Prime Time TV

The third and final episode of Sherlock’s second series will air in the U.S. Sunday night on PBS. The episode, titled “The Reichenbach Fall,” is based upon “The Final Problem,” one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories, and features a massive cliffhanger that will undoubtedly leave fans of the series clamoring for more. As it turns out, though, Sherlock fans are going to have to wait a little while, according to executive producer and creator Steven Moffat. 

We’ve already heard from executive producer Mark Gatiss about series 3: ”We’ve had several meetings and we’re very, very excited about getting going!” But Moffat gives us an even more accurate time schedule. 

“Well, we’ve had meetings about [series 3],” Moffat told Digital Spy. “It’s certainly happening and we know when we’re filming it – we shoot in January. Obviously I’ve got quite a lot of work on between now and January!”

January’s a long way off, which means that it will likely be next summer before we see hide or hair of Sherlock series 3. The notoriously busy Moffat has been slaving away at the upcoming seventh series of Doctor Who, which will feature the show’s fiftieth anniversary, giving him very little time to devote to his OTHER massively loved show. “I don’t think a word [of series 3] has been committed to paper yet, but nearly,” he shared. 

What does “nearly” mean? Well, it means that Moffat has some plans for series 3. “Broadly speaking, yes, we have our arc and we know what [Sherlock Holmes stories] we’re going to cover. The writing depends to some degree on spontaneity so you give yourself a big enough framework to improvise within.”

Of the long breaks between Sherlock’s seasons, Moffat noted, “Sherlock almost exists on starving its audience. By the time it came back this year, Sherlock was like a rock star re-entering the building!”

Sherlock will likely return sometime in 2013. For those of you looking to get your fix of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, worry not: the duo will be appearing in December’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. 

http://www.tvrage.com/news/1026/sherlock-series-3-begins-filming-in-january

Terminator 3 actor Nick Stahl, who was reported missing on Monday, has reportedly reached out to friends via email, according to TMZ.com.

Stahl allegedly emailed friends on Friday, apologizing for his disappearance, but letting them know that he was fine. He said that he was planning to seek treatment and would be out of contact for 30 days.

Terminator 3 star Nick Stahl reported missing

His wife, Rose, filed a missing persons report with the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday. She did not reportedly receive the email from Stahl.

The couple has been separated since January, according to court papers filed by Rose in February. At the time, she asked a judge to limit her husband’s visitations with their 2-year-old daughter, Marlo, to eight supervised hours per week. She also asked that Stahl pass a test to prove that he hadn’t taken drugs or alcohol in the previous 24 hours prior to seeing their daughter.

Despite the email, the LAPD has not closed the missing persons case.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Nick-Stahl-Missing-Email-1047803.aspx?rss=breakingnews

Sounds like a bad simulation in the dreamatorium.

Community creator Dan Harmon was ousted as showrunner of the NBC series Friday night, replaced by Happy Endings‘ alums Moses Port and David Guarascio — except, no one bothered to tell Harmon.

New showrunners to replace Dan Harmon on Community

NBC renewed the critically adored comedy for a 13-episode fourth season last week, though Harmon had yet to sign a new deal keeping him with the series. “I expect Dan’s voice to be a part of this show somehow,” NBC Entertainment Chief Bob Greenblatt told reporters Sunday. “I’m just not sure if that means him running it day-to-day or him consulting on it.”

Harmon took to his blog late Friday night after news of his ouster had broken online — Harmon was even trending worldwide on Twitter because of it — to clear up any misconceptions fans had about his leaving the series. “Why’d Sony want me gone?  I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have,” he wrote. “They literally haven’t called me since the season four pickup, so their reasons for replacing me are clearly none of my business. Community is their property, I only own ten percent of it, and I kind of don’t want to hear what their complaints are because I’m sure it would hurt my feelings even more now that I’d be listening for free.”

