Uma Thurman joins Dexter: Resurrection / Abbott Elementary renewed for Season 5 / The Lincoln Lawyer renewed for Season 4
PLUS: ESPN defends President Trump’s brief speech during halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship.
Uma Thurman joins Dexter: Resurrection
The Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress will star opposite Michael C. Hall in the Dexter follow-up series. "On Dexter: Resurrection, Thurman will play Charley, the Head of Security for mysterious billionaire Leon Prater," according to Deadline. "A former Special Ops officer, Charley worked various high-level private security jobs before taking on her position as the resourceful and meticulous right-hand woman for Prater." Thurman is returning to Showtime after starring in 2022's Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber. Her most recent TV roles also include Suspicion and Chambers.
Abbott Elementary renewed for Season 5
ABC has picked up the acclaimed Emmy-winning sitcom weeks after hitting a peak with 8.05 million viewers for its crossover with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
The Lincoln Lawyer renewed for Season 4, with Neve Campbell returning full-time
Production on the 10-episode Season 4 of the Netflix legal drama starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is expected to begin next month. After appearing in just two episodes of Season 3 as a guest-star, Campbell will be in all episodes of Season 4. Becki Newton, Angus Sampson and Jazz Raycole are also coming back.
Trevor Noah to host the Grammys for the 5th consecutive year
The former Daily Show host, who began his Grammy-hosting stint in 2021, will return for the 67th annual Grammy Awards on CBS on Sunday, Feb. 2.
ESPN defends President Trump’s brief speech during halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship
The cable network heard many complaints after Trump unexpectedly appeared on ESPN last night, hours after his second Inauguration. In a statement, ESPN justified its decision by saying: "With Donald Trump’s Inauguration occurring on the day of the CFP National Championship, it makes sense to include a message from the President, a practice that occurs regularly during major sporting events – including earlier this month from President Biden before the Sugar Bowl.” As Awful Announcing's Drew Lerner argues, "it’s a practice that seems a bit antiquated no matter which president is shown or what party they represent. It’s undeniable that the past decade has been one of the most polarized times in American politics. Many people view sports as an escape from the “real world” in which politics occupies. Given how divided the country is at this moment in time, it’d be wise for any sports network to steer clear of politics, lest you risk upsetting a substantial portion of your audience. President Trump’s message wasn’t exactly apolitical either. It’d be one thing if President Trump simply congratulated the two teams for making the National Championship game and wished them good luck. Instead, he got political, saying, 'In recent years our people have suffered greatly.'"
Late-night hosts react to President Trump's second inauguration
“Today at noon Eastern, our long, national nightmare was officially sworn in another time, a second time,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, per The Hollywood Reporter. In his The Late Show monologue, Stephen Colbert said: “If you don’t like the jokes tonight, it’s not our fault — the jokes wrote them. Where do you begin? Off we go, first of all. How do you make sense of today? How did we get here?” Calling Trump's inauguration “ominous and weird," Late Night’s Seth Meyers concluded: “This isn’t going to be like Trump’s first term, it’s going to be worse.” On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart said Trump’s rambling speech “followed the American tradition of a passive-aggressive transfer of power – the incoming president gets to completely shit on the outgoing president, in front of that president and hopefully his spouse”.
ALSO:
Amy Landecker, star of Amazon Prime Video’s Transparent, lashes out at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for attending President Trump's inauguration
“So, the guy who came to all the Transparent premieres and parties and had the cast to his home and told us how important the show was and that it was art, the guy who built his Prime Video with a show about gender and Jewish identity… That guy who was also married to this lovely woman who came to the Golden Globes without glam, just a beautiful, kind, smart woman…. That guy has now become a roided out monster who supports an administration committed to the annihilation of the trans community,” Landecker wrote on Instagram.
The Righteous Gemstones books Megan Mullally and Seann William Scott as guest-stars
Mullally will guest in Season 4 as Lori Milsap, a long-time friend of the Gemstone family who used to write music and sing with Aimee-Leigh. Scott will play Corey Milsap, Lori’s son who has been a family friend of the Gemstone kids for his entire life.
