In case you haven’t noticed, it has been an extremely slow day in an extremely slow week for cultural news (blame it on the fact that most publicists get Christmas to New Year’s Day off). Luckily, we just stumbled upon an exciting gem — Michael Ausiello’s last-minute best of TV 2008 list on EW.com. It’s just in time and it’s chock full of surprises! And shout outs to The Shield! And Ugly Betty! And there’s no Tina Fey anywhere! It’s crazy! (Sorry, too much caffeinating in preparation for tonight’s festivities.)
Before we spoil all the fun, check out his expert picks, along with our common man commentary in bold, after the jump.
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When Vulture announced yesterday that they’d no longer be recapping Heroes, we felt both surprised and betrayed. While we’ll be the first to admit that as Will Leitch points out, “The first season completed with a profoundly unsatisfying non-ending at Kirby Plaza, the first warning sign that this show might have had a great premise but nowhere to go with it,” we can’t believe that he’s giving up on the show before Bryan Fuller has a chance to return from his Pushing Daisies exile and whip things back into shape. Leitch, you have to stop walking away from your destiny!
Why are we putting our eggs in Fuller’s basket? Because of the master plan he laid out for Michael Ausiello. Some choice tidbits after the jump.
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Once again Entertainment Weekly‘s TV know-it-all Michael Ausiello has dropped a vague-but-totally-juicy blind item into our laps that’s just begging to be solved. (OK, we’re the ones begging — not knowing the answer is driving us nuts.) His latest scoop centers on the star of a popular TV series who has been fired by producers due to “budget cuts and creative redirection” — only the actor doesn’t know it yet.
Ausiello says: “If, or when, the axe does fall, the regular’s on-screen alter ego isn’t likely to be killed off. Although death has cast a shadow over many a plot, this personality’s demise would probably be deemed too morbid, even for this show.” Read the entire item.
A show where death is a regular occurrence but a main character getting the axe would be too morbid… Grey’s Anatomy? House? Are we barking up the wrong tree by going the medical drama route?
Leave your guesses in the comments.
EW‘s TV know-it-all Michael Ausiello posted a juicy blind item almost two weeks ago that still hasn’t been solved and it’s driving us crazy. So we’re hoping maybe you can help us crack the case before we have to break down and call one of the Hardy boys.
The gist: What series has a “work environment that’s so hostile it would make the Roseanne set at its worst seem like paradise”?
What we know: It’s a sophomore drama with a cast of crazy ego maniacs who hate each other. The lead and his love interest apparently have no chemistry. It’s a critical hit with bad ratings, and at this point a third season seems very unlikely.
Ausiello says the show that he’s talking about isn’t Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money or Eli Stone. Tell us it’s not Mad Men — we don’t want to see Bryan Batt singing Les Miz.
Leave your ideas in the comments.
Does anyone else find it odd that ABC decided to announce that they are dropping Dr. Hahn — otherwise known as the woman who Buffalo Bill once planned to skin — from the cast of GREY’S ANATOMY on Election Day?
Talk about burying controversy in the news cycle. Hahn was both the least hetero and least annoying member of Seattle Grace’s staff — and one half of the only same-sex couple currently on prime time TV.
MICHAEL AUSIELLO reports that ABC execs were having issues with the idea of girl sex while BROOKE SMITH reveals that it all came crashing down very suddenly:
“I found out in mid-September soon after shooting the monologue that aired last week where Erica has the revelation that she’s gay. They even came down and told me it was a great scene — one of the best they ever shot on the show. So I was really, really shocked. I was floored when they told me [I was being let go]. It was the last thing I expected. In fact, when they told me I asked, ‘When is this happening?’ And they said, ‘The [next episode] is your last,’ which is the one that airs this Thursday. So it was very sudden.”
Here is what is even weirder: beginning on November 13th MELISSA GEORGE joins the cast as a bisexual intern/Meredith Grey’s lifelong BFF.
There has to be something we don’t know happening behind the scenes here. Does anyone out there have the scoop?
In his latest casting scoop roundup ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY‘s MICHAEL AUSIELLO spills the beans that STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY, who played KRISTEN BELL’s skeezy dad on HEROES, has “joined the cast of FOX’s upcoming musicomedy.”
The one-hour series called GLEE “centers on a Spanish teacher (Broadway star MATTHEW MORRISON) tasked with taking over a high school glee club.” [EW]
It’s the brainchild of NIP/TUCK creator RYAN MURPHY, a fact that we find totally weird because that show that doesn’t suck.
After the jump, our list of five TV shows from the past decade that were almost as Glee sounds; feel free to chime in with any we missed.
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