The Simpsons
Highlights from this week's DVD releases:
The Simpsons: Season 14
This four-disc (three-disc Blu-ray) set includes all 22 episodes, plus tons of bonus material. Commentary tracks, after being absent from previous releases, are back. Executive producers Al Jean and Mike Scully can be heard on every track, along with various writers, producers and directors. Also included are original sketches, deleted scenes, an animation showcase, and a special 300th episode featurette...
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Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks is developing a comedy about the lives of college athletes for HBO, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Titled Players, the half-hour series reunites Hanks and his long-time producing partner Gary Goetzman with the network, with which they made Big Love and the Emmy-winning miniseries John Adams, The Pacific and Band of Brothers.
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Bill Paxton, Kevin Costner
Big Love's Bill Paxton will soon trade love for hate.
The actor has been cast as Randall McCoy in History's new miniseries, The Hatfields and McCoys: An American Vendetta, the network announced Tuesday. He joins Kevin Costner, who will play "Devil" Anse Hatfield.
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Grant Show and Pollyanna McIntosh
Grant Show will soon follow in his Melrose Place character's footsteps and become a divorcee.
The actor's wife, actress Pollyanna McIntosh, filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences, People reports.
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Cloris Leachman, Joan Cusack
Cloris Leachman appeared in almost every Raising Hope last season, while Joan Cusack could be seen in virtually every episode of Shameless. And yet, both scored Emmy nominations Thursday in the guest star category...
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Glee
Glee's writing staff is tripling in size just in time for Season 3, Deadline reports.
The six writers joining the team are Allison Adler, Marti Noxon, Michael Hitchcock, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Matt Hodgson and Ross Maxwell. They, along with Glee executive producers Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, will begin crafting...
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John Velazquez and Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom, who was 20-1 on the morning line, won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
Shackleford kept a commanding lead throughout the race, but Animal Kingdom, ridden by John Velazquez and trained by H. Motion, overtook his competitors on the homestretch to win the 137th Kentucky Derby. Velazquez, who was initially set to ride Uncle Mo before the horse was scratched, replaced jockey Robby Albarado after an injury. Shackleford only placed fourth.
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Mireille Enos
Some crime shows pull you in with gunplay and explosions, others with snappy dialogue between bantering buddies. On The Killing, AMC's compelling new mystery, it's the faces that hook you. Whether they're despairing, full of rage, menacing or intensely haunting as in the case of Sarah Linden, played by the superb Mireille Enos — just try to turn away.
With a quiet authority and obsessive dedication to the job, Detective Linden is perhaps the most multilayered and intriguing female cop since Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison on Prime Suspect. The demanding role was exceedingly difficult to cast. "A mild panic had set in about ever finding the right actress," recalls exec producer Veena Sud...
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Tina Majorino
Former Veronica Mars actress Tina Majorino will guest-star in an upcoming episode of Bones, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
Check out photos of the Bones cast
Majorino will play Special Agent Genny Shaw, who, as we previously reported, will assist Booth (David Boreanaz) in his search for vigilante sniper Jacob Broadsky (Arnold Vosloo). Agent Shaw's inexperience, however, will quickly become apparent when her cover is blown by Broadsky during a stakeout. Ultimately, her mistake will put both her and Booth in Broadsky's crosshairs...
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Big Love
If HBO were to do a sequel to Big Love, it would have to be called something like The Three Sister-Wives. Not exactly Chekhov, but I'd probably watch. Barb, Margene and Nicki carrying on without Bill: That's already a home plus.
I had drifted a while ago from the flock of followers of this weird and lately quite preachy series about polygamy and family and faith, but did a marathon catch-up over the last week in time to watch the final chapter, which aimed for transcendence and at times achieved it. The hour-plus finale thankfully shucked much of the grotesque Utah-Mormon-Gothic melodrama (murderously mad prophet Alby was taken care of last week, shot down but not killed when he tried to storm the statehouse with the Henricksons inside) and stressed the themes of an unorthodox family and marriage unit fighting for acceptance and survival in a judgmental and often violently unforgiving world. (If you want to see this as a metaphor for the ongoing fight for gay marriage equality, I won't stop you.)
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