Ted Lasso’s Season 4 premiere is the biggest launch in Apple TV history / Former All That star Christy Knowings dies / Arizona Hot reality show is coming to Netflix
PLUS: HBO Max passes on Milo Ventimiglia-led The Pitt-inspired cop drama pilot American Blue.
Ted Lasso’s Season 4 premiere is the biggest launch in Apple TV history
Nielsen reports last week’s Season 4 premiere pulled in 296.6 viewing minutes on Aug. 4 and 5. “That total, measured by Nielsen, makes the episode the biggest launch in the history of Apple TV, outpacing all previous seasons of Ted Lasso in addition to buzzy titles like Severance and Pluribus,” says Variety’s Selome Hailu. “Nielsen also reports that Ted Lasso Season 4 was the most-streamed program in the U.S. on Aug. 5 alone, with more than 200 million minutes watched that day. The Ted Lasso Season 4 premiere also made a solid showing in terms of estimated views — a metric used by streamers like Netflix to account for differences in length between programs — reaching 7.1 million. (That statistic was calculated by dividing the total number of time the episode was streamed by its 42-minute runtime.)”
HBO Max passes on Milo Ventimiglia-led The Pitt-inspired cop drama pilot American Blue
American Blue is not moving forward at HBO Max after it was developed to be the police procedural version of The Pitt, with 15+ episodes, a modest budget and a yearly release schedule. Warner Bros. TV will shop American Blue elsewhere. “Written by Jeremy Carver and directed by David Ayer, American Blue centers on native son Brian ‘Milk’ Milkovich (Ventimiglia) who returns to his hometown of Joliet, Illinois, to rescue a beleaguered police force while seeking redemption of his own,” according to Deadline. HBO Max is developing another show under The Pitt model: Family drama How to Survive Without Me, starring Ray Romano, Kaley Cuoco and Joshua Jackson. That show “has been looking good and appears poised to get a series pickup,” reports Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva.
Former Nickelodeon All That star Christy Knowings dies at 46
TMZ reports Knowings died on Tuesday after suffering an asthma attack last Friday that left her hospitalized with brain damage. “We’re told Christy remained on life support through Tuesday, when her family made the difficult decision to take her off it. She died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles-area hospital,” TMZ reports. After a guest role on New York Undercover at age 14, Knowings made her debut on Nickelodeon’s All That at age 17 in 1997 after appearing in And Now This, a Rosie O’Donnell sketch-comedy special produced by the network. Knowings spent three seasons, through 2000, on All That playing several characters, including Penny Lane and Jessica on the recurring “Whateverrr!!!” sketch with Amanda Bynes. Knowings went on to recur on three episodes of Sesame Street.
Peter Capaldi becomes the third former Doctor Who lead to join Only Murders in the Building Season 6
Capaldi will recur on the Hulu mystery comedy’s sixth season, joining fellow former Doctor Who leads David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker.
Amy Sedaris joins Ben Stiller-Benicio Del Toro Apple TV comedy Protective Custody
Details of Sedaris’ character are being kept under wraps. In Protective Custody, “a disgraced financier (Stiller) accused of massive fraud who is thrown into protective custody, where he must navigate prison politics, salvage his reputation, and confront the consequences of his actions while awaiting trial,” according to the official logline.
Emilia Jones to star in Netflix’s The Retrievals from Maid and Sirens creator Molly Smith Metzer
Inspired by the Peabody-winning New York Times podcast of the same name by Susan Burton, The Retrievals follows an unlikely community of IVF patients who come together to crusade against Yale University after they are operated on without anesthesia–because a nurse stole their fentanyl,” per Deadline. “Jones will play Gabby Clemente, a New Haven bartender and student teacher whose life is upended by her traumatic egg retrieval surgery. Upon discovering that a nurse at the clinic was stealing vast amounts of fentanyl, Gabby seeks out other victims and leads a groundbreaking legal battle against Yale University.”
American Horror Story Season 13 will consist of 13 half-hour episodes, teaser reveals
FX announced AHS: 13, featuring the return of Jessica Lange, will premiere with three episodes on Thursday, Sept. 24, followed by three episodes on Oct. 1, two episodes on Oct. 8, two on Oct. 15, two on Oct. 22 and the 13th and final episode on Oct. 29.
David Letterman to interview Jimmy Kimmel, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Alex Honnold for My Next Guest Needs No Introduction
They’ll appear on Season 7 of Letterman’s Netflix long-form interview series, which returns later this year.
Arizona Hot reality show is coming to Netflix
The ensemble reality show tentatively titled Arizona Hot follows a friend group in Arizona of ambitious twenty-somethings fresh out of college as they navigate careers, friendships, romances, and rivalries. Arizona Hot comes from Bright Spot Content, the production company behind TLC’s Little People Big World, Amazon’s Wear Whatever The F You Want and Hulu’s Hotties.
