“We had conversations about how to best see Tom again,” says Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries of Part 2 of the Arrowverse crossover. Arrowverse boss Marc Guggenheim says Welling was excited to return to his roots and play a new version of Clark Kent. “We got on the phone with him and basically pitched him everything,” Guggenheim said, adding that Welling’s response was basically, “I love this. … You guys have basically written the one scene that I can’t say no to.” In fact, Arrowverse filmed at the same location where Smallville was originally filmed. “Tom was joking when he was there, ‘Oh, that cow recognize me,’” Dries recalls. “So it all felt very 10 years ago, in a great way. And so it just felt natural." ALSO: Brandon Routh says "I was very touched" when asked to reprise his Superman role for "Crisis on Infinite Earths."
# TOPICS: Tom Welling
"Not at all what I expected, but perfect," said Miller, who had a messy exit from the HBO comedy after Season 4, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "Again, so interesting to not know what was going to happen the entire season. I better appreciated the way the series was always a roller coaster — when you are on the show you know how it’s all going to end before it even airs." Miller also reacted to the series finale as his Silicon Valley character: "I loved it. I shed a tear, and then another, and then I teared a shed apart."
# TOPICS: Silicon Valley, HBO, T.J. Miller
"The thing about Watchmen is that it probably shouldn’t work at all, let alone work this well," says Brian Grubb. "It is so many things and all of them are happening so quickly. It’s a show based on a comic but it’s barely tied to the comic and is set decades after the comic ended. It plays fast and loose with a beloved text. It takes on the history of race in America as directly as any show on television and also featured an on-screen fart that lasted so long it required two separate captions, 'farting loudly' and 'fart squeaks.' It hops around through time with very little interest in telling you exactly where or when it is. Jeremy Irons is out in a picturesque space prison fishing babies out of a lake and growing them into servants, some of whom he roasts in a chamber as part of a stage play he puts on for himself and some of whom he launches into the cosmos with a giant catapult. That’s a lot. It’s just objectively a lot for a show that has only been on for eight episodes so far." Compared to Lindelof's previous show The Leftovers, Watchmen is a bigger swing. "This isn’t a niche prestige series with a tiny but passionate audience," says Grubb. "This is a huge deal piece of intellectual property, one its creator rather famously poo-poos adaptions of. There are more moving parts before you go about adding extra moving parts. The original comics featured a nude blue human god ending the Vietnam War and making Nixon a national hero. A huge squid landed on Manhattan and killed three million people and that was a diversion to end the Cold War. There was already plenty of stuff going on without the time jumps and lube men and deep dives into historically underreported acts of racial violence. The whole thing is ambitious bordering on audacious and it’s somehow become the most compelling and watchable and aggressively human show on television right now." ALSO: Why the latest Watchmen twist is so important.
# TOPICS: Watchmen, HBO, Damon Lindelof
McEnany used to have a Chicago show where she'd perform the story of how “Julia Sweeney Ruined My Life" with her "It's Pat" portrayal mocking androgynous gender expression. So McEnany was thrilled that Sweeney agreed to appear on Work in Progress so they could have an honest conversation about the character that has haunted McEnany since the 1990s. “It's an important thing to get,” McEnany says. “Especially now in this fucking f*cked-up, vitriolic, hateful world. Someone who disagrees with you doesn’t have to be a villain. We don’t agree on everything, and I love her.”
# TOPICS: Work in Progress, Showtime, Saturday Night Live, Abby McEnany, Julia Sweeney, It's Pat
"The Disney+ live action Star Wars TV Series follows the adventures of a stoic bounty hunter and his child companion, but even after episode 4 fleshed-out these characters, viewers still don't know their names," says Sarah Bea Milner, adding: "The Mandalorian's name problem isn't limited to its main characters either; several other significant characters are either never given names, or their names are used so sparingly, audiences don't have the opportunity to learn them. Werner Herzog's menacing villain is only known as 'the Client.' Gina Carano's character, Cara Dune, is only named in passing, as is Dr Pershing, the cowardly scientist working for the Client. Given how important these characters may still prove to be, one would expect their names to be communicated more memorably." In fact, Jon Favreau's lack of names may be an ode to Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name trilogy.