NBC boss says Community may get new showrunner, denies this is 30 Rock‘s last season

Harmon went on to say that Greenblatt misspoke when saying that he would still be a part of the show. “I think he meant to say he’s sure cookies are yummy, because he’s never called me once in the entire duration of his employment at NBC,” he wrote. ”He didn’t call me to say he was starting to work there, he didn’t call me to say I was no longer working there and he definitely didn’t call to ask if I was going to be involved.  I’m not saying it’s wrong for him to have bigger fish to fry, I’m just saying, NBC is not a credible source of All News Dan Harmon.”

“If I actually chose to go to the office, I wouldn’t have any power there,” he continued, later noting that he had already packed up his office days ago. ”Nobody would have to do anything I said, ever… I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying ‘it has to be like this or I quit’ roughly 8 times a day.”

Read Harmon’s statement in full here.

Do you think Community will be the same without Harmon?

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Community-Dan-Harmon-Exit-1047799.aspx?rss=breakingnews

Lady Catelyn is just as noble and upstanding as her late husband Ned Stark. And we all know how that ended.

On Sunday’s Game of Thrones, Catelyn continues to be torn between her wartime duties to the King in the North, her son Robb (Richard Madden), and being separated from her four younger children. “Robb is the only one that she has any sort of communication with at this time, and she doesn’t know where the others are,” Michelle Fairley, who plays Catelyn, tells TVGuide.com. “Her whole drive for the second season is to get her family back together and then protect them as much as she can. And if she can get them into the castle, and board it up, and never let them leave again, I think that’s exactly what she would do. I think she’s selfish in that respect. Sometimes when people are selfish they think that they are doing it for the greater good, they are on a singledminded track.”

Game of Thrones‘ Rose Leslie discusses Downton Abbey, Ygritte and her feelings towards Jon Snow

Catelyn has good reason to worry though. Last she heard, sons Bran and Rickon (Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Art Parkinson) were held prisoner at Winterfell and daughter Sansa (Sophie Turner) was held hostage as a political-marriage prospect in King’s Landing. Old family friend Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aidan Gillen) and envoy recently told Catelyn that her youngest daughter Arya (Maisie Williams) was with Sansa, although Game of Thrones viewers know this to be a lie.

“Littlefinger has really deceived her into believing that Arya is also in King’s Landing as well, and this has got her hopes up because she now thinks that they are safe,” Fairley says. “He’s there to hoodwink her. He puts a carrot in front of her and is like, ‘Look, all you have to do is give back Jamie Lannister, and we will give you your daughters back.’”

Check out the rest of the interview in which Fairley explains why Catelyn trusts Littlefinger, her disdain for Jon Snow and her trust in Brienne:

After Littlefinger betrayed Ned, why would Catelyn take his word on anything?
Michelle Fairley: Well, they grew up together. So she’s known him her whole life. So she always thinks of him just as little Petyr, like a brother, not anything else. But he actually has been in love with her his whole life… And when he approaches her with this information, he’s paying her back for all of those years, for rejection. And he suckers her in, but she doesn’t realize it. The depth of that man’s deception will come out eventually.

It doesn’t sound like Catelyn can even imagine that people have all of this time and energy to create such deception.
Fairley: Absolutely. Irrespective of all of the deception that man has already created in her life, she thinks, “This is it. It’s going to be that easy. It’s going to be that simple.” Because ultimately she’s a good person. She’s not a strategist, she’s not a schemer, she’s not a conniver. She still believes him at his word.

What do you think is Catelyn’s biggest strength?
Fairley: Her strength, I think, is her perseverance and her drive and her passion for her family, to get them together. You know she is somebody that evolves as this journey goes on. She’s always had these hidden talents, I think. But they remained hidden because she never really had to use them because she’s always had a husband before. But now she’s mother, father, she’s a lioness, she’s a warrior, she’s a protector. Her son Robb is using her to try to negotiate peace so that the families could come together to fight against the Lannisters.

She’s not all noble though. What are her feelings toward Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Ned Stark’s bastard?
Fairley: Well, she absolutely hates him. It’s terribly sad that a woman as intelligent, and as good, and as gracious, and as high-brow as her, gives in. This is absolutely jealousy and hatred, which comes when she feels complete betrayal from Ned. And it’s displaced. It shouldn’t be taken out on poor little Jon Snow, you know what I mean? That’s one of her failings. But her family adores him. The children adore him. They love him. And he gets on wonderfully with her children, and he’s loyal, and he grew up well.

