Nickelodeon renews SpongeBob SquarePants and The Patrick Star Show / David Ellison pledges to respect 60 Minutes' editorial independence / Stranger Things: The First Shadow to close
PLUS: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder renewed for an already-filmed third and final season.
Nickelodeon orders more seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants and The Patrick Star Show
SpongeBob has been renewed for Seasons 18 and 19, while spinoff The Patrick Star Show has been picked up for Seasons 6 and 7. Each show’s total order is for 26 half-hour episodes. “All four new seasons are currently in production. Season 18 of SpongeBob SquarePants and Season 6 of The Patrick Star Show are scheduled to premiere on Nickelodeon in Q4 2026, with Season 19 of SpongeBob and Season 7 of Patrick Star slated for 2027,” says Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva, adding: “The pickups and the cancellations fit into the programming shift after the Paramount-Skydance merger that prioritizes top franchises across the Paramount cable brands consolidated into a TV Media division overseen by Chair George Cheeks. He signaled the strategy in a memo last November that named both SpongeBob and PAW Patrol while hinting at a slimming down the roster of cable series.”
60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl: Paramount CEO David Ellison promised to respect our editorial independence
Stahl told The New York Times today that Ellison had pledged to respect 60 Minutes’ editorial independence in a call he made to her on Sunday. It was, says The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, “one of the first signs that Mr. Ellison was personally taking steps to calm the turmoil at the news network after the firing of the show’s leadership and several of its star correspondents. The overhaul, overseen by Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, was met with a rebuke from Scott Pelley, a star correspondent at 60 Minutes who has since been fired. Ms. Stahl told the news program’s staff about Mr. Ellison’s call during a champagne toast she held at the 60 Minutes offices in Midtown Manhattan on Monday in an attempt to shore up morale at the program. She, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, the remaining stars of the program, had agonized about whether to stay in the aftermath of the staff changes and Mr. Pelley’s firing. But in a letter to the show’s staff Friday, they concluded that they had to remain at the show because they didn’t ‘want to see 60 Minutes die.’” As Stahl explained to The Times: “My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors. Maybe ‘us’ with a twinge of survivor’s guilt.” Yet , as The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr tweeted last Friday: “David Ellison had personally promised editorial independence to the 60 Minutes team upon taking over the company last summer, and three prominent correspondents obviously have alleged that didn’t happen...”
Paramount is seeking a business-side counterpart for Bari Weiss: Does this mean she’ll also run CNN?
“Paramount has held preliminary conversations with several candidates for a business-side counterpart to CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, according to two sources familiar with the network’s inner workings,” reports Axios’ Sara Fischer and Mike Allen. “Why it matters: The search implies that if Paramount Skydance’s deal with Warner Bros. Discovery goes through, Weiss would oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN. Her potential counterpart would manage business operations across both companies.” They add: “Names under consideration include NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde, CNN Worldwide CEO Mark Thompson and former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim. Paramount had also considered Ben Sherwood, the Daily Beast’s CEO and former ABC News president, and David Rhodes, former CBS News president and current Sky News executive chairman, according to a source familiar with the search.” According to Variety’s Brian Steinberg, the new executive “would not likely enjoy any editorial or creative control greater than Weiss.”
Stranger Things: The First Shadow to end its runs on Broadway and the London stage
The stage adaptation of its biggest hit series will conclude its Broadway run in January and its London West End run in December. “The special effects-filled play, produced by Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions, opened on Broadway in April 2025, after premiering in London in 2023,” says The Hollywood Reporter’s Caitlin Hustin. “But it hasn’t been the same hit in the U.S. as the streaming series. The show, which is a prequel to the Netflix show, drew its highest grosses around the release of the show’s last season in late 2025 (which also coincided with the industry’s lucrative holiday season), reaching a Christmas Week high of $2.5 million. In recent weeks, however, the show has been playing around 60 to 70 percent capacity, and brought in $859,339 last week. The play, which has a cast of more than 30 and is filled with illusions and special effects, suggesting a high weekly running cost, has not announced that it has recouped.”
