because the case was dismissed with prejudice by the court before the jury could decide if he was guilty or not, now Alec Baldwin has compounded the pain of Halyna’s parents and sister by taking advantage of his increased fame and notoriety by monetizing it in a TLC reality show, where he takes on the role of victim after he shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust,” Allred said on Monday, adding: “Why is he claiming that he has PTSD? Is his reality show just a veiled attempt to create sympathy for himself with a future jury pool in our civil case? Is this just a shameless attempt to portray him as the real victim in this case?”

Ben Stiller: Barack Obama turned down a Severance voice role
Stiller explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that Keanu Reeves' role narrating Lumon’s puppet propaganda video was originally intended for the former president. "There was one person that I asked before (Reeves), and he said no: President Barack Obama." Stiller said he sent the offer to Obama via a friend who knows Obama’s lawyer. So, Stiller composed an email to him describing the request, and “two days later, I get an email back from President Barack Obama: ;Hey Ben, big fan of the show, love Season 1, can’t wait for Season 2. Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen.'"

Andy Richter: Critics praising Conan O'Brien's Oscars performance should've been watching TBS' Conan
"Incredibly proud of what Conan did with the Oscars," the longtime Conan sidekick wrote on Bluesky, "but I wasn’t surprised he’d be hilarious, especially because he was supported by a genius crew of writers who had all worked on CONAN, some going all the way back to the Late Night days...…and the reviews are in, and they are all raving. They’re all saying how funny and in control he was, how inventive and fresh the comedy was, and how silly and inspired and joyful the show was. They are all 100% correct, of course, but I couldn’t help but feel as I read the reviews……'oh, you the mean the Oscar’s was basically an extravagant version of the show that we did on TBS for 11 years, as in same host, same writers, same sensibility? The one that went off the air in 2021? Ah, jeez, if only there was something like that on tv now.'"

Kristin Cavallari returning to E! with a reality show on her podcast tour
The former star of E!'s Very Cavallari is returning to her old cable network in Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour, a docuseries that will document her relationship and lifestyle podcast Let’s Be Honest as she takes it on a four-city tour of Atlanta, Chicago, Boston and New York. Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour premieres on June 5 and will be available on Peacock.

Netflix is promoting its British drama series Toxic Town with billboards that will be hard to view if the air quality is bad
The streamer is trying to address Britain’s poor air quality problem by making some of the billboards harder to view than others, depending on the air quality levels of the city they are in. “If the air quality is ‘good’ you will see a full poster for the series. If the air quality is ‘poor’, we are sacrificing our billboards to be covered in a cloud of white smoke,” said a Netflix tweet promoting the billboards. “Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

Friends actor Steve Park recalls writing an open letter for better treatment of Asian Americans in Hollywood after racist incident on set
On the Boy Meets World rewatch podcast Pod Meets World, Park said he found the Friends set to be a "toxic" workplace when he guest-starred in Season 3 in 1997. He added that he witnessed a crew member using racist language to refer to fellow guest actor James Hong, according to EW. The experience prompted Park to write a Screen Actors Guild and write a headline-making "mission statement" calling for better treatment of Asian Americans in Hollywood. Park recounted an unnamed crew member calling Hong to set "and essentially saying, 'Where is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.'" "When I called Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke with recommended I write an article to the L.A. Times." Park said he decided to do just that, reasoning, "this is bigger than this show. This isn't the first time this has happened. But this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this was normal behavior."

Nobody Wants This adds Arian Moayed and Alex Karpovsky
Succession alum Moayed will recur on Season 2 of the Netflix series as a psychotherapist who will be a love interest for Justine Lupe's Morgan. Girls alum Karpovsky will play Big Noah, an overly confident rabbi at the temple that Adam Brody's Noah serves.

HBO and Max shows will start appearing on TNT and TBS, David Zaslav says
"We're not going to be able to fight against this decline" of linear TV, but using good library content and making it secondary home for HBO/Max will help, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO said this morning at the Morgan Stanley Investor Conference, according to The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint. ALSO: David Zaslav says not doing a new NBA deal was "a good decision" for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Bill Belichick's Hard Knocks season focusing on his North Carolina Tar Heels falls through
Hard Knocks: Offseason won't be headed to college, after all, after NFL Media couldn't come to an agreement with Belichick's new college football program. According to CBS Sports, the deal fell through over creative control. But ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio, who reported that NFL owners were unhappy with Hard Knocks covering Belichick outside the NFL, reports that the unhappiness played a role in the lack of a deal. "So if the paperwork wasn’t signed, it was just a matter of finding an impasse," says Florio. "It might have arisen during negotiations regarding who would own the footage gathered by NFL Films. Would it be NFL property, or would North Carolina retain the rights? For all anyone knows, Belichick personally wanted to have ownership of the final product. There were also rumblings that certain people close to Belichick were already inserting himself (or herself) into the process in a way that was not viewed as ideal."