From The Client List to Game of Thrones: Spring TV eye candy

Catelyn just learned that Theon (Alfie Allen) had taken over Winterfell. How’s she feeling about their former ward now?
Fairley: When Robb actually tells Catelyn the scenario that occurred and she says, “I told you never to trust a Greyjoy,” she is absolutely furious. But she has to be very careful about how she handles it. She knows that Bran and Rickon are there as well. She’s still hoping against hope that he will not hurt them because he has been brought up with the family. Where’s his loyalty? She hopes that surely something that they have taught them has rubbed off on him.

Catelyn also just witnessed Renly’s (Gethin Anthony) mysterious death by shadow. What is going on in her mind right now then? Does she even accept what she saw?
Fairley: She knows there’s a really bad force out there or something evil. She doesn’t yet know where it’s coming from, or who’s responsible for it, but it’s imperative that she achieves her goals as quickly as possible now and get away from this because there is something really rotten in the state of Westeros. In her heart she knows she’s out of her depth in many ways.

She also has a curious relationship with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie). Can you define it?
Fairley: I actually think that she sees a very young Arya in Brienne, a girl who isn’t a girly-girl who wants to get out there and fight. She sees a warrior in there. That’s exactly what her daughter wants to do. She doesn’t want to learn how to sew. She doesn’t want to be married to somebody. She doesn’t want that. She wants to get out there and be with the guys. She wants to be out hunting, and fighting, and sword-playing, and doing all of those courageous things. But again it’s just another manifestation of her daughter, and she recognizes that. And she is a woman of her word as well. And Brienne showed courage, strength, commitment, and honor, which is very important to Catelyn as well.

Do fans still ask you about Ned’s death?
Fairley: A lot of people say, “Is he really dead?” When I read the books, I thought, “No he’s not really dead. He’s going to come back.” You know what I mean? You think in some shape or form it’s contrived so that they will get him out of there. But unfortunately, it’s not. I also get asked a lot about my [TV] children, my beautiful boys. [Laughs] And all I say is, “Good genes. Good genes.” You know, or my wonderful, beautiful daughters.

From Game of Thrones to Spartacus: TV’s unsexiest sex scenes

If you had your own personal sigil, what would it be?
Fairley: I think I’d like to have all of the Lannisters’ heads on spikes. I think that’s what it would be. Starting with Jaime at the top and then [Cersei], and then Tyrion I think. With a big X through them. Blooded, very blooded.

If you were sitting on the Iron Throne, what would your first edict be?
Fairley: I would just make sure that everybody has a lovely place to live, everybody is happy, serene and everybody lives in peace and harmony. If anybody wants to fight, I’m such a coward I would immediately throw them in the dungeons.

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Game-Thrones-Michelle-Fairley-1047798.aspx?rss=breakingnews

AMC’s critically acclaimed drama Breaking Bad is approaching its end. Only sixteen episodes (one season) remain in the series, which chronicles high school chemistry teacher Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) evolution (devolution?) into a drug lord. We’ve known that the show’s fifth and final season would premiere sometime this summer, but now we have a definite premiere date: July 15. 

News of the premiere date was released through the DVD set of fellow AMC show Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season. A flyer inside the set confirmed the date, which just a little under two months away. I suppose you can go ahead and start getting excited now — I certainly am. 

The show will pick up after the events of the season four finale, which saw Walt and Jesse (Aaron Paul) finally successfully assassinating drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final moments of the episode, however, revealed a new villain: Walter White himself, who had apparently poisoned young Brock in order to spur Jesse into striking back against Gus. 

The show’s fifth season recently cast Friday Night Lights’ Jesse Plemons as ”Todd, a dependable, innocuous, working-class guy,” who “may not be what he appears to be.” He certainly sounds enigmatic, and might be one of the villains for the show’s final season. 