Joanne Froggatt and Amy Forsyth board MGM+’s The Magnificent Seven
MobLand and Downton Abbey vet Froggatt and The Gilded Age’s Forsyth are the latest additions to TV Western remake. Froggatt will play Harriet Talbot, “who is sharp, unflinching, and unwilling to back down.” Forsyth will play Katie “Deadeye” Dalton, who is “wry, sarcastic, and emotionally guarded.” They join Matt Dillon as Chris Adams, Will Patton as Cyrus T. Clemons, Michael Ealy as Vin Tanner, and Danny Pino as Santiago “Santi” Vega.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder renewed for an already-filmed third and final season
The Emma Myers-led British mystery series has already wrapped production on its four-episode Season 3, covering the third and final book in Holly Jackson’s book series. Season 3 will premiere on Netflix in 2027. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder recently returned for its six-episode Season 2 on May 27. “I’m very happy that we get to bring everyone Season 3 of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” Myers said in a statement. “Thank you so much to everyone who has given this show love and support throughout! This has truly been an incredible experience and Pip will be a character I will never forget. Book 3 is my favorite of all the books, so I’m very excited to show everyone what we’ve done. Get ready for a crazy time!”
Lesley Manville to follow Sunday’s Tony win by joining Brett Goldstein’s Amazon comedy Escorted
The British actress, who won a Tony Sunday for best lead actress in a play for Oedipus, is returning to Amazon Prime Video, where she also stars in Citadel. In Escorted, Goldstein plays Denny, a divorced dad in Manhattan who accidentally becomes a male escort. Manville will play Terri, Denny’s mother and a “charisma bomb” cabaret singer. Her character is a force of nature with a voice to match.
Big Mistakes promotes Elizabeth Perkins to series regular
After recurring in Season 1, Perkins will join the Dan Levy-Rachel Sennott Netflix crime comedy full-time in Season 2.
ESPN and Pat McAfee are in talks for a new deal that could be worth up to $65 million a year
“The deal is not yet completed, and if an agreement can be reached, it could be a sliding scale based on McAfee’s new responsibilities,” reports The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand of The Pat McAfee Show host. “McAfee, already omnipresent, could be on the air even more, with a bigger role in NFL coverage a possibility, according to the sources. The two sides are currently between $60 to 65 million per year, according to the sources, who were granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. McAfee, 39, has two years remaining on his current contract, which approaches the $30 million mark per year between his production agreement for his daily show, his College Gameday panelist role and his various appearances on other programs, according to the sources. The makeup of the new deal would be similar in structure. ESPN has viewed the arrangement as a production contract and a separate ‘talent’ agreement, differentiating it from the deals with most of its on-air personalities.”
Girl Meets World stars Sabrina Carpenter and Rowan Blanchard cried at table read because the spinoff’s creator was “horrible” to them
Boy Meets World alums Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong’s new documentary Doc Meets World, which premiered last weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, reveals creator Michael Jacobs’ allegedly “horrible” behavior. According to Variety, producer Frank Pace recalls: “Michael was fun for me to work with because he was a challenge. He was a nightmare for me to work with because he was a challenge. Same reason.” Pace then recounts the “never to be forgotten table read” at the start of Girl Meets World. Fishel says she blocked it out, as Pace reminds her what allegedly happened: “You blocked it out because Michael was horrible. He just reamed all the young cast. He didn’t think they upheld the tradition of Boy Meets World and Rowan was crying, and Sabrina was crying.”
