Bravo is developing Money Shot, a Project Runway-esque reality competition for aspiring shutterbugs-to-the-stars in which the winner gets cash and a spread in People.... Also per Variety: Animal Planet is going to the movies, offering up a critter-themed family feature every Saturday night, starting May 19 with Stuart Little.... Fox's Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy airs new episodes April 26 and May 3, at 9 pm/ET.
Though as recently as Monday the plan was to allow The Black Donnellys two more airings, NBC has since opted to snuff the mob drama effective immediately, Variety reports, likely as a result of its most recent ratings plunge. Donnellys' remaining six episodes will stream on NBC.com.Meanwhile at ABC, fans of Men in Trees should take heart: Sources tell TVGuide.com that the long-on-hiatus series — which has, we must remember, been picked up for a second season — might very well return with unaired episodes this season, rather than save them for the fall (as has been speculated elsewhere).
When 7th Heaven (once again) wraps up its storied run, the May 13 series finale will tie things in a neat little bow, yet also offer hope for the future. As Haylie Duff tells TVGuide.com, "There is a lot of resolution, and a lot of new beginnings, as well." Though she was only with the Aaron Spelling creation for two of its 11 years, Duff — who stars in the April 7 Lifetime movie Nightmare — says it was an honor to be a part of "a show that will go down in history," noting, "Everyone's experience was so wonderful and we took away from it everything we wanted to, which I think is special and important." — Additional reporting by Megan Cherkezian
In an interview with the British music mag NME, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards claimed that the craziest thing the hard-partying rocker ever snorted was his cremated father's ashes mixed with cocaine, saying, "I couldn't resist grinding him up with a bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared." Too crazy to be true, right? Indeed. A rep for the Stones tells the Associated Press, "It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File it under 'April Fool's Joke.'" Previously, the tale was filed under "Ick, Ptooey!"
In a unique broadcast/online integration, Bones has posted 18 MySpace profiles representing characters that appear in the Fox series' May 9 episode (directed by Emily Deschanel's Oscar-nominated cinematographer pop, Caleb). The pages feature blogs referencing the upcoming story line — Homeland Security calls in Brennan and Booth to investigate potentially radioactive remains — and will offer clues as to the victim and murderer. The MySpace pages can be accessed via Fox.com/Bones.
Housewives' Eva Longoria will return as host and produce this year's ALMA Awards, airing June 5 on ABC.... CNN's Lou Dobbs has joined CBS' The Early Show as a weekly contributor.... A new SpongeBob episode reveals the secret past of lifelong foes Plankton and Mr. Krabs as part of an April 13, 5 to 10 pm/ET marathon..... Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown birthed a girl on Tuesday. Brown has claimed that Eddie Murphy is the dad.... Scary Movie's Anna Faris has filed for a divorce from actor Ben Indra, her husband of nearly three years.
Tim Urban might not have won over the Donald, but he got the approval of someone more important: fellow Apprentice cast member Nicole, whom he wooed this season but hit a rough patch with just prior to his ejection. "Ten months later, we're still together, if you can believe that," Tim tells TVGuide.com. "[On TV] you're looking at the rockiest time we ever had, but we had kind of made up by the time I got fired. We said, 'Let's not let this be a huge thing,' because after all those months together, we were really quite tight." Of course we advised Tim that Trump must be salivating at even the remote possibility of "The Apprentice Wedding," which would surely be the highest-rated television special ever. [Wink wink] "Yeah," Tim acknowledges, "but I don't think I like Trump nowadays, so I don't know!"
In a Tuesday press-conference call, executive producer Ken Warwick offered his four pence on how the critically derided Sanjaya has endured American Idol to date: "He's a good-looking kid, and young girls love good-looking kids; he's not as bad a singer as everybody makes him out to be; and part of this business is your communication with your audience, and he's certainly got that." That said, Warwick questions how much longer Sanjaya's underdog status can save his bacon. "Personally, I don't expect him to be there in the end, but you never know," he says. "It's not up to me, it's up to the public."Or is it? Some have attributed Sanjaya's longevity to one website's online campaign to keep him around despite his shortcomings, and the mission of admitted vote-rocker Howard Stern. Warwick, though, deems such influences "very minimal," saying, "There is very little anybody can do that will affect the vast number of votes that we get."For more from Warwick — including his take on Ch...