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# TOPICS: Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Disney+, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Amy Sedaris
"Here’s to loving one of the least-hip shows on TV," says Margaret Lyons, reflecting on Sunday's series finale of the CBS political drama. "To its earnest parenting, its destabilizing cast changes, its long seasons. Get excited for a cameo from Colin Powell, as himself! Marvel at the variety of accents being attempted! Can we interest you in some passionate descriptions of diplomacy and an occasional mention of Thomas Aquinas?" Lyons adds: "What it felt like was a show that wanted to be enjoyed, not agonized over. Trust, I love puzzling out a show, reading endless threads that dissect tiny clues, charting minuscule hints and decoding ancillary materials. But it is not the only way to love, and we cannot live on dire dramas alone. Decency is not a vice, and a vague squareness is not so bad, either." ALSO: Téa Leoni on real-life White House drama: “I can’t believe I’m getting beat by C-SPAN.”
# TOPICS: Madam Secretary, CBS, Tea Leoni
The New Yorker spoke with Dinklage for his new Off-Broadway play Cyrano. But the reporter interviewing couldn't help but bring up Game of Thrones and the final season backlash, which was met with a "stares blankly" response from Dinklage. Did he follow the fan response? "No," Dinklage says. "Well, everybody’s always going to have an opinion, and that means an ownership. It’s like breaking up with somebody. They get upset. I can’t speak for everybody, but my feeling is they didn’t want it to end, so a lot of people got angry. I feel like what Dave (Benioff) and Dan (Weiss) did was extraordinary. This happens. Monsters are created. And you don’t see it coming. We vote them into office. You look the other way. So for everybody to get upset because they loved a character so much and they had so much faith in that person—there were signposts all along the way for that character.'' ALSO: Roku to stream Game of Thrones Season 1 for free.
# TOPICS: Peter Dinklage, HBO, Game of Thrones, Roku
Bamford, whose last special Old Baby premiered on Netflix in 2017, will release her upcoming Weakness Is the Brand special through Comedy Dynamics on a variety of outlets on Jan. 28.
# TOPICS: Maria Bamford, Comedy Dynamics, Standup Comedy
The Peacock streaming service isn't expected to be profitable for its first five years.
The Dec. 16 primetime special will feature director J.J. Abrams and cast members Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Kelly Marie Tran and Keri Russell.
# TOPICS: Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, Star Wars
Detmer, who is currently recurring on the Fox drama, was taken into custody in her hometown of Chico, California last night after allegedly smashing her vehicle into a utility pole and then taking off.
# TOPICS: Empire, FOX, Amanda Detmer, Crime
On Sunday's episode, Kim threatened to fire her sister for not opening up about her love life on camera. But People reports that Kim doesn't have the power to fire Kourtney. “Kim, Kourtney and Khloé have equal contracts and equal responsibilities,” an insider explains. “Kim and Khloe both feel they are being very honest and share things on the show that makes them feel vulnerable. It really bugs them that Kourtney plays by other rules.”
# TOPICS: Kim Kardashian, E!, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kourtney Kardashian, Reality TV
Bill Burr's Paper Tiger, Julio Torres' My Favorite Shapes and Gary Gulman's The Great Depresh made Vulture's Top 10 list.
# TOPICS: My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres, Greg Gulman: The Great Depresh, Bill Burr, Greg Gulman, Julio Torres, Standup Comedy
The foreign drama also known as La Casa De Papel returns on April 3.
# TOPICS: La Casa de Papel, Netflix
Watch Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi in "a particularly bad time in history" in TBS' Season 2 trailer.
# TOPICS: Miracle Workers, TBS, Trailers & Teasers
Romijn plays a receptionist in the HBO comedy's "Waiting Room" teaser.