How three Oscar winners came up with Pink’s Tony Awards opening number in three days
For Oscar-winning songwriters Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Mark Sonnenblick, coming up with the lyrics to that opener was a game of, “What’s the next unhinged place your Broadway brain can go to?” It began with “Lady Marmalade,” a song that was covered by Pink herself for the Moulin Rouge film soundtrack. Pasek and Paul also worked on last year’s opener, featuring host Cynthia Erivo. Together, the three wrote fast and furious, with the hope that Pink, the Tony Awards, and everyone involved would say yes to lines such as “Squibby Squibby Squibby June” and “Gitchie gitchie Laurie Metcalf.” Or having Megan Thee Stallion entering the stage carried by two muscular dancers and saying, while emphasizing her derrière: “They were just two strangers carrying some cake.” “We were trying to not embarrass ourselves and try to make Pink happy and proud,” says Paul. We were reverse engineering from all of Alecia (Beth Moore-Hart, Pink’s civilian name), all of Pink’s goals, the Tonys team, and Sarah O’Gleby (who choreographed and staged and produced the opening number) and the producers on the show. Pink, I feel like her list of ambitions were, ‘I want to not take myself seriously. I want to show that I love this community, and I want to celebrate everybody who’s worked so hard this season, and have a really inclusive big old Broadway-style opening number.’ And we knew that by the end of it, the cast of every show would end up on stage. We knew that was the premise of this, and we worked from there.” ALSO: Tonys opener came together Sunday morning, and they rehearsed it three times before the ceremony.
Michaela Watkins boards Amazon’s The Probability of Miracles
The former Casual star, Georgia Acken and Ema Inês are the latest additions to the series adaptation of the novel of the same name by Wendy Wunder.
Teyana Taylor to be honored as Icon of the Year at the 2026 BET Awards
The One Battle After Another star will be honored at the BET Awards ceremony on June 28.
Emmy Rossum and Liz Meriwether’s Furious crime drama gets a Hulu premiere date
New Girl creator Meriwether’s Hulu series that is loosely based on the 1987 film Black Widow follows an FBI agent (Rossum) hunting a female serial killer (Lola Petticrew). “What would lead a woman to become a serial killer?” Meriwether recalls thinking. “What would have had to have happened in her life? And then, similarly, Who is the woman chasing her? What’s going on in her head?” Rossum tells EW that she was similarly drawn to the original film’s premise and the unlikely connection between its two seemingly-opposed protagonists. “I think it’s interesting to have a crime thriller where the two female superpowers in the dual lead roles are actually more similar than they are different,” says Rossum, who previously worked with Black Widow star Theresa Russell when she was 12 years old.
Your Friends & Neighbors Season 3 adds Rick Cosnett, Sydney Lemmon, Mitchell Hoog and Gillian Zinser
The four join previously announced new Season 3 cast members Joshua Jackson and Michelle Monaghan. Their characters are being kept under wraps.
Conan O’Brien to star in training videos for cybersecurity A.I. firm Adaptive Security
According to Variety, Conan already filmed the 15-part training series exploring the various cyber threats emerging in the A.I. age, from voice cloning and impersonations to the ever-present threats like phishing and even physical safety. The series was filmed in the spring with scripts co-written by staffers at Conan’s Team Coco production company and Adaptive Security.
Andy Cohen would be all for casting a transgender Real Housewives star — on one condition
“I think if there was a trans housewife who was friends with other housewives, that would be the way,” Cohen said at the Newport Beach TV Festival. “You wouldn’t want it to be stunt. You wouldn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, you know, let’s cast into this.” If someone was friends with that person, and that would be great. I have no idea what franchise that would be.’”
Elle Woods goes from L.A. It girl to Seattle outcast in Amazon’s Elle trailer
The Amazon Prime Video Legally Blonde prequel series follows “Elle Woods before she was a fish-out-of-water at Harvard,” according to the official logline. “We meet her in 1995 as a fish in the tumultuous waters of high school where she encounters tricky friendships, forbidden romance and questionable fashion choices. Through it all, Elle uses her family as a touchstone, and forms an even tighter bond to her mother, proving that they can get through anything life throws their way as long as they have each other. With each challenge she faces, Elle grows closer to the Elle Woods we know and love today.”
Apple TV unveils the trailer for Trying Season 5
The British relationship comedy returns for its fifth and final season on July 8.
Nat Geo teases Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston
The Loki alum will “tell the story of Pompeii like you’ve never seen before” in the upcoming docuseries.