Breaking Bad was recently declared to be “the best TV show of all time” by What Culture!

Breaking Bad’s fifth and final season will likely be split into two pods of eight episodes, with the first pod presumably ending in September and the second likely set to air sometime in early 2013. 

We’ll keep you posted with any more Breaking Bad season 5 news as it develops. 

http://www.tvrage.com/news/1023/breaking-bad-season-5-gets-premiere-date

Wow. I’m used to Supernatural season finales ending with a huge,
dangerous cliffhanger, but this one takes the cake. It’s continuing the
trend of ending odd-numbered seasons by stranding one brother in a new
world. For season 3, Dean went to Hell. For season 5, Sam went into the
cage with Michael and Lucifer. And now Dean is off to the worst place
you could possibly imagine: Purgatory.

The finale begins the way all Supernatural finales do: “The Road So Far” recap set to “Carry on My Wayward Son,” also known as the most bad-ass, awesome montage on all of TV.

SlideshowBest ‘Supernatural’ Quotes from the Season 7 Finale

Let’s Make a Deal

Crowley and Dick Roman meet up and the Leviathan leader wants to make a deal. He offers to give Crowley and his demons Canada if he’ll just give Sam and Dean some fake blood. Poor Canada, always the butt of the joke.

Crowley agrees, but first he makes Dick Roman sign a comically long contract that resembles the one from the hilarious Marx brothers movie A Night at the Opera (the party of the first part shall agree to the party of the second part) . Dick signs it, which is never a good idea.

Sam and Dean Get Ready

The brothers find the bone of an old nun, which seems pretty righteous to them. They also have Meg and Cas in their corner. Finally, Crowley shows up and offers them his blood, even telling them about the deal he made with Dick. Can he be trusted? Probably not.

The Leviathans’ Big Plan

Dick has a big meeting of all the most important Leviathans to reveal the next stage in their plan to fatten up humanity as a food supply. He’s developed a lethal non-dairy creamer that will kill all the skinny people, because Leviathans like big butts and they cannot lie.

Goodbye, Bobby

Bobby, still possessing the maid, is on the warpath and shows up to SucroCorp to kill Dick just as Sam and Dean are scouting it out. Sam goes to stop him but Bobby the Maid chokes and almost kills him before leaving the body.

The boys regroup at the cabin and Ghost Bobby shows up. He was terrified that he almost killed Sam, and even more terrified that he still wants to go after Dick. So Bobby asks the boys to burn the flask and kill him for group.

It hurts. A lot. But it’s the right thing to do. Ghost Bobby gives the boys one last piece of advice (get Dick because it’s the job, not for vengeance) and then the flask is burned. The show wisely keeps the camera on the boys instead of showing us Bobby’s ghost burning up. I guess now it’s time to admit that Bobby is really, truly gone.

The Big Plan to Kill Dick

With Bobby gone, Dean comes up with a master plan, that thankfully involves the return of one of our favorite characters: the Impala! Oh baby, I’ve missed you. Accompanied by “Born to Be Wild” we see the Impala speeding down the road and crashing straight into SucroCorp.

Only it’s not Dean behind the wheel, it’s Meg. She’s the distraction, and Dean must really, really want Dick dead if he’d let a demon drive his baby. She kills and beheads a few Leviathans before a pair of demons show up to take her to Crowley.

But the distraction was enough to let Dean, Sam and Cas sneak in and look for the real Dick Roman (luckily Cas can identify which of the clones is the real one). They find him and Kevin Tran, and after a little fake out, it works.

Dean rams the righteous bone washed in the blood of the three fallen right into Dick Roman’s neck. He laughs, then starts vibrating, then he explodes. It’s a pretty awesome ending. But it’s just the beginning.

Sam and Dean Are All Alone

After Dick Roman explodes, Dean and Cas disappear. Sam is left all alone until Crowley shows up. It seems killing Dick destroyed the Leviathans’ master plan, but the other Leviathans are still around, just another monster. Dick also takes Kevin the prophet and lets Sam know that he’s all alone because Dean and Cas are long gone.

