Category: Television

Matt LeBlanc convinced ‘Friends’ reunion ‘would not be funny’

Matt LeBlanc is convinced a Friends reunion is dead, because all the characters have moved on with their lives.

The actor, who played dim-witted Joey Tribbiani on the classic TV show, insists the series was a hit because it dealt with young people in between school and life – and going back to the characters now would not be funny.

“I’ve talked to the writers about it,” he tells TV talk show host Steve Harvey. “That show was about a very finite period in your life when you’re like… between 20 and 30, when you’re outta school but life hasn’t really started yet, and your friends are your family and you’re kinda finding your way.

“When that period is over, it’s over. All the characters have gone their separate ways…”

LeBlanc admits he still meets fans of the show, who ask him about plans for a reunion with castmates David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, and Jennifer Aniston, and reveals many people want to know what he thinks his beloved TV character would be doing now.

“Nobody wants to see Joey at his colonoscopy,” he laughs.

LeBlanc took five years off after the success of Friends and spin-off Joey so he could focus on raising his daughter and creating his dream home on a ranch north of Santa Barbara, California.

He has found TV success again as the host of British car show Top Gear and as the star of a new U.S. sitcom Man With a Plan. He also played a comical version of himself in hit cable comedy Episodes.

Celebrity Big Brother cast (including Omarosa) revealed

The Olympics will not be the only star-studded televised competition happening on TV this February. (That’s depending on your definition of “star-studded,” of course.) Because in a move of counter-programming genius — or folly — CBS is rolling out a special winter celebrity edition of its Big Brother franchise on Feb. 7.

And now the network has finally revealed during the Grammys just who was crazy enough to lock themselves in a house for two-and-a-half-weeks to amuse and entertain us. (Once again, this all depends on your definition of “entertain.”) The list includes five ex-Dancing with the Stars hoofers as well as four former Celebrity Apprentice contestants, meaning 9 of the 11 new houseguests come from one of those two shows.

The famous faces taking part in Celebrity Big Brother are:

Omarosa Manigault
The three-time Apprentice contestant and Trump campaigner departed the White House for the Big Brother house. No word on if that is trading up or trading down.

Mark McGrath
The Sugar Ray singer also did a stint on Celebrity Apprentice. He’s actually been on many a reality television program, including Celebrity Wife Swap, a guest judge on American Idol, and host of not one but TWO Pussycat Dolls shows.

Shannon Elizabeth
The American Pie star may not like living on slop if she becomes a “Have Not.” She also appeared on Dancing with the Stars, because of course she did.

Metta World Peace
The former Ron Artest won NBA Defensive Player of the Year honors as well as an NBA title. He’s also best known for the “Malice at the Palace” brawl between fans and players in Detroit while a member of the Indiana Pacers. Not that there’s ever any fighting on Big Brother. Oh, yeah, he also did his time on Dancing with the Stars.

Brandi Glanville
It wouldn’t be a celebrity reality show without a Real Housewife. This time, it’s Brandi from Beverly Hills, who also paid her dues on Celebrity Apprentice. (Who didn’t?)

James Maslow
The Big Time Rush star also got fourth place on season 18 of Dancing with the Stars.

Keshia Knight Pulliam
Rudy Huxtable is in the house! The Big Brother house, to be exact. She also appeared on, yes, Celebrity Apprentice.

Marissa Jaret Winokur
The Hairspray Broadway star was on the same season of Dancing with the Stars as her new housemate Shannon Elizabeth. Instant alliance?

Ariadna Gutierrez
She was Miss Universe in 2015… for about two minutes. Then it was revealed that host Steve Harvey had read the wrong name. Whoops!

Chuck Liddell
The former mixed martial artist will have to use his smarts and social skills, not his fists to win this competition. And if you were wondering which show he previously appeared on: Celebrity Apprentice or Dancing with the Stars, it was the latter.

Ross Matthews
The former Tonight Show intern is a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race. But now he will be judged by his fellow housemates… and America.

Celebrity Big Brother premieres Feb. 7 on CBS and will conclude Feb. 25. But one can only assume that it will remain in our hearts… forever.

‘Murphy Brown’ Returning to CBS With 13 Episodes

Candice Bergen is returning for the sitcom reboot, which will air during the 2018-19 season.
Not one to be left out of TV’s current reboot frenzy, CBS is adding another vintage comedy to its lineup: Murphy Brown.

The landmark sitcom, from Diane English and starring Candice Bergen, was an Emmy darling and a cultural touchstone for its then-uncommon portrayal of a single working mother. The Warner Bros. produced effort has received a 13-episode straight-to-series order and will include Bergen reprising her role. English is returning as well, serving as writer and executive producer through her Bend in the Road Productions shingle.

The order for more Murphy Brown, just shy of the 30th anniversary of its 1988 premiere, comes as networks and streamers have looked to their past catalogs for programming that will make an impact in the increasingly fractured TV market. On the Big Four, the most notable revivals include such similarly groundbreaking series as NBC’s Will & Grace, ABC’s upcoming Roseanne revisit and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Fox’s The X-Files.

