Brooke Shields, Lindsay Price and Kim Raver by Andrew Eccles/NBC
Those of us even mildly interested in checking out Lipstick Jungle (aka one of the few new series on TV) will get our makeup one week earlier than the series' Feb. 7 premiere on NBC. The network is giving TiVo subscribers the chance to download it free at Amazon's Unbox from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6. If the curiosity about the new Candace Bushnell series is killing you, here's your chance to get ahead of the game.And the best part about it? Our own Mitovich says that Lipstick "isn't nearly as unwatchable as Cashmere Mafia." — Anna Dimond
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Question: What is wrong with you? I loved Cashmere Mafia! It was so real and honest. Looks much better than Lipstick Jungle.
Answer: Actually, I found Lipstick (premiering Feb. 7) to be the superior Sex and the City rip-off, but that's not saying much since I loathed Cashmere. With the exception of Lindsay Price's vapid and utterly annoying fashion designer — a role that should've gone to Melinda Clarke — Lipstick's females are more interesting. Come to think of it, Kim Raver's morally conflicted mag editor has more dimensions than all of Cashmere's Barbie dolls combined. And wait until you lay your peepers on her boy toy, played by Fashion House's Robert Buckley (or as I like to call him, Scott Speedman and Jake Gylle
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NBC has at long last unveiled its own "strike schedule," and there's little to be surprised by here, as it has been leaked out in drips and drabs over recent weeks. Of note, NBC touts the slate as offering "significantly more hours of original programming than was ever the case in the first quarter of 2007."The highlights:• As of Jan. 1, The Biggest Loser returns with new two-hour blocks, followed by SVU.• Celebrity Apprentice airs Thursdays at 9 starting Jan. 3; as of Feb. 7, Lipstick Jungle replaces ER as its lead-out.• American Gladiators debuts Jan. 6 before settling into its Mondays-at-8 slot. It will be followed by Deal or No Deal and Medium.• Starting Jan. 9, Law & Order: CI (episodes previously aired on USA Network) airs at 9, followed by mother ship Law & Order.• The Baby Borrowers, "a social experiment that puts teen couples on the fast track to adulthood," premieres Feb. 18.
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Kim Raver, Lindsay Price and Brooke Shields by Virginia Sherwood/ABC
When NBC runs out of new episodes of ER on Feb. 7, it will fill the medical drama's time slot with Sex and the City retread Lipstick Jungle. But on a hopefully positive note, striking writers and producers agreed to a fourth day of contract talks today, which hadn't even been scheduled. Come on, guys, get 'er done! — Ben Katner
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Lorraine Bracco by Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
Being a mobster's shrink seems to have been quite the panacea for Lorraine Bracco, who memorably played Tony Soprano's put-upon psychotherapist on the HBO hit. Not only has she just finished shooting a Lifetime pilot called Long Island Confidential (in which she plays the mom of a homicide detective), but TV Guide is told she'll show up in a recurring role in Lipstick Jungle, NBC midseason series based on Candace Bushnell's follow-up to Sex and the City. Bracco will portray the duplicitous nemesis of the movie studio chief played by series star Brooke Shields. Looks like she might have learned a lesson or two from her former patient. — Ileane Rudolph
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Paul Plackthorne by Markus Klinko/Indrani/Sci Fi Channel Photo
Paul Blackthorne (The Dresden Files) has replaced Chris Wiehl (Love Monkey) as Brooke Shields' husband on the NBC midseason drama Lipstick Jungle.... Also per the Reporter, Patrick Swayze has been tapped to topline The Beast, A&E Network's drama pilot about a veteran FBI agent who trains a new partner (Travis Fimmel) in his psychologically clever style while being pursued by an Internal Affairs team and being subjected to Dr. Houseman's rhetoric.
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Peter Krause by Bob D'Amico/ABC
Get lost, ABC. That was the hostile undercurrent behind much of the questioning for ABC's entertainment president Stephen McPherson Wednesday morning. We critics can be a surly group, especially this late in the TCA press tour. (ABC has the bad luck to be up to bat on the final two days of the three-week hype-a-thon.) But give us something legitimate to gripe about — in this case, the decision by Lost's producers to skip the TCA and instead address the game-changing events behind Lost's cliff-hanger at the Comic-Con fan convention in San Diego on Thursday — and you'd better watch out.One reporter even put it this way: “Are we not important enough for you?” At first, McPherson tried to shrug it off with a joke, saying that he has hired Don Imus — fired earlier this year from his radio and TV gigs for a racial slur — to join the show. (This was the closest he or anyone else came to addressing the Isaiah Washington/Grey’s Anatomy debacle during his of...
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Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline have been let go as the executive producers and show-runners of Lipstick Jungle, NBC's mid-season entry adapted from Candace Bushnell's best-seller. According to the Reporter, the dramedy — starring Brooke Shields, Lindsay Price and Kim Raver — is being taken in a new creative direction, and as the hunt for a new show-runner launches, the production start has been pushed back to November. Outside of Chris Wiehl (Love Monkey) being replaced as Shields' hubby, no other casting changes are expected as part of the retooling.
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Kim Raver by Mitchell Haaseth /NBC Photo
Kim Raver is four months pregnant, the actress reveals exclusively to TV Guide. “I’m so thrilled to be having a second child, I couldn’t keep it secret,” says the 24 star, who is due this fall, not long before the winter debut of her new NBC series Lipstick Jungle.Raver and her husband, French filmmaker Manuel Boyer, recently relocated to New York with their four-year-old son, Luke, for Lipstick Jungle, which costars Brooke Shields and Lindsay Price as powerful women on the prowl in a Sex and the City-like drama. Raver, a Manhattan native who still has family there, says she's looking forward to the “built-in babysitting.” With a new series and baby on the way, it looks like she’ll need it. —Reporting by David HochmanFor more on how Raver’s pregnancy will affect NBC’s new series Lipstick Jungle, pick up the May 28 issue of TV Guide on newsstands now.
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The latest pre-upfronts news:ABCDrama pickups: Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone (both from Everwood's Greg Berlanti); the Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice, the Sex and the City-esque Cashmere Mafia; Pushing Daisies, Women's Murder Club; Big Shots (Dylan McDermott, Michael Vartan, Christopher Titus and Joshua Malina as CEOs/wannabes). Comedies: Cavemen; Sam I Am (Christina Applegate as an amnesiac); Carpoolers. Other notes: October Road and Notes from the Underbelly will return mid-season with 13-episode runs. (Today's News)FOXDrama pick-ups: The Terminator-inspired sci-fi-er The Sarah Connor Chronicles; K-Ville (concerning cops in post-Katrina New Orleans); New Amsterdam (about an immortal homicide detective). Comedies: Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton's Back to You (FKA Action News); Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino's The Return of Jezebel James (starring Parker Posey); The Rules of Starting Over (courtesy of the Farrelly Brothers) (Today's News).NBCDrama pick-up...
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