# TOPICS: Curb Your Enthusiasm, HBO, Larry David, Rebecca Romijn, Trailers & Teasers
Tonight isn't the first time the longtime Pat Sajak sidekick has hosted Wheel of Fortune. In 1996, White and Pat Sajak switched places for one round when he had laryngitis. But White has never hosted an entire episode, which she will do starting tonight, after Sajak had emergency surgery last month to correct a blocked intestine. “I’ve never even thought of that in 37 years,” White said in an interview with The New York Times last week, “and to be asked almost on the spot, ‘How do you feel about hosting the show?’ Like, what?!” Did she have any nerves? “Oh, my gosh, that’s an understatement,” she said. “I was very nervous.” Sajak has hosted continuously for 35 years, except for April Fool's Day 1997 when he and Jeopardy!'s Alex Trebek swapped jobs. What about White's high heels? “Being behind the home base, I didn’t have to wear shoes,” she said. “So I took my shoes off during the show. It was great.” White said from her experience, she'd like to see more female game show hosts. “Everybody’s entitled to host the show: female, male, everyone,” she said. “It would be fun to see more women up there doing that. If that’s what they want to do.”
# TOPICS: Vanna White, Wheel of Fortune, Alex Trebek, Pat Sajak, Game Shows
“Honestly we had really mitigated expectations because no streamer has ever received nominations in any significant categories the first year, it took minimum two years before they got traction to get nominations,” said Jamie Erlicht, Apple’s co-head of Worldwide Video, reacting to The Morning Show's nominations for best drama series and best dramatic actress for Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. “We expected that it would be very hard to do, but we also had to believe in the quality of our shows and that if anyone had a chance to get early awards recognition, Apple TV+ would be one to do it. It’s been validating what we knew, that we had something special here.”
# TOPICS: The Morning Show, Apple TV+, NBC, Jamie Erlicht, Award Shows, Golden Globe Awards
Out of 40 TV acting nominations, only three nonwhite performers -- and zero women of color -- were nominated: Pose's Billy Porter, Mr. Robot's Rami Malek and Ramy's Ramy Youssef. "This, apparently, was the year of #GlobesSoWhite — at least when it came to TV. The 90 or so members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., who hail from more than 50 countries around the world, are an idiosyncratic bunch," says Meredith Blake. "Projects dealing with distinctly American themes don’t always resonate with this organization, which tends to have a weakness for big stars and European actors over unknowns,"
# TOPICS: Golden Globe Awards, NBC, Billy Porter, Rami Malek, Ramy Youssef, Award Shows, Diversity
"Regardless of whether you view the awards as hopelessly corrupt or just sort of silly, it’s undeniable Globes voters are frequently swayed by the sorts of TV shows that land on magazine covers, not the ones that are actually, objectively 'the best' (whatever that means)," says Emily Todd VanDerWerff. "The awards ceremony has an aversion to genre series (the Watchmen snub; Kit Harington’s nomination for Game of Thrones marks not just the show’s sole nomination but its first nomination for a performance since 2012). It loves star-studded follies (The Morning Show, Big Little Lies). And it always has more of an eye on new TV than the Emmys seem to, regardless of critical acclaim (The Morning Show, again). For many years (and we’re talking, like, back in the 1990s and 2000s), that predilection for nominating new things meant the Globes were sometimes held up by TV fans as cooler than the Emmys, which has always been staid and stuck in its ways. But as the amount of TV shows has exploded in the past decade, the Emmys has seemed like it’s trying to keep pace and the Globes has been caught flat-footed, increasingly trapped by its own evident lack of interest in trying to reward artistically relevant TV in favor of stuff that might allow famous actors to turn up at their awards ceremony."
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# TOPICS: Golden Globe Awards, NBC, Fleabag, Game of Thrones, When They See Us, Andrew Scott, Ava DuVernay, Kit Harington, Award Shows
Deadline reports "Cowell is in the final stages of talks with ITV over a new five-year agreement for the variety show, which will be the longest deal he has done with the British broadcaster." The deal would also see ITV reduce its commitment to Cowell's other hit variety show, The X Factor, which has been declining in recent years. Cowell is on the verge of signing a new deal as NBC launches an official investigation into Gabrielle Union's allegations of a toxic workplace culture at America's Got Talent. ALSO: Cowell also launching The X Factor: The Band in Britain amid America's Got Talent controversy.
