Saturday, October 17, 2015

NEWS: Colleen Zenk, Marie Wilson, Alison Sweeney, Melissa Leo, Fall TV, 'Empire' Lawsuit

Marie Wilson is returning to Days of our Lives but in a new role
Wilson previously played Bree TJaden, a woman from Aiden's past. In early 2016, she'll return to Days as Summer, a "passionate loner who has been in and out of institutions."

Malachy Cleary, Colleen Zenk, Davy Raphaely, Peggy Scott and
Brenda Withers. Photo Credit: Rana Faure
New York Times: In a New Town, Hudson Stage Presents 'Other Desert Cities'
The play takes place in the Wyeth family’s Palm Springs, Calif., home in 2004, when the struggling writer Brooke (Brenda Withers) comes home for Christmas to reveal to her parents (Malachy Cleary and Colleen Zenk) and her younger brother (Davy Raphaely) that she has written a tell-all memoir about their darkest moment. (Her alcoholic aunt, played by Peggy J. Scott, is in on the plan.)

Days of our Lives star Ali Sweeney directs another episode of General Hospital
The next Sweeney-directed GH episode will air November 22.

The Young and the Restless casting the role of "Ilsa"
Ilsa is said to be a native of Sweeden (or perhaps Denmark or Switzerland) who was raised in the U.S. and has no accent. She is described as, "A genius child prodigy... Ilsa is pretty, but her passion for the nerdy cyber life/work has left her a tad socially awkward and a little quirky. However, Ilsa will blossom."

Is it time to kill "Fall TV"?
Writes Willa Paskin: "We're now four weeks into the network’s fall TV season. By current standards it was not a catastrophe. By real standards, it was hardly a success. Fall TV, in which dozens of shows are introduced to audiences in a matter of weeks, was once an effective and fun way to serve audiences new television shows. It is now ineffective and no fun. For reasons of structure and inertia, having to do with the development process and the selling of advertisements, it probably won’t change anytime soon."

Netflix exec: "There’s no such thing as too much TV"
Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos fired back at FX CEO John Landgraf’s assertion that we’ve reached peak TV. “There’s no such thing as too much TV,” Sarandos said today at an industry luncheon. “Unless we’re all spending more and not watching more. That’s not the case. The number of television [hours] we’re watching is growing dramatically.”

FOX gives a script with penalty commitment to Summer People
Summer People is an hourlong drama from Twisted creator Adam Milch, The Firm and Sony Pictures TV. Written and executive produced by Milch, Summer People is described as provocative drama exploring class and sexuality on a fictional version of Martha’s Vineyard, an island known for the movie stars, politicians and Wall Street power brokers who descend there every summer, disrupting the lives of the blue collar locals. The Firm's Jeff Kwatinetz and Josh Barry also executive produce.

FOX wants $10M Empire lawsuit from "gangsta pimp" tossed
Calling Empire “a modern take on Shakespeare’s King Lear,” lawyers for the network on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss the copyright infringement lawsuit Ron Newt started in April – and the network is going for the jugular.

“Plaintiff claims that the hit Fox network television series Empire is substantially similar to his Works, and asserts claims for copyright infringement and breach of implied contract,” says the October 15 motion, which calls Newt a “self-described ‘gangsta pimp’ ” whose work “include detailed descriptions of cold-blooded killings, dismemberments, and crude descriptions of Plaintiff’s sexual escapades in graphic detail that would never be shown on network television.” Newt calls his tale that of a black man rising with “his three sons from the ghetto and a life of crime into the world of the music industry.”

All My Children alum Melissa Leo to star in Showtime’s I'm Dying Up Here
The Jim Carrey-produced comedy will have Leo play a brassy comedy club owner. She’ll be joined by Sebastian Stan and Clark Duke.

Amazon acquires E!'s The Royals repeats
The streaming service has picked up reruns of the scripted drama.

Scandal took on Alessandra Stanley’s “Angry Black Woman” piece, and beautifully dismantled it
In the final few minutes of this week's episode, civil rights activist Marcus Walker, who has now joined the Olivia Pope Associates team as their PR spokesperson, is fed up with all of the coded language that has swirled around Olivia. After a reporter calls her “well-spoken”—a term often applied to “exceptional” black people that carries the implication that most of us speak in fractured Ebonics—he goes all in:

She’s usually so ‘well-spoken’ for a black woman, isn’t that what you meant? I say that because I’ve been looking at the last 72 hours of your station’s news coverage, and when you’re not suggesting Olivia Pope is an angry black woman, you’re implying she’s a homewrecker who slept her way to the top.

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