Archive for February, 2009

From The OC to Gossip Girl, every Josh Schwartz project has always used great music - usually thanks to the handiwork of superstar music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas. Now, the two are teaming up for a new online series called Rockville, CA, an online soap for theWB.com set in a fictional rock club.

From the look of this trailer, all the standard Schwartz components are present: hipsters, snappy (if occasionally cheesy) dialogue, possible bar fights, and lots of making out. According to the official description, the club in question “is a place where a group of twentysomethings from diverse backgrounds gather regularly to hear their favorite up-and-coming bands, blow off steam, fall in love with the wrong people, and then talk about how they’ve fallen in love with the wrong people.” What’s really impressive, though, is the lineup of bands that will be performing for the show: Lykke Li, Phantom Planet, Kaiser Chiefs, and Eagles of Death Metal are just a few (full list here).

When I talked to Schwartz in January, he said he’d enjoyed experimenting with a web format for the first time: “Each episode isn’t like, somebody had a twin brother and somebody drove off a cliff in the car,” he said. “It’s smaller. But the cumulative effect, I think, of all those 20 episodes is, ‘Wow, I really went on a journey with those characters.’ Smaller moments just take on a bigger reverberation.” Hey, I’m in. Rockville, CA premieres online March 17, and to check out the trailer, just read more.

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• Top ratings. Top Chef finished its fifth season with 3.7 million viewers tuning in for the finale on Wednesday. According to Bravo, the show averaged just over 3 million viewers per episode, making it the highest-rated Top Chef season overall.
• Farewell for now, Conan. Last Friday’s final episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien attracted 3.4 million viewers, his best audience in more than four years.
• Save Heroes, save the world? Both Heroes and Chuck had a rough go of it on Monday. Chuck hit a new low with 6.5 million viewers, and Heroes dipped to an all-time worst 6.9 million viewers.
• Idol down, but never out. In its special visit to Thursday night, American Idol hit a season low of 20.7 million viewers. But that didn’t stop it from steamrolling the rest of its time slot competition.
• Ugly numbers. One of those steamrolled by Idol? Ugly Betty, which has been struggling in the ratings all season and probably didn’t appreciate Idol swinging by for the night. The show hit a series low with 6.8 million viewers.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

• I’m so excited for WonderCon this weekend in San Francisco! I’ll be posting some cool movie and TV news here on Buzz, and you can also follow me on Twitter for even faster updates. Also, I’m moderating the Chuck panel on Sunday, so wish me luck!
• Can you believe it? The Oscars have come and gone, thus ending awards season. Sunday’s ceremony left us with a fun treat: a reel of clips from movies coming out this year. Check it out if you missed it..
• Big TV casting news broke this week: Brittany Snow will play young Lily in the new Gossip Girl spinoff!
• This week in childhood loves being raised from the dead: The NeverEnding story will likely get a reboot.
• So I was wondering what musical you’d like to see on the big screen next, and then this news about Jim Carey and Jake Gyllenhaal remaking Damn Yankees came out. How’s that for timing?
• Robert Smith of The Cure chimed in this week on Radiohead’s strategy of letting fans pay what they want for an album. In a nutshell, he doesn’t agree with that philosophy – do you?
• I took a first listen to Neko Case’s new album – and haven’t stopped playing it since. Check out my initial thoughts here.
• Finally, what would a week in entertainment be without some new information about the Twilight franchise coming out? You’ll have to click here to find out what’s up this time around!

• Fox has a new episode and a repeat of Cops and a new episode of America’s Most Wanted
• NBC has repeats of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: SVU, and Law and Order
• CBS has a repeat of Cold Case and is new with 48 Hours
• ABC has Bewitched
• Late-night highlights include Neil Patrick Harris and Taylor Swift on a repeat of Saturday Night Live on NBC, a new episode of MadTV on Fox, and a repeat of Talkshow With Spike Feresten on Fox

Thanks to the Oscars, this week was mostly about the movies, but I still had time to squeeze in a few of my favorite TV shows. Were you paying attention? Well, try your hand at this week’s Who Said That Line? TV quote quiz. Each week I pull some of the most memorable lines from my favorite TV shows, and it’s up to you to figure out who said it. Ready to test your knowledge (or guessing power)? Good luck!