And boy, are they gone. We see them wake up in a dark and scary forest. Welcome to Purgatory, where all dead monsters go to kill each other. So basically, everything Dean has ever killed and every bad thing that has ever existed is all around him, and he has no way of getting out because Cas vanishes. Yikes.

And this is how season 7 ends. It was a hit-or-miss season, but man do I love this ending. Leaving Sam all alone and stranding Dean in Purgatory is the kind of epic, brilliant cliffhanger this show does best. I can’t wait to see how new showrunner Jeremy Carver digs out of this hole.

Also, I hope that Dean being in Purgatory means the show can bring back any and all creatures he’s killed. Sam’s girlfriend Amy? Azazel? Maybe even Bobby? Absolutely anyone could be in Purgatory.

Now comes the waiting, Supernatural season 8 won’t begin until October, when it moves to Wednesday nights at 9pm. See you then.

(Image courtesy of the CW)

SlideshowThe Best Moments from ‘Supernatural’ Season 7

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/supernatural/supernatural_season_7_finale_r-45756.aspx

It’s my belief that good heroes are only half as good if they don’t have proper villains to oppose them. And so it is with Nikita, where veteran character actor Xander Berkeley has been the face of evil, and ought to be commended for it. SPOILER ALERT!

The second season of Nikita hasn’t been its finest; while it’s still a good show, the sophomore run had too many flashbacks, too much repetition and at times, seemed a shadow of its tightly plotted first-season self. But what stayed the same, no matter what else happened, was the high quality of the acting.

This is a cast that I wouldn’t have thought to put together in my head, and yet they all click so well together. As previously stated, Shane West is criminally underrated. But also overlooked, I think, is Berkeley, who’s been acting since before a lot of Nikita fans were probably alive (including me).

Stepping into the role of Percy, the counterpart to La Femme Nikita‘s Operations, Berkeley had big shoes to fill. Eugene Robert Glazer was downright terrifying in that part on the USA series. Berkeley, on the other hand, is best distinguished by his characters’ deadpan wit. Two different designs on the same role. And yet, watching Percy fall to his death in tonight’s season finale, I felt saddened, thinking of a show without Berkeley in it.

What I came to realize is that which didn’t seem to fit was actually Percy’s best asset. That sense of humor, that willingness to snark, that air of being totally unbothered by things that would make the rest of us cringe. They made him almost likeable – and that was the dangerous part, because you’re not supposed to laugh at the guy who’s trying to kill the titular star of the show. You’re not supposed to feel like he’s human, too.

But that’s something Berkeley accomplished in his two seasons on Nikita (assuming that Percy doesn’t somehow survive that fall and/or we don’t see him return in flashbacks – stranger things have happened). It’s something that he’s always been good at. Look at his other major TV role, as George Mason in the first two seasons of 24. Mason was in direct opposition with Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). We were supposed to dislike him for getting in Jack’s way, at the least.

Yet when he was marked for death in season two, we saw such a human, vulnerable, moving side of him. He tried to reconcile with his estranged son and give parting advice to Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth). And who among us wasn’t crying when Mason sacrificed himself to safely detonate that nuclear bomb? I know I was crying so much that I hit my head on the coffee table and knocked myself unconscious.

Nikita fans, you’ve probably seen Berkeley a half-dozen places before and just haven’t noticed how good he is. Remember him as John Connor’s foster father in Terminator 2: Judgment Day? As the traitorous Secret Service Agent Gibbs in Air Force One? He’s been on The West Wing, The X-Files, Bones, Medium, Boston Legal and dozens of other TV shows, too. And every time his name is in the credits, you know you’re going to get a good performance from him. Even if it’s in a SyFy movie called Magma: Volcanic Disaster.

Maybe Percy had to go. One wonders how many more evil speeches he could have given, or how one’s plans get any more evil than threatening the President. But who will the show get to fill that villainous void that will be as consistently good as Berkeley was? Will it be Melinda Clarke, whose Amanda tried being the big bad of the season only to end up on the run? Or Peter Outerbridge, whose Ari Tasarov finally got a lot more screen time, but who’s out there somewhere with her? This mysterious other group we’ve now been introduced to?

