Ricky Schroder and Daniel Dae Kim, The Andromeda Strain
If you were flying over the scenic mining town of Hedley, British Columbia, last summer, you might have been a tad freaked out. You would have seen smoke and flames and rows of bodies lying dead on the street. The only sign of life: three solitary figures dressed in biohazard suits.
With luck, someone would have told you that a miniseries remake of the sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain (May 26 and 27 at 9 pm/ET, A&E) was being shot, the bodies were local residents playing dead, and the guys in the bio-suits were famous actors. After all, in this age of global epidemics and biological warfare, it's not terribly hard to imagine this scene playing out for real.
Based on Michael Crichton's best-selling novel from four decades ago, A&E's star-packed, four-hour Andromeda is the second screen adaptation (a feature was released in 1971), but exec producer Ridley Scott believes i
read more
Joe Mantegna, Criminal Minds
After months of controversy, speculation and anticipation, Joe Mantegna will finally have his Criminal Minds moment. Tonight (at 9 pm/ET, CBS) he debuts as Agent David Rossi, replacing Mandy Patinkin's Jason Gideon, whose mental meltdown caused him to bag the Behavioral Analysis Unit earlier this season.
Like Mantegna, Rossi will hit the ground running. No sooner is the showboating founding father of the BAU called out of retirement than he's tapped to solve the "Have You Seen Me?" murders: Victims find a missing-person flier on their doors with their own photo on it before they disappear. One thing's for sure: This ain't The Starter Wife. "I've learned more about torture devices than I would ever wan
read more
Lyndsy Fonseca, Nathan Fillion and Dana Delany, Desperate Housewives
A new family is moving to Wisteria Lane this fall, but not everyone's rolling out a welcome mat. Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany) lived on the block 12 years ago with her daughter, Dylan (Lyndsy Fonseca), and aunt, Mrs. Sims (Ellen Geer), but left under mysterious circumstances. Now she's back with her teenage daughter and her second husband, Adam (Nathan Fillion), a hunky gynecologist. Ostensibly, they returned to take care of the dying Mrs. Sims, but like all new characters on Desperate Housewives, the Mayfairs harbor a dark secret that will be revealed as the season progresses. Says creator Marc Cherry: "They had to leave Chicago because something unsavory happened in Adam's professional life."
Katherine's a perfectionist and a control freak. (Think Bree, but much
read more
Bruce Greenwood, John from Cincinnati
Air Jordan meet… Air Greenwood. As the levitating surfer, Mitch Yost, on HBO's new mystical surf-noir drama John from Cincinnati (Sundays at 9 pm/ET), veteran film and television actor Bruce Greenwood takes the sport to new heights. Here he (surf) waxes poetic on sword dancing, acting with poultry and why he believes he can fly.
TV Guide: Why does Mitch levitate?
Greenwood: I'm not privy to that information. You have to make up theories in your mind, but chances are my guesses are not going to [match] what [show creator] David Milch (Deadwood) comes up with.
TV Guide: Do you guys talk about it?
Greenwood: That kind of question is not one that he would give you a straight answer to. He would say something li
read more
John from Cincinnati
When you work on a show like HBO's John from Cincinnati (Sundays at 9 pm/ET), it can screw with your head. Recently, Austin Nichols, who plays the enigmatic John, was memorizing lines for a scene when he had a premonition. "I knew in my heart that I should scream, ‘Stare me down!'" he says. "The next morning when I arrived to shoot the scene, I looked at the revised script and those exact words were staring me in the face. It took my breath away."
HBO hopes its surreal new drama has the same "Whoa, dude!" effect on viewers. Set in the border town of Imperial Beach, Calif., about 130 miles south of L.A., John rips through the turbulent waters of three generations of a down-in-the-dumps surfing family — grandparents Mitch (read more
Mandy Patinkin and Keith Carradine, Criminal Minds
In the pantheon of Criminal Minds madmen, Frank (Keith Carradine) deserves a special spot in hell. The twisted sexual sadist is said to have tortured and killed more than 100 people in the back of his RV over the course of 30 years. To add insult to fatality, he's the only suspect the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit ever let escape. "He is absolutely the worst. The most psychotic. The most compassionless," says exec producer Edward Allen Bernero. A sort of Hannibal Lecter on steroids. Or, as Mandy Patinkin, who plays BAU senior agent Gideon, puts it, "the Times Square of horror."
Chillingly, he's also based on a real person. While interviewing actual FBI profilers, Bernero and coexec
read more
Jeff Foxworthy, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
You know you're on a hit TV show when... more than 26 million people tune in for its premiere, making it the most-watched series debut on any network in eight and a half years. TV Guide spoke with redneck comic and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? host Jeff Foxworthy about the secrets of the Fox quizzer's success. (5th Grader next airs Thursday at 8 pm/ET.)
TV Guide: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader is getting huge ratings. Are you surprised?
Jeff Foxworthy: I feel like Cinderella. I'm used to having shows that the network tries to keep a secret, so this is really weird for them to actually be plugging me.
TV Guide: Why do you think producer Mark Burnett chose a blue-collar
read more
Matthew Gray Gruber, Criminal Minds
As a Star Trek-quoting power dweeb, Criminal Minds' Dr. Spencer Reid is not your typical sex symbol. Then again, real-life alter ego Matthew Gray Gubler isn't exactly typical, either. He never wears matching socks because he thinks it's bad luck. "The one day I wore them, I sprained my ankle," he says. He's a neat freak: "I mopped my floor for two hours today." And he frequently thinks he has toothpaste on the side of his mouth. "I will literally stop in the middle of scenes to check," he says, laughing.
Call it, "Revenge of the Nerd." But based on the barrage of fan mail and marriage proposals Gubler receives — not to mention major buzz in chat rooms and blogs — Dr. Reid's quickly gaining ground on the hunky likes of McSteamy and Sawyer. "It's pretty bizarre because I was stupendously awkward-looking up until abo
read more