Thanks to the Oscars, this week was mostly about the movies, but I still had time to squeeze in a few of my favorite TV shows. Were you paying attention? Well, try your hand at this week’s Who Said That Line? TV quote quiz. Each week I pull some of the most memorable lines from my favorite TV shows, and it’s up to you to figure out who said it. Ready to test your knowledge (or guessing power)? Good luck!

On Thursday, American Idol welcomed three more members into its top 12. This afternoon, Allison Iraheta, Adam Lambert, and Kris Allen chatted with reporters about their Idol journey so far. A couple of quick highlights from the chat:

• Nobody’s mad at Normund Gentle. One reporter asked Kris if there was any sort of vibe among the contestants that Nick “Normund Gentle” Mitchell was taking a spot from somebody who deserved it more. “He’s not mocking the show,” Kris said. “He’s doing what he knows how to do, and that’s entertain. . . . We all love him to death.” Adam, meanwhile, said he was nervous when the final elimination came down to him or Nick: “I thought Nick was brilliant the other night so I didn’t really know which way it was going to go.”
• How much of a role does screen time play? That was a hot topic on the call, which featured one person (Adam) with a ton of screen time, one person (Allison) with a bit, and one (Kris) with virtually none at all. Allison said she thinks airtime has been doled out fairly thus far. Adam said it certainly hasn’t hurt him: “It’s exposed me to people more and more times,” he said. “They get to hear me talk and hear my opinions, which are many. . . . I’m really thankful to the producers for featuring me in that way.” Kris, meanwhile, said he doesn’t mind being in the background – “I wasn’t like looking for the cameras and trying to put my face in there. I’m totally, totally cool with that.” - and said that obviously screen time isn’t the only factor or he wouldn’t have made it through.

To hear what they thought about their song choice and what they made of the judges’ feedback, just read more.

• Song choice definitely matters. Allison said she did think about the fact that her Heart song had been performed previously on the show by Carrie Underwood, but “I really focused on me, how I would just do the song and, I guess, give it a little taste of what I can do – not change it but . . . just give it a little of me.” Adam saw his Rolling Stones song as a chance to show he’s more than just his Broadway background: “I don’t listen to show tunes in my spare time,” he said. “The musical theater thing was just the way I was paying the bills. So now I finally get to sing the kind of music I like to listen to.” And Kris admitted he got a little nervous when Paula Abdul told Stephen Fowler in the first week not to touch Michael Jackson but decided to stick with “The Man in the Mirror” anyway: “It was a little scary, but I was really confident in what I was doing, and I was just really, really happy that I didn’t get any comparisons to him because that’s exactly what I wanted,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to compare me to Michael Jackson.”
• They listen to the judges’ feedback – but not too much. Of being told by Simon that she lacked personality, Allison said she’s actually much more high-energy than she let on. “I guess I’ll just chill a little bit more,” she said, “because the nerves got me a little.” Adam isn’t taking Simon’s critiques of him being “theatrical” as a bad thing: “When you think about it, in the pop music scene right now, a lot of artists are going a very theatrical route,” he said. “There’s lots of camp and costumes, and that’s kind of an angle right now in the scene.” And don’t expect Kris to change his image to match Simon’s comment about being likable with the ladies: He won’t be doing any obvious courting on the show, since he’s had a steady girlfriend for the past seven years.

Photo courtesy of Fox

As pilot season rolls on in LA, I’ve got a whole bunch of new TV castings to report. Of course, this week’s big news is Brittany Snow getting offered the lead in the Gossip Girl spinoff, but there’s much more going on. A few highlights:

• The cast for Courteney Cox’s ABC comedy Cougar Town has filled out a bunch this week: Busy Phillips will play Cox’s friend and coworker in the show, while adorable Aliens in America star Dan Byrd will play Cox’s son. Brian Van Holt will play Cox’s ex, described simply as “a loser.”
• Chris O’Donnell is officially on board for the NCIS spinoff. He’ll join LL Cool J.
• Angel alum Amy Acker has joined the cast of ABC’s murder mystery Happy Town, playing the wife of Geoff Stults’s character.
• David Morse and Michael Nouri will play blue collar and blueblood fathers in ABC’s Empire State, about a modern-day Romeo and Juliet-esque couple.
• Derek Luke and Kevin Rankin (Herc from Friday Night Lights!) will play a doctor and a paramedic on NBC’s Trauma. Jamey Sheridan is among others in talks to join the cast.

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