Treat Williams in Heartland Andrew Eccles/TNT
TNT has taken Treat Williams' Heartland off the donor list after nine episodes. The med drama opened with poor retention of lead-in The Closer's audience, and only waned further when it got bumped to an 8 pm slot. Its audience also skewed a bit old for Madison Avenue's liking. Looking ahead, says Variety, TNT has greenlit production on Leverage, a pilot directed and produced by Dean Devlin (The Librarian) and concerning a team of high-tech thieves who target wealthy crooks, corrupt power brokers and slimy politicos. Ooh, it's as if Robin Hood watched those few episodes of Smith!
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Question: Do you know the fate of Heartland on TNT? Although not outstanding, I enjoyed watching it, and this week was the final show. Is that it for Treat Williams and cast?
Answer: My gut tells me the show has flatlined. The writing was probably on the wall from the time TNT bounced it from its post-Closer slot in favor of Saving Grace. But as far as I know, no official word has come down yet ...
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Treat Williams, Heartland
Good ol’ Dr. Andy Brown is still putting people back together, only these days Treat Williams is specializing in cutting-edge transplants as Nathaniel Grant on TNT’s brand-new Heartland (Mondays at 10 pm/ET). TVGuide.com invited Williams to preview what’s ahead for his new surgeon, as well as reflect on Everwood’s unfortunate fate.
TVGuide.com: First off, let’s talk to the Everwood fans out there. What will they find familiar about your new doc, and what will they find different?Treat Williams: Hmm, that’s a good question. Not too much familiar, a lot different. This is the guy that Andy Brown probably was in New York, five years before he came to Everwood — very caught up in a very high-stress environmen
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Check your TV's thermostat. If the temperature's rising to alarming new levels, boiling over with riotous politically incorrect humor and scorching the screen with personal drama that's as wrenching as it is raunchy, you must be watching Rescue Me (Wednesdays, 10 pm/ET on FX).
In its fourth season, FX's bravely unsparing tragicomedy about a twisted brotherhood of New York firefighters is more obsessed than ever with outmoded codes of manliness. These flawed, funny antiheroes bust each other's chops at any sign of vulnerability, but the joke is almost always on them.
Not that Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary), the crew's No. 1 jokester, is in a laughing mood. He's under investigation for insurance fraud after last season's climactic beach fire, set by psycho Sheila (Callie Thorne
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This summer premiere roundup just in from my fab friend at Turner:Wednesday, June 6, at 9 pm/ETTyler Perry's House of Payne premieres on TBSMonday, June 18Mmm, I can almost taste the stark white-on-black title cards. TNT's The Closer launches its third season at 9 pm, followed by the series premiere of Heartland, starring Treat Williams, Kari Matchet and Rockmond Dunbar.Tuesday, July 17, 9 pmThe Bill Engvall Show premieres on TBS.Wednesday, July 18, 10 pmTNT's Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter, debuts.Monday, July 30, 10 pmMy Boys returns, TVGuide.com's Megan Cherkezian squeals.Sunday, August 5, 8 pmThe Company — a three-week, six-hour mini that stars Michael Keaton, Chris O'Donnell and Alfred Molina and concerns the early days of the CIA — gets underway. (The trailer looks really, reeeeallllly cool.)
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Teri Polo (Meet the Parents), Sarah Jones (Big Love) and KaDee Strickland (Fever Pitch) are The Wedding Planners in the new Fox series from David E. Kelley, to debut in spring 2007.... Also per the Hollywood Reporter: Treat Williams, Samaire Armstrong and Kevin Pollak will get caught up in The Staircase Murders, a Lifetime movie based on the real-life story of novelist Michael Peterson (played here by Williams), who was accused of killing his wife in their North Carolina home.... Jeff Conaway, call your agent: Avalon TV is developing for CBS a U.S. take on Shane, a hit British sitcom about a wisecracking cabdriver, says Variety.
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TNT is in talks to grant series orders to the drama pilots Grace (starring Holly Hunter as an Oklahoma City police detective at times visited by an angel) and Heartland (Treat Williams as a heart surgeon). In other TNT news, sources tell the Hollywood Reporter that Tom Everett Scott's Saved has perished after one season. Seriously, they used the paddles and everything.
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He has lines on his face, mostly around the eyes, but he's still almost comically handsome. More so, given the absence of post-teen heart-throb vapidity. The lines help. They humanize. They seem earned. The mark of a grownup. The battle scars of life. The smile is vivid, and slightly knowing. It is the smile of someone with a lot of experience being in the public eye, someone who knows all the punchlines but still loves the jokes. I am talking about Rob Lowe, who is joining the cast of Brothers &Sisters [Sundays at 10 pm/ET, on ABC] this week, following an arduous and elaborate courting ritual which required forbearance and good intentions from all parties. Everyone — Rob, agents, producers, studio and network execs — wanted to happen. So it did. He's sitting in my office. It's me, [show runner Greg] Berlanti and [executive producer Ken] Olin, telling him about the part. The part, as written by Mr. Berlanti and Mr. Guggenheim, is tailored for Rob like a very good Paul ...
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Some random TV thoughts:Each week since its overly somber premiere, ABC's Brothers & Sisters has improved, slowly becoming a more entertaining, if not yet compelling, family drama. The most recent episode, involving a series of eventful dates for most of the major characters, had a mostly deft light touch, showing (I think) the influence of Everwood's Greg Berlanti on the creative direction of the show.It's becoming a more suitable companion for Desperate Housewives, which also has improved from last season's doldrums. Housewives is still far from perfect, but give me some Edie Britt bitchiness, a little manipulative scheming from Bree and several mysterious twists (why was Mike Delfino's phone number etched in ink on the season's mystery corpse?), and I'm relatively satisfied. I can even get past the tiresome Gabby-Carlos feuding and Nora meddling in the indifferently plotted Lynette-Tom story line. (Did you notice, by the way, a walk-on by Who Wants to Be a Superhero's Major V...
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It was nice of Jonathan to give the brothers and sisters some friendly business advice, although I got the impression from his final conversation with Kitty that he might not be that optimistic about the future of the family business. I actually felt kind of bad for him when he and Kitty were breaking up, even though Jonathan often comes off as arrogant and I never really liked him for Kitty. He appeared to be genuinely sad, and he also apparently knew Kitty better than she thought, as he seemed aware that she hadn’t fully let him in.But tonight was really all about Nora and Kitty for me. Sally Field was great as usual, especially when Nora realized her “date” with David the contractor wasn’t really a date. How awful, and it only seemed worse when Nora tried to salvage it with jokes about her “comedic timing” being off. It was good to see Treat Williams (Everwood) back on TV again as David, even though things ended awkwardly between him and Nora. Kitty ...
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