Rose Byrne in Damages by Barbara Nitke/FX
This Saturday, FX is running the entire first season (up to now) of its legal thriller Damages as an all-day marathon, which means theoretically there will be viewers who will get to experience this show the way it might work best: as a rock ’em, sock ’em miniseries, compounding all of the story’s elaborate and sometimes preposterous shocks and twists into a roller-coaster ride that doesn’t require waiting a week between chapters.The ratings have been, even by cable standards, a disappointment, and as I write this, FX had yet to confirm a second-season renewal (although as I’ve said before, any network that would keep Dirt and The Riches going and fail to renew this gritty gem has some explaining to do). I’ve wondered if the show’s elaborately serialized structure, with an entire season built around a single case and its murderous fallout, may have kept viewers away (shades of ABC’s short-lived Murder One).The brutality and darkness of Damages...
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Question: Dirt dirt? Pretty please?
Answer: Hope you've got a big shovel there, Tiny, 'cause I've got loads. For season 2, the show is casting five - count 'em, five - new recurring roles. Debuting in the first episode will be Elaine Bass, the editor of rival rag Superstar; Sharlee Cates, who is, in essence, Lindsay Lohan; and Farber Kauffman, Dirt Now's new hire, a twentysomething know-it-all stolen away from a respectable mag. (Paging Matt Czuchry… ) Episode three will introduce Adam Proteau, a foreign wild man in the same age range as Rudolf Martin (24). And in episode five, we'll meet Adrian Duncan, a Richie Rich slumming as a playboy paparazzo with the hots for Courteney Cox's Lucy. (And pretty much anyone else in a skirt, too.)
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Question: Big fan of your stuff, keep up the good work. A quick question about The Shield: I am aware that next year's final season will consist of 13 episodes, but do you happen to know when the season will begin? I assume it will follow the trend of past years and begin in March. Have you heard anything to the contrary?
Answer: No set date announced yet, but I would think either January or March/April is likely, depending on how FX juggles its other assets in those months, including the not-as-highly anticipated returns of Dirt and The Riches. The final season is set for early '08, regardless, and I'm counting the days as well ...
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John Billingsley by Craig Sjodin/ABC
John Billingsley, formerly of The Nine as well as Fox's own Prison Break, has been added to the Season 7 cast of 24 in the recurring role of "Latham." No other details on the character have been disclosed, however. Also, says the Reporter, Jeffrey Nordling (a recurring player on Dirt) has landed a series-regular gig on 24 as an FBI agent named Larry. The coming season of 24 will largely be set in Washington, D.C., says the trade.PS to fans of The Nine: If the season/series finale, which broke online Thursday, left you with burning questions, share them in my Trivial Matt'rs blog.
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Question: Do you have any scoop on what the second season of Dirt will bring?
Answer: I hear FX made a few changes behind the scenes that should result in an all-around better show. Of course, it's not like it could get any worse.
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The DVD release date for I Dream of Jeannie: The Complete Fourth Season has been pushed back a week to Sept. 11. (The delay? Some nonsense about genies not being able to be photographed.) Meanwhile, DVD releases have been set for Face/Off: Special Collector's Edition (the only movie my wife has literally walked out on, Sept. 11), TNT's The Company miniseries (also available in Blu-ray, Oct. 23), The Batman: The Complete Fourth Season, Teen Titans: The Complete Fourth Season (Nov. 20), and Dirt: The Complete First Season (Dec. 11).
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Laura Allen with Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, The 4400
USA Network's The 4400 tugs at the heartstrings this Sunday at 9 pm/ET when it stages a most unlikely reunion between the recently returned Richard and his late wife, Lily (who, in the guise of Tippi Hedren, died from old age at the start of Season 2). How can this be? It's The 4400! Still, TVGuide.com invited Laura Allen to shed more light on the emotional get-together, as well as tease the new-and-improved second season of FX's Dirt.
TVGuide.com: What was your reaction when you got the call to swing by The 4400 again?Laura Allen: I heard about it this spring when I was in New York. I always thought there would be an opportunity to go back there, becaus
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Ausitn Nichols courtesy HBO
Made sense that in the last moments of HBO's misbegotten John from Cincinnati, Ed O’Neill was finally reunited with his AWOL avian friend Zippy. If ever there was a show that was for the birds, it was this birdbrained mishmash of half-baked, foulmouthed, anti-dramatic allegorical nonsense.Over the last week, I attempted to catch up with last month’s episodes, hoping against hope that I’d at last see what I was supposed to be seeing in this smugly opaque world of cryptic utterances from annoyingly mannered characters. (And I thought, maybe like other HBO series, in particular the superior Wire, this could be one of those shows that plays better if you watch several hours back-to-back.) The result: torture. I made it maybe halfway through each hour before zoning out in a state of utter boredom and contempt. Forget confusion — that part of the equation left the station long ago. I was merely hoping to be entertained a little. In vain, as it turned out.At least the ...
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Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh by Prashant Gupta/FX
Just when you thought you'd had your fill of those over-the-top plastic surgeons on FX's Nip/Tuck, they've shaken things up and moved those hot docs Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) to the world capital of face-lifts and body augmentation, Los Angeles, for the fifth season. (The first of 22 new episodes will premiere in October; it hasn't yet been determined how this season will be broken up.)Series creator Ryan Murphy took the stage Thursday at a Television Critics Association panel in Beverly Hills to describe the new season, and he and the rest of the cast certainly sold me — including Joely Richardson, back after taking a personal hiatus for part of last season; John Hensley and Kelly Carlson as newlyweds Matt and Kimber; and Roma Maffia as nurse Liz, whose character travels West after being offered double her previous salary. (The core cast will be reassembled in L.A. over the first three or four episodes, Murphy says.)Guest stars will includ...
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FX has ordered second seasons of both Dirt and The Riches, "two highly original series that have resonated with our audience as strongly as The Shield and Rescue Me," says the cabler's president and general manager. Speaking of Tommy Gavin, FX also announced that Rescue Me will reclaim its original Wednesdays-at-10 time slot when it kicks off its new season on June 13.Also, a July 24 premiere has been set for Glenn Close's Damages; Season 3 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia arrives in early September; Nip/Tuck braves L.A. in the fall; and 30 Days continues in late 2007.
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