Khandi Alexander
Cheers to Khandi Alexander for her tour de hurricane force on Treme.
Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.
As her character, bar owner LaDonna Batiste Williams, raged at the rapist who attacked her — and the legal system that temporarily freed him due to a clerical error — Alexander powerfully embodied the citywide anger at the lawlessness in post-Katrina New Orleans. The actress, who was unjustly denied an Emmy nomination for her fiercely nuanced turn as a recovering drug-addict mother in Treme creator David Simon's 2000 miniseries, The Corner, deserves long-overdue recognition for this role.
read more
Wendell Pierce
In an early episode of Treme's second season, a disc jockey asks one of the show's musician characters how his new album is selling. "Selling?" the musician replies in almost disbelief. "It's jazz, man."
The dialogue is a perfect metaphor for the HBO drama, whose co-creators, The Wire's David Simon and Eric Overmyer, have always favored atmosphere and character over plot. Like that incredulous musician, Simon is more concerned with art than television ratings, because he says it's the...
read more
Talking Funny
This weekend, HBO offers up a comedy special (Talking Funny), a new movie about an historic TV phenom (Cinema Verite) and the return of a distinguished drama series (Treme). All are worth a look. It's actually an HBO grand slam if you count Game of Thrones, the triumphant adult fantasy series that was renewed for a second season shortly after the first episode aired. (HBO has a tradition of doing this, but rarely in recent years has the network's enthusiasm been so well deserved.)
In Thrones' eventful second chapter (Sunday, 9/8c), you begin to sense the series' range, as many characters begin disparate journeys through the sprawling land of Westeros: dutiful Ned Stark heads out with...
read more
Treme
HBO is heading back to New Orleans with the Season 2 premiere of Treme on Sunday, April 24.
Treme chronicles New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina as its citizens struggle to put their lives, and their city, back together. Among those citizens are a part-time DJ and jazz aficionado (Steve Zahn), a bar owner torn between staying in New Orleans or settling in Baton Rouge (Khandi Alexander) and trombonist Antoine Battiste (Wendell Pierce).
read more
Annie Parisse
Cheers to Annie Parisse for bringing some much-needed sex appeal to Rubicon.
Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.
AMC's chilly conspiracy serial cast the smoldering actress as Andy, a part-time painter who takes her justifiably paranoid neighbor, intelligence anyalyst Will Travers (James Badge Dale), into her apartment — and her bed...
read more
Jon Seda
Jon Seda will guest-star on an upcoming episode of Burn Notice, Entertainment Weekly reports.
Watch full episodes of Burn Notice
The Pacific star, 39, will step into the role of...
read more
James Badge Dale, The Pacific
James Badge Dale jokes that the boot camp that he and the other actors in The Pacific endured was so grueling that he's repressed any memory of it.
Dale Dye, a retired Marine captain who served as the military adviser for The Pacific and 2001's Band of Brothers, "likes to see actors cry," Dale tells TVGuide.com.
HBO sends veterans to capital to celebrate The Pacific
Even more difficult, says the actor of his role in HBO's 10-part World War II miniseries executive-produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, was feeling a responsibility to Robert Leckie, the real-life Marine he plays. To prepare, he read Leckie's memoir, Helmet for My Pillow, and spent time with Leckie's widow and children. (Leckie himself died in 2001.)
"We all felt a lot of pressure to tell their stories with honor and integrity and respect," says Dale, whose co-stars include Joe Mazzello and Jon Seda.
Check out photos from The Pacific
"The wild thing about Robert Leckie is that he hated the Marines when he was in 'em," says the actor, who goes by Badge...
read more
The Pacific
HBO's 10-part miniseries The Pacific will set sail Sunday, March 14. The series will air every Sunday at 9/8c through May 16.
The Pacific comes from executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and...
read more
Charity Wakefield, John Seda
David E. Kelley is Mad about a little-known British actress.
The prolific writer/producer has recruited Charity Wakefield to headline his new quirky NBC series, Legally Mad, The Hollywood Reporter reports.
Wakefield, whose credits include BBC's 2008 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, will play Brady Hamm, a young woman who ...
read more
Colm Meaney by Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Colm Meaney is in final talks to join fellow Celt Jason O'Mara in David E. Kelley's Life on Mars pilot, the Reporter reports. Meaney would play Detective Hunt, the homicide-unit boss who clashes with O'Mara's transplated-in-the-'70s PI.... Kevin Federline's babymama Shar Jackson will guest on Everybody Hates Chris this season, says People, playing a young mom with a wayward teen daughter.... Jon Seda, who was originally to fill a supporting role in HBO's The Pacific WWII mini, has been promoted to play one of the three leads.
read more