# TOPICS: Simon Cowell, NBC, America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, The X Factor: The Band, Reality TV
"There were plenty of people on the show who were incredibly funny," the former Veep star told Stephen Colbert in conversation at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Sunday. "I was unbelievably naive and I didn’t really understand how the dynamics of the place worked. It was very sexist, very sexist." From that experience, Louis-Dreyfus says she "learned I wasn’t going to do anymore of this show-business crap unless it was fun."
# TOPICS: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Stephen Colbert
Hemmer, the new host of Bill Hemmer Reports, has been with Fox News since 2005 after working as an anchor at CNN.
# TOPICS: Bill Hemmer, Fox News Channel, Shepard Smith, Cable News
Brendan Wayne, who's worked with Jon Favreau before, says it was a dream come true to be part of Star Wars. “It was a dream to work on this because I was able to live what brought me to acting every day,” Wayne tells Vulture. “I got to get on a landspeeder; I got to have my own Razor Crest. To be part of the mythology that you grew up with that was integral to you as a kid — it was really cool.” Wayne says of working with Pascal: "The funny thing is, I think it was harder for him, because they really wanted a certain walk that came natural to me. And so Pedro had to ask me certain questions, because I guess they would say, 'Talk to Brendan and see what he says.' Almost all of (the doubles), they had to come watch me walk — I think there were four at the end of it. And I did a lot of work to be able to walk like I did in the sand and not look like a drunk sailor."
# TOPICS: Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Disney+, Brendan Wayne, Pedro Pascal
At 80 episodes, The Ranch will end with "Part 8" as the streaming service's longest-running multi-camera comedy, surpassing Fuller House's 75 episodes.
The outstanding Esports coverage honor, to be presented at the Sports TV Emmys, will "recognize the craft behind the delivery of coverage and presentation of competitive, organized video gaming to the viewer during a 'championship' or 'final' event.'"
# TOPICS: Esports, Emmys, Television Academy
The Black Rock headquarters that has served as CBS' home since 1964 will be put on sale after the ViacomCBS merger is completed. "Black Rock is not an asset we need to own and we believe that money would be put to better use elsewhere," said ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish.
# TOPICS: CBS, Bob Bakish, ViacomCBS
"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s moral murkiness meant that a lot of its heroes, unlike many of the noble Trek stars that came before them, started out as kind-of jerks who softened and grew with the time we spent with them across seven seasons," says James Whitbrook of Auberjonois, who died Sunday at age 79. "But it wasn’t really a Starfleet officer on the show that best symbolized this; it was DS9's irascible chief of security, René Auberjonois’s Constable Odo." Whitbrook adds: "As the show itself grew and evolved—moving on from the lingering tensions between the Federations and the Bajoran government attempting to join its ranks (and the factions looking to avoid that outcome) to plunging into the dark depths of the all-out war with the alien Dominion in its back half—Odo felt like a character you could rely on for a sense of familiarity among the ever-changing crowds of the titular space station’s promenade. Whatever episode you pulled up, whatever season, Auberjonois—almost hidden underneath the layers of prosthesis required to give Odo his smooth-faced, almost melting changeling appearance—would be there, Deep Space Nine’s ever-watchful grump."
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# TOPICS: René Auberjonois, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Nana Visitor, Retro TV, Star Trek
Big Bird, who's now portrayed by Spinney's successor Matt Vogel, didn't talk to reporters at last night's red carpet for the Kennedy Center Honors taking place hours after the longtime Sesame Street puppeteer's death Sunday at age 85. Sesame Street was being celebrated as the Kennedy Center Honors' first-ever TV show honoree. Turns out Big Bird doesn't do red carpet interviews. Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on Sesame Street for 44 years until retiring in 2015, was among those paying tribute. “I am just stunned that this happened, and on this particular day,” she said. “I think that a sweeter man was never born.” The Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS on Dec. 15. ALSO: Nine times Big Bird helped us become better people.