This Monday's ratings highlights:• Dancing with the Stars averaged 17.9 million total viewers over its 105-minute run, a dip of 2.2 mil from last week's performance show.• Trailing Deal and tying CBS sitcom repeats for the 8 o'clock hour's No. 3 spot was the season finale of Prison Break (8.01 million), which matched last week's season low.• At 9 pm, CBS' NCAA basketball-championship coverage drew 16.84 mil, down 700K from '06's UCLA-Florida face-off. 24 (10.85 mil) was down a mil.• The Bachelor premiered to 10.11 million, a 2.6 mil bump from the Rome edition's debut.• The just-snuffed Black Donnellys (5.42 mil) dropped another 250 thou.
CBS will pay tribute to retiring Price Is Right host Bob Barker and his long showbiz career with a pair of prime-time specials. On May 16, the Eye serves up The Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular, Barker's final turn at the mike. The following night, Bob Barker: A Celebration of 50 Years on Television features the silver fox reminiscing about his career, offering highlights from his 35-year TPIR run, and an exclusive interview with the yodelling cliff-hanger dude.
CBS has announced a May 20 airdate for Jesse Stone: Sea Change, the latest Tom Selleck-fronted adaptation from the best-selling Robert E. Parker series.... The Jeffrey Dean Morgan-hosted Grey's Anatomy clip show airing April 12 will offer the world broadcast premiere of a music video setting scenes from the series to the title track from Brandi Carlile's new album, The Story.... Season 4 of Dog the Bounty Hunter premieres April 10 at 9 pm/ET.
Having decided to purposely save the steamy sudser from the American Idol juggernaut, the CW has announced a Wednesday, May 30, 8 pm/ET premiere for Hidden Palms, starring Next Big Thing Amber Heard and... well, others. Per Variety, Palms will be paired with three fresh eps of One Tree Hill, which after returning from hiatus May 2 will serve up originals and only originals through mid-June.
Although Notes from the Underbelly will still debut with back-to-back episodes on Thursday, April 12, at 10 pm/ET, ABC has found a new full-time home for the comedy: Wednesdays at 8:30, behind According to Jim. Informing the network's scheduling switch, says Variety, was the promising performance of October Road, which will now get to air the final two episodes of its freshman batch on April 19 and 26.
The Black Donnellys is getting no more brotherly love from NBC, which is pulling the dark, moody drama after its April 16 airing, meaning only eight out of its 13 episodes will have been seen. As Variety reports, the fantastically plum position of Heroes' lead-out will be inherited by... The Real Wedding Crashers, the Ashton Kutcher-produced reality series that, based on the promos, looks not at all "super."
FX has granted a 13-episode order to Damages, the previously (and for far too long)-untitled legal drama in which Glenn Close plays a corporation-slaying litigator. Costarring on the series, which is slated for a summer bow, are Rose Byrne, Ted Danson, Tate Donovan and Zeljko Ivanek. A Sony Pictures TV exec tells the Hollywood Reporter, "This will be the next buzzworthy FX series" — even if it means enlisting Aniston for some more girl-girl action.Speaking of which, a decision on Dirt's Season 2 is expected in two to six weeks — and the outlook, says the Reporter, is actually good.
The longest-running family drama on television, 7th Heaven, will bow out after 11 years on the air and broadcast its series finale on May 13, the trades are reporting. The series previously (while on WB) aired its "final episode" last May, but was granted a reprieve when the CW gave it a last-minute pickup. But since Everwood isn't around to slight again, this particular finale will probably stick.