Rachel Sennott and Bowen Yang to announce the Oscar nominations on Thursday
The Oscar nominations will be revealed live on Good Morning America and online at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Severance's disorienting Adam Scott Season 2 opening scene took four to five months to film
“We don’t like to use visual effects too much in the show in terms of creating backgrounds and environments,” executive producer Ben Stiller says in a Vanity Fair video with Scott breaking down how the unprecedented scene filmed. “But we needed to for this shot because of the bolt arm taking up all the space.” ALSO: Severance Season 1 reportedly created $200 million in value for Apple TV+.
Minnie Driver, James Nesbitt, Ruth Jones and Alfred Enoch join Harlan Coben's Netflix series Run Away
Lucian Msamati, Jon Pointing, Ellie de Lange, Adrian Greensmith, Ellie Henry, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Annette Badland, Ingrid Oliver, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Finty Williams, Joe McGann and Amy Gledhill will also star in the eight-episode series that "follows Simon (Nesbitt), whose life falls apart when his daughter Paige (de Lange) runs away. When he finds her, strung out on drugs in a city park, she isn’t alone. An argument escalates into shocking violence, and Simon loses his little girl all over again." Per the logline, “his search to find her will take him into a dangerous underworld, revealing deep secrets that could tear his family apart forever.”
Trey Kennedy lands a Hulu comedy special
The comedian’s family-friendly standup special Grow Up, filmed in Salt Lake City, premiering Jan. 24, “takes audiences on a hilarious journey through the ups and downs of adulthood.”
Bridgerton will host a fan event featuring new leading couple Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha
The Valentine's Day event, which “invites fans to join us for a day brimming with romance and merriment," will be streamed live on Tudum.com and Shondaland.com.
Will Natalie Portman reprise her Padmé Amidala Star Wars character on Ahsoka?
Podcast host Kristian Harloff claimed the Oscar winner was close to inking a deal to appear in Season 2 of the Disney+ series.
Rhona Mitra joins Joel Kinnaman on TNT's Debriefing the President
The former The Practice and The Last Ship star will play a CIA analyst opposite Kinnaman’s real-life CIA analyst John Nixon in the four-hour miniseries based on true events.
Guy Fieri’s Tournament of Champions sets a Season 6 premiere date
The Food Network reality competition returns March 2.
Hot Bench is saying goodbye to Michael Corriero, its longest-serving judge
The retiring Corriero's co-judges Rachel Juarez and Yodit Tewolde will be joined by a new judge when the syndicated court show moves production from Los Angeles to Connecticut.
Colin Jost looked back at his 2002 The Weakest Link appearance
“I was extremely nervous,” Jost told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show of competing on the NBC game show. “It was in Los Angeles — I had never been to Los Angeles before. I’d never been on any sort of show and I was there and… I wouldn’t say that I did great on the show.” Jost took home $5,000. ALSO: Colin Jost says wife Scarlett Johansson "genuinely so shocked" over SNL Christmas joke swap roasting.
Adam Brody, Nick Offerman and James Harden to star in a mustache-themed Pringles Super Bowl ads
On Super Bowl Sunday, they'll pay tribute to brand mascot Mr. P’s iconic handlebar mustache.
Mindy Kaling's Kate Hudson-led Netflix basketball comedy Running Point unveils first-look images and a premiere date
Hudson is the president of a fictitious NBA team in the comedy co-starring Brenda Song, Max Greenfield, Drew Tarver, Chet Hanks and Jay Ellis. Running Point premieres Feb. 27.
Check out the first look at Broadway's Smash adaptation
According to Variety, the Smash Broadway musical "retains the other recognizable elements from the TV show, like messy backstage drama that threatens opening night and plenty of rousing musical numbers — though producers have teased the stage adaptation will 'depart liberally from the series.'"
PBS unveils the trailer for Masterpiece's Miss Austin
Bodyguard's Keeley Hawes and Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie star in the miniseries premiering May 4. "An all-new series takes a literary mystery – Cassandra Austen notoriously burning her famous sister Jane’s letters – and reimagines it as a fascinating, witty and heart-breaking story of sisterly love," reads the official description.