# TOPICS: Caroll Spinney, Kennedy Center Honors, Sesame Street, Kids TV, Sesame Workshop
Veep creator Anthony Iannucci's HBO space tourism comedy starring Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad will air Sundays at 10 p.m.
The first of the five-part crossover attracted 1.67 million compared to 1.83 million for the 2018 "Elseworlds" premiere. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” did, however, boost The CW's demo ratings for Supergirl's timeslot.
# TOPICS: Crisis on Infinite Earths, The CW, Arrow, Ratings
Downton Abbey's James will star in a three-part adaptation that Mortimer is penning of Nancy Mitford’s classic novel that is the first of a three-part trilogy on an upper-class English family between the First and Second World Wars.
# TOPICS: Lily James, BBC, The Pursuit of Love, Emily Mortimer, Nancy Mitford, In Development
The six-episode Cheer follows the competitive cheerleaders of Navarro College, a junior college in Corsicana, Texas.
# TOPICS: Last Chance U, Netflix, Cheer, Reality TV
The Walking Dead star's reality show has been picked up for a fifth season months in advance of its Season 4 premiere on March 8.
# TOPICS: Ride with Norman Reedus, AMC, Norman Reedus, Cancelations, Renewals & Pickups, Reality TV
Starting Jan. 24, the Adam Ruins Everything star will host a game show based on a UK format in which he'll guide a family through physical and mental challenges with Aztec, Eastern, Futuristic and Industrial themes.
# TOPICS: Adam Conover, Nickelodeon, The Crystal Maze, Game Shows
Motivational speaker Rachel Hollis will host a Quibi "Daily Essentials" talk show described as “your one-stop-shop for a daily dose of motivation and joy, designed to make you laugh, make you think and frankly, to motivate the crap out of you.” Hollis is the author of the books Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing. Quibi has also ordered "Daily Essentials" Sexology with Shan, Fashion’s a Drag and The Nod with Brittany & Eric. Sexologist Shan Boodram hosts Sexology with Shan, Fashion’s a Drag is a fashion review show hosted by drag queen Wilam and black culture series The Nod with Brittany & Eric, hosted by Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings, based on their podcast.
# TOPICS: Quibi, Fashion’s a Drag, The Nod with Brittany & Eric, The Rachel Hollis Show, Sexology with Shan, Brittany Luse, Eric Eddings, Rachel Hollis, Shan Boodram, Wilam
Netflix's Unbelievable and The Crown and HBO's Chernobyl tied for most 2020 Golden Globe TV nominations with four apiece. Netflix earned the most nominations with 17 total, while HBO had 15. Meanwhile, the critically acclaimed When They See Us and Schitt's Creek were completely shut out. When They See Us was shut out despite being a big player at the Emmys with a Netflix-leading 16 nominations. Game of Thrones picked up only one nomination for its final season: Kit Harington for best actor in a drama series. The Morning Show earned Apple TV+'s first Globe nominations with a nomination for best drama and Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon competing for best drama actress.
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# TOPICS: Golden Globe Awards, Apple TV+, HBO, NBC, Netflix, Chernobyl, The Crown, Game of Thrones, The Morning Show, Schitt's Creek, Unbelievable, When They See Us, Jennifer Aniston, Kit Harington, Reese Witherspoon
"With its series finale 'Exit Event,' Silicon Valley gets the chance to end on its own terms and it runs with it," says Les Chappell. "It’s one of the darkest and most far-reaching episodes the series has ever put together, an episode that takes the show’s oft-mocked message of 'making the world a better' place and realistically introducing the idea that Richard Hendricks and company could add 'by ending it' to that statement. And like any good series finale, it’s an episode that’s fully aware of its place in the series, winks and nods to the canon that lead it to a feeling of closure."
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# TOPICS: Silicon Valley, HBO, Alec Berg, Mike Judge, Series Finales
Armstrong will continue to serve as Succession's showrunner, but he'll also create and develop new projects for HBO as part of his new three-year deal.