As CBS noted Wednesday in a release about the order, there’s no shortage of material for the show, which was set in the offices of a cable news channel. The titular character, at the time, was parts Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, with an attitude all her own. Murphy Brown “returns to a world of cable news, social media, fake news and a very different political and cultural climate,” per CBS. During its 10-year run, the series targeted real politicians, perhaps most famously when then Vice President Dan Quayle singled it out in a speech about “family values.” The comedy retaliated by incorporating him into a storyline, culminating in Bergen’s character dumping a truck full of potatoes dumped in front of his residence. (Quayle once misspelled the root vegetable during a visit to a school — which, by 1992 standards, was worthy of mockery over many news cycles.)

Again multicamera, Murphy Brown is the first straight-to-series order for CBS’ 2018-19 season and comes days after ordering pilots from three female writers. The network has publicly struggled with its on- and off-camera tendency to hire white men. Murphy Brown might be the first reboot to land on the broadcast network, but CBS has been busy mining its own library elsewhere. Streaming service CBS All Access has already launched a new Star Trek, and a reboot of The Twilight Zone is in the works.

What’s not immediately clear about the Murphy Brown order is who else of the original cast may be on board. Faith Ford, Joe Regalbuto and Grant Shaud all have busy TV careers; Charles Kimbrough appears to be at least semi-retired; and Robert Pastorelli died in 2004.

It’s also worth noting that Murphy Brown isn’t currently streaming. That library is almost sure to land somewhere in the run-up to its TV return — and the price tag on those 247 episodes should prove to be a lucrative side effect of this revival.

Here are the Netflix shows people binge-watch the most

For the second time in the company’s history, Netflix Inc. has published a press release that gives investors a tiny bit more insight into what shows and films are popular on the streaming service.

The most binge watched show: “American Vandal,” a true-crime satire that is centered on the blowback from a costly high school prank.

Shares of Netflix NFLX, -1.23% are down a fraction at $186.17 after hours.

This year, Netflix included only its original content in the ranking and considered shows that people watched more than two hours a day as “devoured” — read: binge watched — and shows that consumers watched less than two hours every day the company tagged as “savored.” The most “savored” show was “The Crown,” a program about Queen Elizabeth II’s life.

The company also disclosed that viewers around the world watch 140 million hours every day and about 1 billion hours of Netflix a week.

Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about its viewership and streaming-habits data and based Monday’s release on results from November 1 of this year, to November 1, 2016.

1. American Vandal

2. 3%

3. 13 Reasons Why

4. Anne with an E

5. Riverdale

6. Ingobernable

7. Travelers

8. The Keepers

9. The OA

10. The Confession Tapes

The company also conducted a survey of 60,000 members about what shows they skipped ahead of their significant others to watch. Topping that list are “Narcos” and “13 Reasons Why.” The survey also indicated that Netflix original “Stranger Things” was the show families would most watch together.

Netflix stock is up 50% this year, as the S&P 500 index has gained 19%. The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company has beaten Wall Street estimates in four of the past five quarters. Analysts polled by FactSet model fourth-quarter earnings of 42 cents a share on sales of $3.2 billion.

SNL: Colin Jost and Michael Che promoted to co-head writers

Colin Jost and Michael Che are taking their Saturday Night Live responsibilities beyond the news desk.

The Weekend Update co-anchors have been promoted to co-head writers of NBC’s late-night sketch series, the network announced Tuesday. Kent Sublette and Bryan Tucker will remain co-head writers as well.

Jost and Che have been anchoring Weekend Update since 2014. Jost, as you may remember, also served as a co-head writer of SNL from 2014 to 2015 before exiting the role and focusing on Weekend Update.

Now in season 42, SNL airs live coast-to-coast, starting at 11:30 p.m. ET / 10:30 p.m. CT / 9:30 p.m. MT / 8:30 p.m. PT.

Sophie Turner Reveals ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Won’t Premiere Until 2019

Sophie Turner has confirmed our worst fear: “Game of Thrones” Season 8 won’t premiere until 2019. The actress behind Sansa Stark revealed to Variety that HBO’s Emmy-winning fantasy epic will skip 2018 and debut its six-episode final season sometime in 2019. HBO has not confirmed a release date for Season 8, but the show was widely expected to return in either 2019 or late 2018 considering production on the show will last through summer 2018.

“Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss previously told Entertainment Weekly they were planning to spend at least a year and a half making the final season, which made the 2019 launch date all but certain given that production kicked off in October of this year. HBO has already revealed that Miguel Sapochnik and David Nutter will be returning to the series to direct the final episodes along with Benioff and Weiss. Each episode is rumoured to be feature-length.

