New releases announced today, April 7:
Kath and Kim - Season 1 will be coming out July 7
Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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NBC's Kath & Kim now have some fellas to fancy. John Michael Higgins has joined the NBC pilot (which has already been ordered to series) as Molly Shannon's significant other, a race-walker "who gets facial peels" (says the Reporter). Mikey Day (Underground...?), in turn, has been cast as the husband of Kath's daughter, Kim (played by Selma Blair with a near-permanent pout and frequent exaggerated eye-roll). — MWM
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Question: How do you think the absence of pilots from networks like NBC is going to affect the TV landscape? Do you think it will make the networks a little more committed once they order a series? Or is this is a way to avoid paying for development, a pilot and a 13-episode order — only to be off the air by Episode 4 — when they can just order six episodes up front and at least run a complete story that then gets cancelled if ratings are in the dumps? Is this a good change for the industry, or a wait-and-see one?
Answer: Without doubt, the new industry trend of taking a show directly to series is meant as a cost-cutting measure to reduce the number of outrageously expensive pilots that go nowhere. But how it plays out is absolutely wait-and-see. The best result is that we see fresher product because everyone's going with their gut and flying by the seat of their pants, with less interference from the suits. The worst result is that we end up with a bunch of duds that might hav ...
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NBC has ordered six episodes of Kath & Kim, its U.S. version of the hit Aussie sitcom about a fortysomething divorcée (played stateside by Molly Shannon) and her self-absorbed daughter (pout queen Selma Blair). What's significant here is that a pilot for K&K hasn't even been shot; instead, NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios cochair Ben Silverman made the call based on the original series' success. Citing NBC's new plan to produce far fewer pilots, Silverman tells Variety the K&K sitch "exemplifies how we are changing the process by ordering shows that we believe in and greenlighting them straight to series. We are confident that this proven international hit will effortlessly translate to American audiences."Worst case, he says, "Watch 30 Rock." (The preceding joke was stolen from Ausiello.)
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At last! NBC has found the daughter to Molly Shannon's mother for its much-delayed comedy Kath & Kim (based on the hit Aussie series of the same name). And the winner is... Selma Blair!.... Lifetime has picked Luke Perry and Reba's Joanna Garcia to star in its December MOTW, A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride, which is not a biopic about Jamie Lynn Spears but a feel-good flick about a wedding planner who's all Grinchy about mom Helen Shaver's Eddie Murphy-speed romance with Twin Peaks bad guy Kenneth Welsh. — Ben Katner
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