# TOPICS: Succession, HBO, Jesse Armstrong
The HBO limited series ended its eight-episode run last night. But Perrotta and Hahn both would like to do more episodes. “This ending is an ending of an arc, not an ending of a life,” Perrotta tells Indiewire. “So, yes, I think there’s more room. One thing I learned from The Leftovers was to just treat every season as if it were the last. But yes, there’s more to tell if that opportunity arises.” In a separate interview, Hahn says: “Oh my God, of course. Of course, of course, of course. I think there’s clearly so much more story to be told. I also feel that this is a beautiful piece on its own...and I love this cast madly, so who knows? Clearly, there is so much more story to be told.”
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# TOPICS: Mrs. Fletcher, HBO, Kathryn Hahn, Owen Teague, Tom Perrotta, Hair and Makeup, Sex
Executive producer Nicole Kassell, who directed Watchmen's three key episodes, says "it was incredibly challenging to do 25 pages of two people in a bar where you can’t see one person’s face, and to make that engaging and dynamic. We broke down how to film it in a very limited period of time, very analytically trying to create a progression of the visual language through those scenes so it was still cinematic. With very methodical prep, I storyboarded with the cinematographer, Greg Middleton. We photo-boarded it, literally getting actors to come sit down for us and do pictures of what we were going to shoot, while going through the script scene-by-scene and word-by-word. Due to filming restraints, I did repeat some shots through multiple scenes, so we could do block shooting, but I was very judicious on what shots I would repeat, so we wouldn’t be seeing the same shot throughout the episode. And the transitions were scripted. Those were one of the most important things to us on the show, the transitions between scenes. They were absolutely calculated. Every in and out point was designed. So even if the editing evolved, we had that anchor of the ins and outs."
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# TOPICS: Watchmen, HBO, Meghan Kasperlik, Nicole Kassell
Julia Roberts, Jenna Bush Hager, Veronica Ngo, Lana Condor and Liza Koshy will join the former first lady as they visit a school in Vietnam for the special titled Creators for Change with Michelle Obama: Girls’ Education. The Vietnam special will be the first installment of the upcoming original series Creators for Change, featuring high profile individuals and YouTube creators who are bringing attention to the stories and causes close to their hearts.
# TOPICS: Michelle Obama, YouTube, Creators for Change, Jenna Bush Hager, Julia Roberts, Lana Condor, Veronica Ngo, Documentaries
"We wanted to accomplish as much as we could by telling the story of the first female president and to give ourselves room to do that. So we chose a long arc, which ultimately came to be the impeachment hearings," Barbara Hall says in discussing Sunday's series finale. "That had to do with the fact that I wanted to treat the first female president the way that I felt she might actually be treated. I didn’t want to have it be completely smooth sailing because I think that anybody who’s the first at anything is confronted with a lot of obstacles and challenges." Was impeachment inspired by the Trump impeachment hearings? "This had nothing to do with it," she says. "It was months before the current impeachment process. This was just something I felt might happen to our first female president. Then once we got into it, we were bumping up against real-life headlines in a way that we hadn’t expected to. We also were able to show this character having the fortitude to deal with it and triumph over it. So that was an important thing to achieve."
# TOPICS: Madam Secretary, CBS, Barbara Hall , Series Finales
Auberjonois, who died Sunday from metastatic lung cancer, was one of the most sought-after character actors with hundreds of roles in television, film and the stage. Among his TV roles, he most memorably played alien security officer Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the governor’s chief of staff Clayton Endicott III on Benson and senior law firm partner Paul Lewiston on Boston Legal. Auberjonois' last TV role was on Madam Secretary in 2016. "He appeared in episodes of seemingly every television show of the 1970s: Starsky & Hutch, The Rockford Files, The Bob Newhart Show, Charlie’s Angels and many more. Benson, which he joined in 1980 in its second season, made him a regular in American living rooms," writes Neil Genzlinger in Auberjonois' New York Times obituary, adding: "Mr. Auberjonois was thrust into a whole different level of fame when he took on the role of Odo, a stern shape-shifter and the security chief of the Federation space station Deep Space Nine, on the 1990s Star Trek spinoff, which ran for 173 episodes (several of which he directed). The franchise, of course, has an army of ardent fans, and Mr. Auberjonois turned up at various fan fests, enjoying the adulation — but as himself, not as an alien." “When I go to conventions, I don’t talk in my Odo voice, I don’t have makeup on,” he told The Birmingham News of Alabama in 1996 of being a Star Trek star. “I’m just a guy with a receding hairline.” ALSO: Fellow Star Trek stars pay tribute to Auberjonois, including William Shatner and George Takei.
