Popular Shark Tank panelist Barbara Corcoran can invest in and reject companies with ease, but how does she fare in her first acting role, playing herself on the July 7 episode of Lifetime's Drop Dead Diva? "I spent five to six hours memorizing my script," she says, "and I still flubbed my lines."
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TV executives must have been happy to put a fork in the 2012-13 season. Ratings dropped across the board for broadcast networks due to fading reality franchises and the failure to launch any major new scripted hits. Cable also slumped, with audience levels flat compared with the previous season. And with the number of viewers who time-shift growing, the path to success is more treacherous than ever. Here are the shows that navigated the bumps — and the ones that became ratings road kill.
Winners
The Bible
Let us now praise...
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Another May weekend, another deluge of season finales — though none are likely to blow the mind with as much daring, panache and imaginative fervor as BBC America's gloriously inventive Doctor Who (Saturday, 8/7c), which signs off until next time-travel with one of its trippiest yet emotionally powerful episodes to date. Steven Moffat's typically clever script, brimming with colorful incident and characters grandly heroic or villainous, finds a nifty way to salute the 50-year history of Doctors as we learn more about the impossibly irrepressible companion Clara (the smashing Jenna-Louise Coleman), first seen in a cosmic haze — "I don't know where I am ... Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once" — with only one constant to guide her: "I have to save the Doctor." That same impulse prompts lizard lady Vastra, her wife Jenny and the stalwart Strax to summon Clara to a psychic conference call, interrupted by the menacing "Whisper Men" (reminiscent of the ghoulish Gentlemen from Buffy's classic "Hush" episode).
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Man, Shark Tank is so good — it stinks to see it leave for summer vacay. Fortunately, the ABC reality show about aspiring entrepreneurs will air two episodes back-to-back beginning at 8/7c on Friday, during which Mark Cuban will have a big confrontation with fellow Shark Kevin O'Leary.
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ABC announced its new fall schedule Tuesday, adding new series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to lead off a brand new Tuesday slate and reducing Dancing with the Stars to one night a week.
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