If you caught my blog of this week’s episode of “True Blood,” then you saw my shout-out to the character of Amanda Jane and her bid for Christian pop superstardom via the potential hit single, “Jesus Asked Me Out Today.” When they announced the title of the track, I laughed out loud, but you have to admit that it has a certain Britney-esque flair to it…
By the way, the actress who played Amanda – Molly Burnett, who you may or may not also recognize from her work on “Days Of Our Lives” – did a brief interview with the New York Post about her role on “True Blood,” which you can check out by clicking right here. There’s not a lot of substance to it, but there’s a mighty cute picture, at least.
“Development was really starting to heat up, And it appears like I may be writing multiple pilots for NBC so that wasn’t leaving a ton of room for ‘Heroes,’ unfortunately. We crafted some really great arcs for the season that I’m excited to see come to fruition. I love that cast dearly and am sad to go, but the plate — she was over-flowing.”
Ugh. I mean, not that there aren’t plenty of other writers who are just as capable as Fuller, but there’s just no question how much the guy brought to the “Heroes” plate, as the tail end of Season 3 handily demonstrated. As such, I am hereby bummed. Of course, I’ll feel a lot better if we get an announcement in the near future that says Fuller is officially attached to a new “Star Trek” series, but I don’t think there’s any reason to expect such a thing anytime soon.
…I do have a teaser for my upcoming interview with Bill Pullman about his new film, “Surveillance,” which has a “Harper’s Island” connection.
I don’t think many people outside of the TV critic community are aware of this, but Harry Hamlin wasn’t the first actor to play the part of Uncle Marty in “Harper’s Island.” Several months before the series premiered, CBS offered up to critics what’s best described as the pitch reel for the show, giving an idea of how it would kick off and approximately what we could expect as far as the feel of the series. By the time the show actually premiered, however, some of the actors remained the same and some didn’t…and the most notable actor who didn’t make the transition was the first man to fill the shoes of Uncle Marty: Bill Pullman.
Back in January, series producer Jon Turteltaub referred to Pullman’s appearance in the pitch reel as “a ‘While You Were Sleeping’ favor,” referring to the 1995 Sandra Bullock film in which Pullman was directed by Turteltaub.
“He’s a great guy to work with,” Pullman told me. “I don’t know whether he had somebody else or what it was, but it was kind of at the last minute. Or maybe it’s because that’s the way those things happen. Maybe the money only came together at the last minute, TV being what it is. But he knew he wanted to get somebody, and he said, ‘Listen, there is no obligation to do anything with the series afterwards, but I just need something for now. If you do it, fine, if you don’t do it, fine, too.’ But I loved the chance to go up there, and, you know, it was kind of a whacked character. I had a good time, and the actors who were there were good. I really liked Elaine Cassidy.”
So there you go: a “Harper’s Island” factoid you may not have known before. Hopefully, that’ll hold you ’til Wednesday! And as a bonus, here’s the trailer for Pullman’s film, “Surveillance,” which is pretty creepy in its own right:
Ray Stevenson: Apparently so. It is no longer a smoke and mirrors rumor. The script is in full development. As you are probably aware, this is a pretty strange process. We could go into production in a year, or it could be as quick as six months. Who knows? It will happen. At least it is no longer a rumor. From what I have heard, they are nearing the end of script development. We shall see. We shall see.
The second half of the second season of “Rome” was quite rushed, so I’m sure there is plenty of story to cover. This is obviously great news for fans of the series and a good reason for neophytes to pick up the DVD sets to get caught up.
Over at EW.com, the great and powerful Michael Ausiello managed to score the scoop from Bill Lawrence on what’s going on with “Scrubs” come its return for its semi-unexpected ninth season. (I’d be sad that he got the exclusive and I didn’t, but, frankly, I’m still riding on the high from a past interview with Mr. Lawrence where he actually said, “I can’t remember if it was you or Mike Ausiello that I said this to before.”) The talk had always been that the show was going to reinvent itself if and when it came back to the airwaves, and so it will: Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) and Dr. Turk (Donald Faison) are going to become med-school professors.
Said Lawrence to Ausiello:
“It’ll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy. It’s going to be a different show. It’ll still be life-and-death stakes, but if the show is just ‘Scrubs’ again in the hospital with a different person’s voiceover, it would be a disaster and people would be mad. Med students in their first three years have to spend anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of their time at a hospital. And that’s when you’ll see some of the [original cast members]. Continuity-wise, Sacred Heart will still exist with those people still working there.”
Ausiello also confirms that Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes and Ken Jenkins will be making guest appearances, and that Neil Flynn, a.k.a. The Janitor, will not be popping up for the foreseeable future, due to his commitments on his own new series (“The Middle”). Beyond McGinley and Faison, however, the majority of the cast will consist of freshman folk, though Lawrence teases in the article that the network is putting the screws to the show to hire a semi-big name as one of the new faces. Who will it be? Time will tell…