# TOPICS: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Benson, Boston Legal , George Takei, René Auberjonois, William Shatner, Obits, Star Trek
The Henson family wrote of the Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch puppeteer, whom Jim Henson personally recruited to Sesame Street: “It was a moment of creative destiny when Caroll Spinney met Jim Henson. The gentle performer who would bring to life two of the most beloved residents of Sesame Street could perfectly convey the humor and heart in our father’s creations. Big Bird was childlike, without being childish. And Oscar the Grouch reflected universal feelings we all share, no matter our age. Those of us privileged to work alongside him and call him friend saw first-hand that he cared so deeply about what these characters represented and how they could truly create change. Caroll’s decades-long commitment to bettering the lives of children all around the world is his true legacy. That he could do this work so brilliantly, responsibly, and with such infectious love and joy, is his gift to us all.” Gary Knell, who spent 22 years working with Spinney at Sesame Workshop and its predecessor, Children’s Television Workshop, added: "He would get into those costumes and become those characters. You could walk on the set and get yelled at by Oscar the Grouch. I never thought of it as Caroll Spinney yelling at me — it was always Oscar.” ALSO: Sesame Street cast wore yellow feathers Sunday night at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Spinney.
# TOPICS: Caroll Spinney, Kennedy Center Honors, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop
Rosenbaum, who went on to marry and have two children with Season 7 Bachelorette Ashley Hebert, has been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder with no known cure in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves. Weakness and tingling in the arms and legs are the first symptoms but it can progress to paralysis. Hebert announced the news on her Instagram Stories on Sunday. “He is in treatment and doing well," she wrote. "It may be a long road to full recovery, but we are so grateful to everyone that has helped us get to a speedy diagnosis and treatment.”
# TOPICS: The Bachelorette, ABC, Ashley Hebert, JP Rosenbaum, Reality TV
Harvey announced the wrong winner of the pageant's National Costume contest on Sunday, saying Miss Philippines had won. Miss Malaysia Shweta Sekhon, who was standing next to Harvey, grabbed his mic and said: “It’s not Philippines, it’s Malaysia." Harvey responded: “Okay, well, let me explain something to you. I just read that in the teleprompter. Y’all got to quit doing this to me. I can read, they said now, they’re trying to fix it now. See, this what they did to me back in 2015. Played me short like that. This is Malaysia. I really love this national costume of Malaysia. This is crazy.”
# TOPICS: Steve Harvey, FOX, Miss Universe Pageant, Oops
With the big twist in the first part of the five-episode crossover, "Crisis on Infinite Earths" really establishes "the stakes that going into the next four hours," says Arrowverse showrunner Marc Guggenheim.
# TOPICS: Crisis on Infinite Earths, The CW, Arrow, Marc Guggenheim
Priestley tells ET he doesn't expect the canceled Fox Beverly Hills, 90210 revival to be revived somewhere else. "Unfortunately it's not the first TV series I've been on that's been canceled, and it probably won't be the last," he said, adding: "We certainly set the show up to continue. Unfortunately it just didn't come to pass. But we certainly had our fun making the episodes, and it was nice to work with that group of people again. I guess it was what it was."
# TOPICS: Jason Priestley, FOX, BH90210
When They See Us scored the most nominations with six, followed by This Is Us and Schitt's Creek with five nominations each. The awards will be handed out on The CW on Sunday, Jan. 12.
# TOPICS: When They See Us, Critics' Choice Awards, Schitt's Creek, This is Us
Hugh Laurie plays a futuristic space captain in the sci-fi comedy from Veep creator Armando Iannucci. The new series is set to bow January 19, 2020.
# TOPICS: Avenue 5, HBO, Veep, Hugh Laurie