Trump-led Kennedy Center board finds a new way to restore President Trump’s name
The board is “aggressively testing a federal judge’s order,” reports The New York Times’ Julia Jacobs. “According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s name would read: ‘Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,’” reports Jacobs. “The board’s decision, which directs officials to act by ‘all legal means,’ came shortly after it voted to move forward with Mr. Trump’s plan to shutter the building for renovations. The president’s name was added to the building last year, but the judge ordered the letters taken down, finding that only Congress had the authority to change the institution’s name. The center removed Mr. Trump’s name in June but is appealing the ruling. The move appeared to be a creative workaround to a provision in the federal law governing the Kennedy Center that says ‘no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas.’”
Netflix is doubling down on Los Angeles amid Paramount’s threat to leave California
Will Ferrell’s The Hawk was among 46 productions Netflix says it filmed in Los Angeles last year, with a similar number planned for this year. Netflix says L.A. remains a vital filming hub, even as on-location film shoots has dropped 13% in the second quarter. “L.A. is our home. … Our commitment is there to the city and state, and that, for me, is about showing up consistently with productions every year,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria tells the Los Angeles Times.
Paramount+ Nicole Kidman-Elle Fanning legal drama Discretion adds Stephen James and Colton Ryan
The casting marks a reunion for Fanning and Ryan, who previously starred together in the Hulu limited series The Girl From Plainville. Both will appear in series regular roles. James will play Logan, described as “a sharp corporate associate who becomes a mentor to (Fanning’s) Lenny.” Ryan will play Boone, said to be “Lenny’s ex-boyfriend, a recovering addict from an affluent Dallas family, now nine months sober living at a halfway house while quietly trying to rebuild his life.”
Kelly Ripa explains why she required gum graft surgery: “I brush my teeth too much”
“I’m an over-brusher,” Ripa said on the latest episode of her Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa, which was recorded before the surgery, according to The Hollywood Reporter “I brush my teeth too much. It’s a good bad habit. But I’ve caused gum recession down here specifically, and so they have gotta regum my gums,” Ripa told her guest, Survival of the Thickest star Michelle Buteau. The surgery has sidelined Ripa from Live with Kelly and Mark for several weeks.
Heated Rivalry Season 2 adds five, including Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire
Edvin Ryding, Robert Naylor, Sabrina Jalees and Priyanka are also joining the second season of Crave’s gay hockey series.
Off Campus casts Shay Rudolph as Dean Di Laurentis’ sister
Rudolph will appear in a Season 2 guest role as Summer Di Laurentis.
PBS renews environmental docuseries Hope in the Water for Season 2, featuring Andrew Zimmern, Kristen Kish and Shailene Woodley
The docuseries from David E. Kelley and Zimmern, which premiered in 2024 and featured Woodlley, “follows the people on the front lines of one of the most urgent challenges of our time: feeding a planet of over 8 billion people while supporting the freshwater systems and oceans that make life possible,” per the official logline.
Keanu Reeves’ Hooligans motorcycle racing docuseries earns a Season 2 renewal at Samsung TV Plus
The renewal news comes ahead of the Sunday’s Season 1 finale of Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project with Keanu Reeves & Gard Hollinger.
Task rounds out its Season 2 cast
Stephanie Sigman, Alaide, Rocío Guzmán and Regina Nava have been cast in recurring roles on the HBO drama.
Mariska Hargitay was baffled at being asked to host the Emmys: “I’m not a comedian, and it’s historically comedians”
The Law & Order: SVU star said on Today she initially thought she was getting fired when she got a call backstage at her play Every Brilliant Thing from NBC Universal Group chairwoman Pearlena Igbokwe. “She asked me about it, and at first, I thought she was kidding,” Hargitay recalled, per People. “I actually thought she was kidding. It took me a while to process it.” She said she “couldn’t understand” why she had been offered the hosting gig, “because I thought, ‘I’m not a comedian, and it’s historically comedians.’ It was probably the farthest thing from my mind that I thought she was gonna say, so I actually was kind of shocked. But I said, ‘Listen, I’m about to go on (stage). Let me think about it.’” Hargitay added: “I thought about it over the weekend, and then I started going, ‘Why not?’ which is where I kind of am in my life.”
Matthew McConaughey says he turned down playing Joel on The Last of Us: “ It wasn’t for me at the time”
“I wasn’t really acting at that point,” the Oscar winner said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast of the role that went to Pedro Pascal, according to Variety. “That was when I was doing more writing and looking at leadership roles in life. It was really good. I was excited. Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not a huge TV watcher, we pulled off a real coup with True Detective at a time when series were not something that actors like myself or Woody Harrelson would hop over and go do. That one succeeded in a real royal fashion. Last of Us was really good but it wasn’t for me at the time.”
MobLand releases Season 2 trailer following the resolution over Tom Hardy’s future on the Paramount+ crime drama series
Hardy, who is expected to return for Season 3 after clashing with producers, reteams with Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren on the British Paramount+ crime drama. MobLand Season 2 premieres Sept. 18.