I almost didn't use Monday's "Wedding Is Off" ratings headline out of concern that it'd better serve a cancellation announcement. But hey, I'm no cynic. Yet here we are, and Fox has indeed shut down production on David E. Kelley's The Wedding Bells after seven episodes. The show debuted strongly — then again, Supertrain would get 12 mil coming out of Idol — but saw its numbers plunge to 4.5 mil last Friday. "We've been pleased with the show creatively," Fox says in a statement. "[It] just didn't secure the ratings we'd hope for."Speaking of underperforming freshman series airing on Fridays, ABC has yanked Six Degrees effectively immediately, replacing it with Wife Swap repeats starting April 13.
It was only a matter of time before one of NBC's Law & Orders ripped from the ubiquitous Anna Nicole Smith headlines. In Criminal Intent's May 8 episode, Kristy Swanson uses her new curves to play a voluptuous, ill-fated drug-abusing model/rich guy’s widow/new mom (whose older son is found dead). Best known as the big-screen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Swanson began filming the episode just five weeks after giving birth to her and Skating with Celebrities partner Lloyd Eisler's son, Magnus. Assessing Swanson's embrace of the role, executive producer Warren Leight says, "There's something larger-than-life about Kristy. She has a heightened sexuality. I've never seen anyone as unself-conscious about herself and her endowment. When people would bring a photo over for her to sign, she would say, 'I assume you want me to sign [on] my breasts.'" And she was probably right. — Reporting by Ileane Rudolph
According to a fresh press release from ABC, Marsha Thomason will make her first appearance on Lost on April 18. The Las Vegas alumna's billing as simply a "parachutist" would seem to mesh perfectly with what executive producer Carlton Cuse revealed about the new arrival to Ausiello (second Q) — the first person to report on Thomason joining the cast — more than a month ago. Of course, were this truly Gilligan's Island, the "parachutist" would turn out to be just an experimental Air Force robot.UPDATE: Sonya Walger appears as Penny Widmore in the same episode, Thomason is British.... Could Parachutist be part of some rescue operation? Hmmm.
Dancing with the Stars's results show this week features performances by Ciara (singing "Like a Boy"), Josh Groban ("So She Dances") and Survivor (holy flashback, "Eye of the Tiger").... Jonathan Silverman's arc on fiancée Jennifer Finnigan's Close to Home begins this Friday. Look for my Q&A with the In Case of Emergency star on Wednesday.... Andy Garcia (Ocean's Eleven) is Angie's con man brother on George Lopez April 17.... Ivana Milicevic (Love Monkey) visits Ugly Betty on April 19.... Bob Barker's previously announced How I Met Your Mother appearance happens April 30, when Barney is asked to "Come on down!" (Hurry, dude, before George takes over.)
Ratings bits from Friday and Sunday:• On Friday at 9, the time-slot premiere of Raines (8.62 million total viewers) trailed Close to Home by 2.7 mil, but delivered 1.5 million more heads than who last tuned in to the NBC newbie. • The Wedding Bells (4.52 million, down a mil week-to-week) took the ratings plunge, as did Six Degrees (3.18 mil), which (undeservedly! My wife likes it, darn it!) cooled off to the tune of 1.4 mil.• On Sunday, a two-hour batch of The Amazing Race (averaging nine mil) could best neither repeats of Extreme Makeover: HE (9.82 mil), nor Deal or No Deal (10.29 mil), nor a Desperate Housewives clip show (9.79 mil). • A special 10 pm offering of Cold Case (13.09 million) topped Brothers & Sisters (9.13 mil, down more than two mil from its last fresh eppy) and The Apprentice (6.01 mil).
With Bob Barker set to get neutered retire in June, the latest buzz has the tannest man in Hollywood — onetime Dancing with the Stars hoofer George Hamilton — inheriting the Price Is Right hosting gig. According to TMZ.com, at least, CBS CEO Les Moonves and TPIR execs think the "wonderfully charming" Hamilton "could really make the show work." Yeah, because after a gagillion years on the air and atop the ratings, the show was a real mess.