Padma Lakshmi is poised to host a CBS cooking competition / The Office spinoff adds 3 / Suits: L.A. and the Community movie score California tax credits

PLUS: Jon Bernthal and Pablo Schreiber join Tessa Thompson on Netflix thriller His & Hers.

Padma Lakshmi is poised to host a CBS cooking competition
The former Top Chef host could become the "Gordon Ramsay" of CBS. The network has struck a deal for a cooking competition series from Lakshmi and former NBC Universal content chief Susan Rovner, who previously collaborated on Top Chef, according to Deadline. Lakshmi will host and executive produce the potential series. "There are few details about the format itself, but the Paramount-owned network has been looking for its own series to rival the likes of Top Chef and MasterChef," says Deadline's Peter White. In June, CBS Entertainment Amy Reisenbach told Deadline that she wanted to find CBS' own Gordon Ramsay, who has numerous culinary-themed shows on Fox. “We have definitely talked about trying to find our version of a cooking show. I’m personally a big fan of them," said Reisenbach.

Jon Bernthal and Pablo Schreiber join Tessa Thompson on Netflix thriller His & Hers
Bernthal will play a detective and Schreiber will play a TV news cameraman in the Atlanta-set six-episode limited series that has Thompson playing a woman who "lives in haunting reclusivity and is fading away from her friends and career as a journalist," per Deadline. "But when she overhears about a murder in Dahlonega – the sleepy town where she grew up – she is snapped back to life, pouncing on the case and searching for answers. Detective Jack Harper (Bernthal) is strangely suspicious of her involvement, chasing her into the crosshairs of his own investigation. There are two sides to every story, his and hers, which means someone is always lying."

The Office spinoff adds Melvin Gregg, Chelsea Frei and Ramona Young
Snowfall and American Vandal alum Gregg, The Cleaning Lady and Poker Face vet Frei and former Never Have I Ever and DC's Legends of Tomorrow star Young join Domhnall Gleeson and Sabrina Impacciatore on Peacock's The Office follow-up series from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman. Their roles haven't been revealed. But their castings were first revealed by The Palisades-Post, as they have been shadowing reporters from that local paper.

Paramount+ casts the title role for its JonBenét Ramsey limited series, plus Garrett Hedlund, Alison Pill and Owen Teague
Emily Mitchell, an 8-year-old Canadian actress who has guested on Ghosts and What We Do in the Shadows, will play JonBenét Ramsey, the child beauty queen who was mysteriously killed at age 6 in 1996. Hedlund, Pill and Teague join previously cast Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen JonBenét’s parents, Patsy and John Ramsey, plus Shea Whigham and Will Patton.

Disney to make tonight's ABC News' Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate available to DirecTV customers amid blackout
"Although we have yet to reach an agreement, we are providing a three-hour feed of ABC News coverage to all impacted DirecTV customers at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history," Disney said in a statement. "We remain at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control.” UPDATE: DirecTV rejected Disney’s offer. ALSO: Disney-DirecTV dispute may take a while to resolve since an agreement wasn't reached before Monday Night Football's premiere.

Jack Huston joins Amazon's live-action Spider-Noir series
Huston joins series lead Nicolas Cage, as well as fellow series regulars Brendan Gleeson, Lamorne Morris, Abraham Popoola and Li Jun Li. Details of his character are being kept under wraps.

Rachel Sennott's HBO comedy pilot picked up to series
Sennott executive produces and stars in the untitled series about a codependent friend group that reunites, navigating how the time apart, ambition, and new relationships have changed them. "I’m going to come up with a title soon I promise!” Sennott said in a statement reacting to the pickup.

Suits: L.A. and the Community — The Movie score California tax credits
Suits: LA will actually film in Los Angeles after shooting its pilot in Vancouver, Canada thanks to $12 million in tax credits. Community — The Movie is also getting around $12 million in tax credits.

How many viewers will watch tonight's Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate?
"It is hard to pinpoint how many Americans will tune in Tuesday night to watch the first and only scheduled debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump," says The New York Times' Michael R. Grynbaum. "But here’s an educated guess. First of all, this is not the Super Bowl. The N.F.L. championship game routinely draws north of 110 million viewers, essentially the high-water mark of live televised events. For the non-sporting crowd, the audience of 106 million people who watched the M*A*S*H finale in 1983 is nearly impossible to achieve in the era of smartphones and the internet. But the Seinfeld finale? Not impossible. The record for a presidential debate is 84 million viewers, for the first meeting in 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump. So Tuesday’s bout between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump — which will be simulcast on nearly every major network — could theoretically draw an audience akin to that of the final episodes of Seinfeld (76.3 million) and Cheers (80 million). Mr. Trump’s presence alone suggests a large audience will tune in: He has participated in three of the four most-watched general-election debates since 1976."