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch: Fox News should be considered a "fifth broadcast network"
“It’s important to note that we don’t see Fox News anymore as just a news service,” Murdoch said of Fox News' ratings dominance at the Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Monday, per Mediaite. “We see it as one of the top five broadcast networks in the United States, even though we don’t have the same distribution that broadcast has,” flatly suggesting that Fox News should be considered in the same canon as broadcast networks.

Stephen A. Smith tells The View of a potential presidential run: "I think I can beat them all"
“I mean it when I say it. I think I can beat them all. And I have no desire whatsoever to run for office, I am not a politician, I am not qualified,” Smith said this morning, per Awful Announcing. “But I know this much, when you consider who’s one the other side and how he’s gotten away with saying very little in terms of being coherent and articulating his thoughts clearly and concisely and what have you. This is not something that he’s known to do. Yet, and still, he has owned the Republican Party since 2015.”

Has Fallen to return for Season 2
The Canal+ series based on the movie franchise will return for a second season after Season 1's Paris Has Fallen.

MSNBC taps The Washington Post's Jackie Alemany as a co-host of The Weekend
Alemany will anchor a morning version of The Weekend alongside Jonathan Capehart and Eugene Daniels.

Three Fargo alums are among 11 new additions to Noah Hawley's Alien: Earth
Richa Moorjani, Karen Aldridge and Andy Yu will reteam with Hawley. Also joining the cast are Enzo Cilenti, Max Rinehart, Amir Boutrous, Victoria Masoma, Tom Moya, Michael Smiley, Jamie Bisping and Tanapol Chuksrida.

Sam Heughan says "Thank you, Jamie" in a farewell video to Outlander
Heughan released an Instagram video Tuesday saying he had done “the last ADR," officially ending his role as James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.

George Lopez to produce a documentary on Charlie Murphy, Eddie Murphy's older brother
Darkness: The Charlie Murphy Story will tell the story of Charlie Murphy, the late comedian best known for writing for and starring in Chappelle's Show. Murphy died in 2017 from leukemia at the age of 57. Murphy also starred on BET's Comedy Get Down, where he traveled with Lopez on their 2017 stand-up comedy tour.

Peter Engel dies: The Saved by the Bell and Last Comic Standing executive producer was 88
Engel, who died today, produced more than 1,000 episodes of television through his Peter Engel Productions, including Saved by the Bell and its spinoffs, Last Comic Standing and shows from the TNBC block including California Dreams, City Guys, USA High and Hang Time. In the late 1980s, Engel was enlisted to retool the Indiana-set Good Morning Miss Bliss, which Disney Channel had canceled, and turn it into the SoCal-set Saved by the Bell.

Watch Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren in Guy Ritchie's Paramount+ MobLand trailer
Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Jasmine Jobson, Geoff Bell, Daniel Betts, Lisa Dwan and Emily Barber also star in the mob drama, premiering March 30.

Kevin Bacon hunts demons in the trailer for Amazon's The Bondsman
Bacon stars as Hub Halloran, a murdered bounty hunter, in the Prime Video series, premiering April 3 with all eight episodes dropping on the same day.

Michelle Buteau visits Rome in Survival of the Thickest’s Season 2 trailer
The comedian's Netflix comedy returns for an eight-episode second season on March 27.

Annaleigh Ashford has to deal with her Dennis Quaid as her serial killer dad in the trailer for Happy Face
The Paramount+ series based on "the Happy Face Killer" premieres with two episodes on March 20.

OWN releases the trailer for The Never Ever Mets Season 2
The dating reality show is back with seven new couples on April 4.

Family Legacy gets a Paramount+ Season 2 premiere date and trailer
The reality show that follows the children of legendary artists returns March 25.aa

Leaving Neverland 2 drops its trailer
Channel 4 has released a 40-second trailer for Dan Reed's followup documentary to HBO's Leaving Neverland on the Michael Jackson child sex abuse scandal. Leaving Neverland 2 will be available on YouTube in the U.S.