WARNING: This post contains major Arrow spoilers.
Shocked? Stunned? Heartbroken? Join the club.
The 20th episode of Arrow‘s second season dealt a huge personal blow to the hooded hero — one that’s going to affect him and those around him forever. I guess what we’re saying is… READ FULL STORY
VH1 is shedding its clothes this summer. The cable music network will premiere its new reality series Dating Naked, where a man and a woman date two different naked suitors on a remote exotic location, July 17 at 9 p.m. ET.
According to the network description: “The series will play with the idea of what it really means to be naked in the search for love. There’s no clothing, no jewelry, no phones and no conventions of society. Just you.”
Joining Dating Naked on Thursday nights this summer is previously announced series #CandidlyNicole, based on Nicole Richie’s AOL online series of the same name, at 10 p.m. ET, and LeAnn & Eddie, following controversial married celebs LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, at 10:30 p.m ET.
The full summer lineup is below: READ FULL STORY
The mother has a voice: Meg Ryan has been cast as the narrator for CBS’ How I Met Your Mother spin-off.
The actress has landed the unseen vocal role in the How I Met Your Dad pilot, which is considered an obvious front-runner for a series order for CBS’ schedule next season. She’ll supply the voice of “future Sally” (played during the series in flashback by Greta Gerwig), the same way Bob Saget supplied the voice for future Ted in HIMYM. Like Saget, her character will never be seen.
Ryan is one of the original modern-day rom-com movie stars, having launched her carrier in 1989 with the hit When Harry Met Sally. She’s since appeared in Sleepless in Seattle, In the Cut, and had a recurring role on Showtime’s Web Therapy. How I Met Your Dad is her first major prime-time TV series regular role. CBS and studio 20th Century Fox TV had no comment.
It must be said: This is the worst week ever for Best Week Ever.
VH1 has once again axed the long-running pop-culture round-up program, where comedian skewered the week’s pop-culture highs and lows. The cable network put out this statement:
“Best Week Ever was a pioneer in pop culture commentary on television when it launched in 2004, delivering its signature blend of comedy and tongue-in-cheek opinions on the most entertaining news and pop culture stories of the previous seven days. The series also served as a national launching pad for many talented creatives and comedians. We thank them, and the viewers who tuned in each week.”
The series ran on VH1 from 2004 to 2009, then was canceled. It was revived last year, so this marks the show’s second demise.
Bravo is continuing its push into scripted programming, announcing Wednesday it is in development on All the Pretty Faces, from executive producer Jennifer Garner’s Vandalia Films in association with Warner Horizon Television.
The mystery dramedy series, written and executive produced by J. Mills Goodloe, is set in the beach town of Half Moon Bay, Calif., and focuses on two immortal families in a decades-long feud who come together after one of them dies to search for the secret to their eternal life. READ FULL STORY
National Geographic Channel is keeping Rob Lowe in the fold, enlisting their Killing Kennedy star to narrate the network’s new miniseries The ’90s: The Last Great Decade? The three-night event will dissect the decade’s highs and lows in politics, pop culture, and innovation.
Lowe starred as John F. Kennedy last fall in Nat Geo’s film about the president’s assassination, which became the network’s most-watched program. Earlier in 2013, he narrated The ’80s: The Decade That Made Us for NGC.
“No one has really examined the ’90s like this before, and I think viewers will be fascinated by the dramatic changes we’ve seen in even the small amount of time that’s passed since Y2K,” Lowe said in a press release for the series. READ FULL STORY
Sometimes, it’s hard to be King Henry’s bastard son, and other times, there are worse things you could be. Just ask Bash, who has had a pretty turbulent run during Reign‘s freshman season, from falling for his brother’s girl to almost getting her to having to watch her consummate her marriage to his brother. Oh, and let’s not forget the moment his crazy father forced him to marry Kenna, the woman Henry had been sleeping with all season.
But enough with the memories! Let’s focus on the future, about which we have some good news: Things are looking up for Bash and Kenna! After the married couple shared their first real kiss last week, we’ve got an exclusive look at a very sexy (half-shirtless) meeting between the two from this week’s episode.
Ladies and gents, we give you Bash and Kenna’s sexy time: READ FULL STORY
Muggles on both sides of the pond will be able to watch the upcoming Casual Vacancy miniseries.
HBO has come on board as a co-producer of BBC’s previously announced miniseries adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy, EW has confirmed. The three-hour miniseries will be written by Sarah Phelps (EastEnders) and will be directed by Jonny Campbell (In the Flesh). READ FULL STORY
Roy Harper is going to find himself spinning out of control in a way we have never seen on Arrow.
It’s been a long time coming, though. In the last few episodes, the Mirakuru’d lone wolf has put considerable effort into keeping himself in check as the anger-stirring serum courses through his veins. Wednesday night’s episode marks a major milestone in Roy’s evolution into Rage Roy, a path that has been anything but easy to craft, Arrow executive producer Andrew Kreisberg says. “That’s probably been one of the hardest things in the writers room to manage — what happens to you when you’re Mirakuru’d,” he told EW. “Some people in the writers room have tried to be, ‘Well, if it’s been two months, you’re at this level. And if it’s been three months, you’re at this level. And what’s Slade at when you’re at five years?’ We’ve tended to err on what was right for the episode.”
“At the end of the day,” he jokes, “they’ve [all] been injected with Sci-Fi, magic super evil juice.” Isabel (Summer Glau) among them. But that wasn’t always the plan, Kreisberg reveals. READ FULL STORY
An officer and a gentle-lady have signed on to helm the final two episodes of Saturday Night Live‘s 39th season.
On May 10, Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron will return to Studio 8H to host SNL for the second time. She’ll be joined by The Black Keys, making their third appearance on NBC’s long-running sketch show. Theron can next be seen co-starring opposite Seth MacFarlane in the Western spoof A Million Ways to Die in the West, which opens May 30; The Black Keys will release their eighth studio album, Turn Blue, on May 12. READ FULL STORY
Supernatural is like the cockroach of The CW — in a totally good way! No matter what happens on the network’s schedule, the nine-year-old Supernatural tends to perform pretty well, it’s a total survivor. On Tuesday night, Supernatural was up 29 percent from last week’s lower-than-usual performance. While The Originals slipped 14 percent to a new all-time low. (And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the first trailer for Supernatural‘s Bloodlines spin-off).
Also Tuesday: Fox’s lineup was largely steady. ABC saw mild dips for Agents of SHIELD and Celebrity Wife Swap. NBC’s The Voice fell to an all-time low, but About a Boy was up slightly and Growing Up Fisher was flat. READ FULL STORY
Despite rumors to the contrary, Laura Prepon isn’t trying to cut her sentence at Litchfield Penitentiary short. As Piper’s sometimes-enemy and forbidden love interest, Prepon’s character Alex Vause was vital to the first season of Orange Is the New Black. So when reports swirled last year that Prepon would only appear in a single episode of the second season, fans started speculating as to why. One popular theory was that Prepon, as a scientologist, was quitting because the church objected to her playing a lesbian on TV.
“It’s ridiculous because it’s not true. I’m a huge supporter of the LGBT community,” Prepon tells EW. “I try to put a good spin on it, which is, ‘Okay, cool. People are huge fans of the show and my character and they’re trying to come up with excuses about where I’m going.’ It’s ridiculous and I try to laugh at it.”
James Hibberd
@James_Hibberd
Lynette Rice
@EWLynette