Elon Musk recalls pitching SNL on going full-frontal for his monologue
"One of the things that I think everybody has been sort of wondering this whole time is Saturday Night Live actually live," Musk said Monday at the All In conference of his controversial May 2021 hosting stint. "Like live live live. Or do they have a delay just in case there's a wardrobe malfunction or something like that...What's really going on? There's a way to test this." Musk said he pitched his idea to the SNL writers via Zoom. "The way we're going to do this is I'm going to take my c*ck out," he said to laughter. "And if you see my c*ck, you know it's true. And if you don't, it's been a lie. All these years. We're going to bust them right now." Musk added that he and his team came up with ideas before realizing that's not how SNL works. Musk said he later pitched the idea of bringing a baby rooster on stage, and saying: "This is my tiny c*ck."

Amazon says The Rings of Power's Season 2 has reached 40 million viewers globally in 11 days
"The company did not make clear, however, how much of the season, or an episode, those 40 million people viewed. (Amazon’s figure is also different from the increasingly adopted standard of streaming views, which divides total viewing time by running time.)," says The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd. "Amazon also noted Rings of Power is a Top 5 all-time season for Prime Video (compared to the first 11 days of other shows), and has been No. 1 for the service since its return." As Hibberd notes, the third-party streaming viewership service Samba TV has found that viewership for Season 2 has fallen from Season 1.

Larry David announces a nationwide tour, calling it "a total waste of your time"
“There are some tickets going on sale for this thing I’m doing," David said on Instagram. "It’s really nothing. It’ll be a total waste of your time. There’s not that many things to do at night. So, I guess if you have nothing to do… but, you could consider bowling.” “A Conversation With Larry David” will visit Denver (with Peyton Manning), San Francisco, Florida, Philadelphia, Austin, Portland, Chicago and more cities.

George R.R. Martin doesn't mention House of the Dragon in his latest blog update, but admits his moods "swing between fury and despair"
Five days after quickly deleting a post bashing House of the Dragon, Martin returned to his "not a blog" Monday detailing his busy summer. "Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more," he wrote. "My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either."

Lea Thompson recalls "intense" experience with Dancing with the Stars partner Artem Chigvintsev
“It was hard working with him because it was his first year and it was a big deal to him,” Thompson told Cheryl Burke on the her iHeart podcast Sex, Lies and Spray Tans, per EW “He was so intense. It was so much more important to him than to me, honestly. And so that made me really nervous, it made me crazy after a while.” Thompson danced with Chigvintsev, who was recently arrested on domestic violence charges, during his first season on Dancing with the Stars in 2014.

Benjamin Wainwright to lead Masterpiece's Maigret detective series
The Belgravia: The Next Chapter star will play streetwise Parisian Chief Inspector Jules Maigret and Stefanie Martini will take on the role of Madame Louise Maigret in the TV adaptation of Georges Simenon’s bestselling detective novels Maigret.

Today’s Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager admit they are annoyed with the lack of Daytime Emmy recognition
“It’s okay. We didn’t win it again, ugh," Kotb said on this morning's show.

Slate's Slow Burn podcast to explore the early 2000s rise of Fox News
Watch the trailer for the 10th season of the acclaimed podcast, which "takes you back to a crucial inflection point in American history: the moment between 2000 and 2004 when Fox News first surged to power and a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it. You’ll hear from the hosts, reporters, and producers who built Fox News, many who’ve never spoken publicly.”

Amazon is adding A.I.-powered features to Thursday Night Football
The special features, which will be unveiled with the season premiere on Thursday, will help viewers predict game play.

Netflix renews Dinner Time Live with David Chang for a holiday-themed Season 2
Season 2's nine episodes will roll out weekly beginning Oct. 8. To me, the holidays are all about eating and drinking too much with your loved ones," Chang said in a statement. "Thankfully, so is Dinner Time Live. I can’t wait to show love to our guests this season by cooking holiday-themed menus, serving them way too much food, and tossing in a few surprises along the way.”

See the first image of Amazon’s Pop Culture Jeopardy! set
The Colin Jost-hosted game show will feature teams of three going against each other, resulting in bigger lecterns.

Check out Patrick Schwarzenegger as Tim Tebow on American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez
"Obviously, this project and this series is about Aaron. It's really his story. Tebow is just a little sliver of Aaron's life," Schwarzenegger says of playing the Heisman winner, who was teammates at the University of Florida with Hernandez.