Austin Powers star Mike Myers and his wife, Robin Ruzan, have decided to call it quits after 12 years, a rep for the couple announced on Friday.... In happier news, Jurassic Park's Laura Dern married her longtime beau, Grammy winner Ben Harper, on Friday in a sunset ceremony, US Weekly reports. The pair have two children together.... And speaking of offspring, Don Johnson and his wife, Kelley, are expecting their third child together "around May," the Miami Vice alum's publicist reports.
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Jason Lee, My Name Is Earl
We're 13 weeks into the 2005-06 TV season, so it's report-card time at the Biz. Based on the ratings, here's how each of the broadcast networks is doing so far:
CBS: Not only the most-watched network, but it's also No. 1 in the advertiser-coveted category of viewers 18 to 49 years old. Friday night has been rebuilt with Ghost Whisperer, Close to Home and Numbers. Criminal Minds is a solid hit, despite going up against ABC's Lost on Wednesday. The departure of Everybody Loves Raymond from Monday has hurt a bit, and
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Question: I would like to know why Just Legal wasn't given a better chance to prove itself. I am a great fan of Don Johnson and have never seen him in anything that wasn't wonderful. This was a good program showing that younger and older people could work together. Loved your review on the show. Just wish it would have had more time. It was a great show that never had a chance.
Answer: Of all the new shows canceled so far this season, this was easily the best of the lot. But it wasn't exactly a surprise. WB was taking a risk going outside its target demo with a show built around a veteran actor (albeit pairing him with a kid), and it didn't pay off. I doubt WB really believed in the show, which is why it was yanked so quickly. This is a classic situation of a show airing on absolutely the wrong network. If this had been developed for CBS, for example, it would probably still be on the air ...
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Just Legal
Although not confirmed by WB, sources tell TVGuide.com that the plug has been pulled on the Don Johnson-Jay Baruchel drama Just Legal after just three low-rated airings. Now let's hope the network does the right thing and returns Everwood to Mondays at 9 pm.
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FYI, Kelly Monaco isn't the only ex-Playboy Playmate making a career for herself in both daytime and prime-time TV. Passions' Daphnee Duplaix Samuel (Valerie) guest-stars as a flirtatious court reporter on Don Johnson's new WB series Just Legal on Sept. 18. She will later be seen as a pregnant lady in labor on Denise Richards' new UPN series Sex, Love and Secrets — costarring Days' Nadia Bjorlin (Chloe) — on Oct. 4 and 11. Good for her, but Miss Daphnee better watch out. If she keeps on doing so well, Playboy might decide to dredge up her old pictorials, too!
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Just Legal
Just six years ago Jonathan Shapiro was working as an assistant to the lieutenant governor of California and thinking about running for statewide office. But he underwent a major career shift after he wrote a script for The Practice and was hired by producer David E. Kelley. On Sept. 19, Shapiro's own creation, Just Legal, will premiere on WB. Based on Shapiro's family experiences, the show stars Jay Baruchel as an 18-year-old prodigy who passes the California bar exam but can't get a job with a decent law firm. He gets his break when he's hired by an ambulance chaser with an alcohol problem (Don Johnson). The Biz recently spoke with Shapiro about his new show and about how TV may have saved him from a life of unsuccessful political fundraising.
TVGuide.com: Before you got into television, you were counting on having a career in politics.
Jonathan Shapiro: I planned my entire life to run for office. I was a speechwriter fo
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Just Legal
When Jonathan Shapiro started to create the new WB series, Just Legal (airing Mondays at 9 pm/ET, beginning Sept. 19), he drew on a subject close to home: his own brother, who finished law school at the top of his class while still in his teens. (Undeclared's Jay Baruchel plays the role on screen, as apprentice to Don Johnson's veteran lawyer.) Adding to the show's pedigree are Shapiro's stints as a federal prosecutor and assistant U.S attorney in Los Angeles, where he worked such high-profile cases as Rodney King's and the Waco siege before writing for Boston Legal and The Practice. In other words, Just Legal isn't just any legal series.
"My goal here is to try to tell as many absolutely real stories as we can," says Shapiro, noting that the pilot features a case based on one he once prosecuted. "This show is different than other procedurals and o
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My Name Is Earl
How does NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly describe a season in which his network tumbled from first to fourth place?
"[It] was kind of a colonic," he told the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., Sunday.
Is that covered by parent company General Electric's health plan? ("I think it's 80 percent," one exec told us.) But seriously, folks, Reilly is trying to look at his network's sudden biggest-loser status as a cleansing experience that will prepare all involved to take on the task of rebuilding a prime-time schedule.
"It literally took any residual sense of entitlement or complacency at our company and blew it out, so to speak," he said. "I do feel a thirst for creativity and a focus for getting NBC back on the leading edge. This is what it's going to take ultimately to fuel our comeback."
In a rare admission for a programming executive, Reilly said NBC has been "in denial" about its downward m
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The road to maturity is littered with dead frogs. One in particular: Michigan J. Frog, formerly the corporate mascot of the WB network. "Dead and buried" is how WB's chairman Garth Ancier put it late last week.
Seems the cartoon amphibian projected too much of the "young teen feel" that the network is trying to move away from, in hopes that the industry will see WB as something other than a destination for teens only (well, toss in a handful of older cult followers). Projecting a more mature front could bring in a broader demographic, and maybe (wishful thinking) less condescension from TV insiders, with the hopes of at least a few Emmy nominations in years to come.
To that effect, the new fall schedule includes among its stars a few veterans like Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith — thankfully, given their unhappy romantic history, in separate vehicles.
Johnson's show, the legal comedy-drama Just Legal
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