Whoever it is, they’ve got a challenge ahead of them. Nikita season 3 needs a villain that can pose a real threat to “Team Nikita” – and yet be someone that we love to hate, who is more than just a black hat, who feels like a fully developed individual. Xander Berkeley did that for two years, and he’ll be very much missed.

Image courtesy of The CW

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/nikita/nikita_finale_a_tribute_to_xan-45758.aspx

Greendale Community College has a new pair of headmasters. Just Shoot Me! alums Moses Port and David Guarascio have been tapped to step in and replace Dan Harmon as the new showrunners of NBC’s Community. Harmon has been given a consulting producer title, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be actively involved on the show.

Even though NBC pleased fans by giving Community a 13-episode renewal last week, Harmon hadn’t yet struck a deal with producer Sony Pictures TV to return as showrunner next season. That’s because Sony had been looking to make a change at the top. Initially, Port and Guarascio (who more recently consulted on Happy Endings) turned the offer down — but Sony came back and sweetened the pot. The duo’s credits also include Aliens in America; this season they wrote the Fox pilot El Jefe.

According to insiders, Harmon signed just a one-year deal last year, with no option that would force his return this season. With no new deal on the horizon, Harmon prepared a farewell message to run as a vanity production card during Community‘s season ender, but the idea was later nixed.

NBC Boss Says Community May Get New Showrunner

Sony is said to be looking at ways to broaden Community and attempt to extend the show’s life on NBC — and it’s no secret that studio and network execs have clashed with Harmon in the past. Insiders warn that Harmon is so closely identified with Community that squeezing him completely might alienate the show’s small but fiercely loyal fan base. Not to mention most of the show’s cast: “Dan’s the creator of the show, the voice of the show, so I don’t know how that would work without him,” says star Joel McHale.

On Sunday, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said that he expected “Dan’s voice to be a part of this show somehow. I’m just not sure if that means him running it day to day or consulting on it.” (Harmon himself has said he’s not interested in a consulting role.)

The decision to tap outside producers to join the show was also borne out of necessity, as Harmon’s key producing partners are all exiting the show. Former exec producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan (who signed a deal at 20th Century Fox TV to create new shows) have already been hired to run Fox’s Ben and Kate, while coexecutive producer Chris McKenna has set up a deal at Universal TV to develop new shows — and insiders said he wouldn’t have taken the showrunner job without Harmon’s involvement. The seeds of this week’s showdown were planted long before Harmon’s public feud with star Chevy Chase, but it likely didn’t help. “It’s hard to imagine that Dan will be back on the show,” one source said earlier this week. “And it’s hard to imagine that Dan won’t be back on the show.”

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It has been known that Britney Spears and Demi Lovato are joining Simon Cowell and Antonio “L.A” Reid on the judging panel for the next season of X Factor USA. However, now that Duets, another singing competition show is coming up against it, there are insults flying left and right. One in particular is that of John Legend. The singer/songwriter said “It’s interesting when people, you know, are judging singing competitions when they aren’t really singers,” This comes as a shock to Britney fans and Lovato fans as well. The fact that Legend has insulted them is questionable as to whether or not this was intentional to boost any ratings for ‘Duets’ coming on the 24th of May on ABC.

However, this has had the opposite effect. There have been singers who have made rude comments before. Recently “The Wanted” made bad comments about Christina Aguilera, another Disney Star, and has recently apologized for their rude comment to the Pop Diva. This goes to show that celebrities, whether famous or not, are going to say what they want and eventually will pay the price. It is going to be interesting to see what this is going to do to the show. Rather then helping the show, Legend could have just tainted the show and forced people to ignore it.

What do you think? Should John Legend apologize to Britney Spears and Demi Lovato? Should he be apologizing to Simon Cowell as well for choosing the judges?

Source: Zap2It

http://www.tvrage.com/news/1020/john-legend-insults-new-x-factor-judges