With her role on Grey's Anatomy having come to an abrupt end, Brooke Smith can only wonder where her lesbian doctor ran off to after dressing down gal pal Callie in the hospital parking lot in the ABC series' Nov. 6 episode.
"I like to imagine that Dr. Hahn is ...
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HBO has greenlit a stack of new series, including several that center on women, as well as pilots for new series from David Milch and Darren Star.The roster of female-dominated shows starts with The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency, a Botswana-based story adapted from Alexander McCall Smith's book series. According to Variety, filmmakers Anthony Minghella and Richard Curtis are on for the project, which stars chanteuse/actress Jill Scott as Precious Ramostwe. Will & Grace alumna Jhoni Marchinko, meanwhile, heads up the net's new comedy, Driving Around with Joni, the Reporter says. The series follows a 40-year-old widow who drives around Los Angeles all day with her French bulldog, seeking meaning in the wake of her husband's death.Along with the dramedy duo, HBO's also greenlit a pilot order for Last of the Ninth, a "gritty cop drama" from David Milch. Fellow TV behemoth Darren Star is also prepping a new pilot. He and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas are developing Diary of a Manhattan Ca...
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David Milch — he of Deadwood and John from Cincinnati fame/"fame" — has sold a third drama pilot to HBO. As previously reported here, Last of the Ninth (as the series is now christened) is a gritty drama set in 1972, in the New York city Police Department. "It's about an older detective's mentoring of a young detective returned from Vietnam," Milch tells the Reporter. Meanwhile, the NYPD is "fiscally crippled" and "under attack" by "allegations of systemic corruption."The Last of the Ninth pilot, written before the WGA strike, will be shot after the work stoppage stops.
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Question: You have dealt with the issue of swearing on cable rather extensively in the past several columns; it seems to be an issue that is touching a nerve. I wonder if it's possible to admit that, no matter how opposed to censorship one might be, there is something about certain words that causes a mental or physical reaction. The F-word in particular is hard to stomach for many otherwise liberal-minded people, even in small doses. It always angers me when I'm watching a perfectly acceptable PG-13 movie, and just because the filmmakers can insert one F-word into the mix, they do. It's understandable that many viewers in the post-Sopranos era would be disturbed by the trend. Even David Chase grossly overdid it at times. But it certainly is possible to write entertaining, realistic television without these words. Look at Arrested Development, where the "scripted" bleeps were among the funniest things on the show. I think it's a blessing that this lamented masterpiece did not go to HBO ...
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• Sources tell Variety that for his next trick, David Milch (Deadwood, the deader wood John from Cincinnati) is working with former NYPD Blue exec producer Bill Clark to develop a drama about a Vietnam vet who joins the New York City police force circa 1970s. • Hot off the success of The Starter Wife, Lifetime is teaming with author Gigi Levangie Grazer on a four-hour miniseries adaptation of Maneater, Grazer's novel about a woman who bleeps her way to the top in Beverly Hills.• Fox has ordered seven episodes of Nothing But the Truth, a "game show" (my quotation marks) in which contestants are strapped to a lie detector in front of friends and family and asked 21 intensely personal questions. You may know the show as "Thanksgiving."
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