The 2019 premiere date actually works to HBO’s advantage when it comes to awards. Season 7 missed the Emmys deadline this year, which means the latest batch of episodes will be contending for awards at the 2018 Emmys next fall. With the final season reportedly set for a 2019 debut, HBO will have two more years to conquer the Emmys with “Game of Thrones.”

Donald Faison reveals what it would take for a ‘Scrubs’ reboot

Donald Faison is back donning scrubs for his current partnership with Cigna, but it would take a lot more to get him back in them for good.

“It would have to take everybody to come back to do the [“Scrubs”] reboot,” the 43-year-old told Page Six in an interview Thursday. “Not just the cast, but also the producers and the writers to make it work, in my opinion. So I’m not saying it’s not going to happen, but I’m not saying it is either.”

Despite the hit medical comedy ending over seven years ago, Faison says teens still come up to him yelling, “Turk!,” his character’s name. One guy once even jumped on his back, hoping to recreate an ongoing joke on the show where Zach Braff‘s character gets on his back and yells, “Eagle!”

“I was in London and some dude jumped on my back and I flipped him off of me and ran because I thought I was being attacked, but he jumped on my back and yelled, ‘Eaaaaagggglleee’ and by the time he got to ‘G’ I had thrown him off my back and was running,” he said, adding, “Not everybody gets to eagle. It’s a special thing.”

In fact, Faison has only let three people jump on his back and do the iconic scene from the show, and that includes Braff. Faison once let Sara Gilbert do “Eagle” while he was appearing on “The Talk,” and another fan did it when he went on Wanda Sykes’ talk show.

These days, the “Clueless” actor is working with Cigna to help people realize the importance of preventive healthcare and annual checkups.

“When you get ahead of something or catch something early, you have a way better chance of defeating it,” he told us. “A lot of people are afraid to hear what their status is and only want to know how they’re doing when they’re really sick and that’s a dangerous game to play.”

He added, “People can go to Cigna.com and all the information they need about preventive care is there.”

Gillian Anderson won’t be back after X-Files’ 11th season

Gillian Anderson plans to walk away from The X-Files after the upcoming 11th season.

The actress, who plays Agent Dana Scully on the sci-fi show, attended New York Comic-Con on Sunday, and told fans she won’t be back for anymore supernatural adventures.

“I think this will be it for me,” she responded when one fan asked if there would be a 12th season of the show.

Anderson also revealed she only agreed to return for the 10th season revival because she wanted closure for her character: “I felt like it wasn’t over,” she said. “It didn’t feel like we necessarily (delivered) everything the fans were expecting of us last time.”

And she confessed she hadn’t planned to return for an 11th season, adding, “I thought I was done.”

The X-Files’ 11th season will premiere in January.

Big Brother celebrity edition planned for winter

Oh my … stars?

A celebrity edition of Big Brother is coming this winter to CBS. Host Julie Chen just announced the plan on Thursday’s edition of the show.

The special winter edition is expected to feature multiple episodes per week during a “concentrated” run and will include Head of Household and Power of Veto competitions and live evictions. Chen, naturally will host.

No cast members have been announced yet.

“Big Brother has been dominating pop culture throughout its 19 seasons, and it is exciting to grow the franchise with the first-ever celebrity edition in the U.S.,” said executive producers Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan in a statement. “Celebrities will be under the watchful eye of the Big Brother cameras, facing the classic game elements, and of course new twists in this special winter event.”

The special edition will air ahead of Big Brother’s 20th season next summer.

Bringing celebrities into a camera-filled house is not a new idea: Celebrity Big Brother has aired on and off in the U.K. since 2001.

Game of Thrones season 7 finale title and length revealed

HBO has released the title of the final episode of Game of Thrones season 7.

Sunday’s super-sized episode is called “The Dragon and the Wolf”.

The episode’s buzzed-about running time has also now been officially confirmed: 79 minutes, 43 seconds.

That makes the finale the longest episode in the HBO drama’s history. The second longest, by the way, was this week’s “Beyond the Wall,” which just edged out last year’s finale for the record.

In the episode, representatives of the Lannister, Targaryen, and Stark houses unite for a pivotal cease-fire meeting at the Dragonpit — an ancient ruin in King’s Landing where the Targaryen rulers once kept their dragons — to discuss the threat of the Night King. Characters at the meeting include Cersei Lannister, Missandei, Jon Snow, Theon Greyjoy, Ser Davos, Tyrion Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and others (absent from footage of the meeting: Daenerys Targaryen). So the title could refer to the meeting … or potentially Jon and Dany’s burgeoning romance … or both?

Speaking of records, Sunday’s “Beyond the Wall” came close to breaking another benchmark for the network — generating 10.2 million viewers overnight (and more than 14 million when including repeats and streaming). That ties “The Spoils of War” earlier this season as the show’s second most-watched episode. Typically, Game of Thrones finales tend to set ratings records, so we’ll have to see if the show breaks through another ceiling before our long wait for season 8 — which goes into production in October and is expected to premiere in either late 2018 or early 2019.