Fox is bringing home the Bacon.
For his first regular series role since playing troubled teen lush Tim "TJ" Werner on CBS' Guiding Light in 1981, Kevin Bacon is going even darker, and it's a killer fit. Just don't call The Following another police procedural. Even though the ink-black thriller centers on the hunt for a madman's cult of homicidal fans, "I was not interested in playing that procedural formula," says Bacon, 54, looking relaxed and boyishly shaggy in his trailer on the show's Brooklyn set. "That is something I asked about a lot."
Instead...
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A mad scientist, his genius prodigal son and a noble FBI agent compose the surrogate family at the core of Fox's supernatural drama Fringe that, under the direction of sci-fi kingpin J.J. Abrams (Lost), struggled through five low-rated seasons of endlessly fascinating twists and turns that, quite literally, attempted to tell the story of the universe, er, universes. It will all come to an auspicious end Friday at 8/7c, in what devotees hope will be a satisfying ending to the little series that could...
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Chuck Lorre, the comedy titan behind hit shows Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly, has signed a new big-bucks deal that could push him into the drama series space and the film world as well. Under his new exclusive overall development and production deal with Warner Bros. TV, Lorre will remain with the studio through at least 2016.
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The 2011-2012 TV season ended with a whimper, as all five broadcast networks posted year-to-year drops in viewership during May sweeps. But the season as a whole wasn't too bad: Sure, some big swings (Pan Am, Terra Nova) missed, but a solid 15 freshman shows (out of 45) were renewed. Here's a roundup of this year's winners and losers.
Winners
Funny girls
CBS' 2 Broke Girls was the year's highest-rated new comedy, averaging a strong 5.6 million viewers with adults 18-49. The show has already been upgraded to a plum 9pm time slot for fall. "That shows enormous...
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