Lou Diamond Phillips, Alaina Huffman
The ship is fast filling up on Sci Fi Channel's Stargate Universe, with Lou Diamond Phillips (Numbers, La Bamba) and Alaina Huffman (Smallville's Black Canary, Painkiller Jane) being the latest additions to the crew, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
Get details on their roles — and two other new castings — after the jump.
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Ming Na by Eric Charbonneau/WireImage.com
Ming Na, who once played a doctor on ER, next will be playing with the doctors of Private Practice.In the fifth episode of the ABC drama's second season (which kicks off this Wednesday), Ming Na will guest-star as a friend of Violet's, and thus will help shed some light on Amy Brenneman's introverted shrink. (Oh wow, it just hit me — she's a "shrinking Violet." D'oh!)Ming Na's other credits include NBC's short-lived Inconceivable and Fox's almost-as-fleeting Vanished (in which she was woefully underserved).Previously announced Private guest-stars for the coming season include Billy Dee Williams (as a man who has taken care of his ill wife, at great cost to his own health) and Grant Show (playing Addison's brother). — Matt MitovichCrave scoop? E-mail Matt and Mickey at mega_scoop@tvguide.com.
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Melanie Lynskey by Cliff Lipson/CBS
Melanie Lynskey may have driven off the set of Two and a Half Men, but when the sitcom celebrates its 100th episode, she'll be back as Charlie’s stalker Rose, and apparently for more than a pit stop. At the CBS Monday Night Lineup Premiere Party on Sept. 19, Men costar Marin Hinkle (who plays Judith Harper) revealed that in the milestone episode, Charlie will realize his true passion for his stalker. "He goes to seek her out to tell her how he feels about her, and there’s a surprise to how she handles it. I’m sure she will be back for many episodes. The way they left it had a wonderful dot-dot-dot."Lynskey is not the only guest star appearing on the comedy in its first six episodes. Janeane Garofalo appears as one of Alan's romantic mistakes, Ming Wen will be one of Charlie’s objects of affection, and much to Holland Taylor’s delight, Robert Wagner will come back to romance her character, Evelyn Harper. "I’ve had Martin Sheen and Robert Wagner as my lo...
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Janeane Garofalo by Cliff Lipson/CBS, Ming Wen by Michael Desmond/Fox
Apparently all is right with the cosmos. Janeane Garofalo, who recently was announced as a cast member of oh-so-serious 24, will play to her strength as a funnywoman in a guest-star turn on CBS' Two and a Half Men, series creator Chuck Lorre tells TVGuide.com. In the second outing of the new season, Garofalo will play a love interest for Jon Cryer's Alan (who, history is showing us, never seems drawn to the shrinking-violet type).TVGuide.com has also learned that Vanished Inconceivable ER alum Ming Wen (nee Ming Na) also is visiting the Men, appearing in multiple episodes as a judge who seems to be out of Charlie's league — and yet we're confident she ultimately bangs his gavel.
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Anthony LaPaglia, Without a Trace
Question: Without a Trace is about the only show I look forward to watching on a regular basis. But I'm wondering, why CBS would mess with something that works and move it from Thursday to Sunday?
Answer: Simplest answer: It's not about the show, it's about the network's larger needs. That includes strengthening Sunday by dumping the two-hour movie block and replacing it with two strong crime-drama franchises. Cold Case and Without a Trace will be a good fit, no doubt. And though CSI and Trace were a perfect one-two punch on Thursdays, CBS would likely be criticized in some circles if it didn't eventually try to create a new hit show using CSI as a lead-in, which is what the network is attempting with Shark this season. In this business, you get knocked for complacency, and you get knocked when you shake things up a bit. CBS' scheduling is the most solid of any of the networks, and this sort of move was probably overdue ...
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Question: In your review of Vanished (which I agreed with except possibly for the "continue watching" part), you left off one serious flaw in this (to me) totally flawed show. The acting was completely lame. It felt like a daytime soap. Only Ming-Na, whom I liked on ER, seemed "natural." The misdirection "clues" hit you over the head (haven't the writers heard of subtlety?). The FBI is competent on the surface, yet I'm sure they will be proven completely inept. Is there any hope for this show?
Answer: Couldn't agree more that the biggest handicap Vanished faces at this early point is the lack of a galvanizing star presence. (Translation: Gale Harold is no Kiefer Sutherland, or Wentworth Miller for that matter.) The roles are generically written and formulaically played. It's really going to be up to the storytelling to carry this one, and subtlety is likely to have little to do with it. If there's hope for Vanished, it will be as a guilty pleasure. And for those with a little patience,
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Inconceivable
Windfall9:09 am This mid-season soap could best be described as Melrose Place if everyone in the complex shared a $400 million lottery jackpot. 9:10 Hey, why aren’t cast members Luke Perry and Sarah Wynter (24) included in today’s panel? Did NBC Shannen Doherty their butts?9:14 A reporter remarks that this is the “most attractive group of lottery winners I’ve ever seen.” He’s right — there’s not a Hurley in the bunch.9:18 Exec producer Laurie McCarthy explains that Luke Perry had a family obligation, and Sarah Wynter is on holiday in her native Australia. 9:30 Jason Gedrick (Boomtown) burns his
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Say good-bye to ER's Dr. Jing-Mei Chen. Again. In tonight's episode (10 pm/ET, NBC), Dr. Chen (aka "Deb") quits her emergency-room job and leaves in a huff. This is the third time Ming-Na's character has stormed off the show! "Once again, she's a quitter," the 41-year-old actress laughs to TV Guide Online. "She's just a spoiled brat who can't handle the pressure."
Ever since Chen's parents had that off-screen car wreck — her mother was killed — the lady doc's been burdened with caring for her widowed father, who's "mentally given up on living," Ming-Na says. After yet another personal conflict at work, she's outta there. The real reason she's exiting ER, however, is lack of a meaty story line.
"I think it was a mutual decision," Ming-Na says. "The producers definitely talked about running out of stuff to do with the character. I felt like it's been that way for the past year; I wondered if there's anything left. We bo
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