Film

• Guillermo del Toro talks about Hobbit casting and the plot
• Neil Marshall to direct Predators?
• Marcus Nispel to direct Conan
  
• Deadworld to become film series
• Brittany Murphy joins Something Wicked

British TV

• Sky1 to run eight new documentary series
• Five gets the final Freeview HD slot
• Sky News to go HD
• Professor Brian Cox gets a kids science show

US TV

• Eric Roberts joins the cast of Crash
• My Name is Earl definitely dead now
• Icelandic series The Nightshift to be adapted for US
• Interview with Jeffrey Donovan of Burn Notice [vid, spoilers]
• Reaper creators join Dollhouse

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Awards

• Results of the Tony Awards

Film

• Ben Bova's Immortality Factor to be adapted
• Liam Neeson to play Hannibal, Bradley Cooper to play Face in The A-Team?
• Kirsten Dunst back for Spiderman 4

East European TV

• In Treatment to be remade in Romanian, Hungarian, Czech and Polish

British TV

• Channel 4 closing down download version of 4oD and putting all back catalogue up for streaming
• Primeval ends with 4.3m viewers
• Ashes to Ashes gets final series
• Press pack for moon season, which includes lots of James May
• Sir Alan wanted to hire both Kate and Yasmina but the producers wouldn't let him
• £25m fund needed to safeguard ITV Wales

Canadian/German TV

• Rufus Sewell, Ian McShane and Donald Sutherland to star in Pillars of the Earth

US TV

• Kathy Bates, Tim Curry and Colm Meaney to star in updating of Alice in Wonderland
• BSG's Katee Sackhoff to be a regular on 24
• My Name is Earl to continue on TBS?

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Theatre

• Destiny's Child's Michelle Williams to star in Chicago

British TV

• Reggie Perrin ratings on the rise
• Alan Davies playing celebrity chef in BBC2 pilot
• Sky Arts to broadcast live plays

US TV

• Casting on 24
• Fox passes on My Name is Earl

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Erk. So many finales, so little time. With the upfronts happening at the same time, and with actual work to do, how am I going to review them all?

I know. How about one great big entry that gets rid of a whole load of them in one go, albeit with The Mentalist and CSI: Miami still to come?

So after the jump, brief spoiler-ridden looks at the finales (and preceding seasons) of 24, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, Eleventh Hour, Gossip Girl and Prison Break.

Continue reading "A round-up of some of the finales I haven't yet covered"

Read other posts about: 24, 30 Rock, My Name is Earl, Prison Break

Doctor Who

• Rusty off to the US to make Doctor Who movie?

Film

• Ghostbusters 3 to feature female ghostbusters including Alyssa Milano and Eliza Dushku?
• Robert Evans to produce big screen version of Gerry Anderson's UFO
• Zach Braff to re-write, direct and co-star with Cameron Diaz in Swingles  

British TV

• Get ready to retune your Freeview box…
• Getty Images to buy ITN?
• BBC3 to air freshers comedy
• Dollhouse gets 339,000 viewers
• BBC1 to do Minority Report-esque crime drama Paradox with Tamzin Outhwaite
• NBC rolling out changes to UK channels, including SyFy (as it will be)
• Cancellations and new shows at Sky

US TV

• TNT orders alien invasion pilot from Steven Spielberg
• How will the next season of Chuck be different?
• Chris Diamantopoulos to be chief of staff in next season of 24
• TBS ready to pick up My Name is Earl

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Read other posts about: 24, ITC shows, My Name is Earl

Doctor Who

• John Barrowman to star in La Cage Aux Folles

Film

• Rob Pattinson to star in Bel Ami
• Hayden Christensen and Djimon Hounsou to star in Mandrake

British TV

• Melvyn Bragg moving to Sky Arts

US TV

• CBS cancels Without A Trace, Worst Week, renews Numb3rs, cancels Eleventh Hour, renews How I Met Your Mother, Gary Unmarried, Rules of Engagement and Old Christine
• The CW drops Privileged, Reaper, Everybody Hates Chris, picks up Melrose Place 2.0, Beautiful Life and Vampire Diaries, but not the Gossip Girl spin-off
• NBC cancels My Name is Earl and Medium; CBS picks up Medium and cancels The Unit
• NBC to rotate shows around the year – Chuck to follow Heroes in the Monday 8pm time slot mid-season
• ABC cancels Cupid, According to Jim, The Unusuals

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Read other posts about: Gossip Girl, Heroes, My Name is Earl, Numb3rs, The Unit, Torchwood

Doctor Who

• Easter special to air on Saturday April 11 at 6.45pm

Film

• Sony working on Men in Black 3
• On no. Uwe Boll has two films coming
• Jeanne Tripplehorn to star in Morning
• Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy in talks to be in Chris Nolan's Inception

Theater

• Groundhog Day: The Musical  

British TV

• Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson's Down The Line gets a pilot
• The Invisibles cancelled
• Channel 4 thinking about dropping drama altogether
• Third series of Gavin & Stacey cut to six episodes

US TV

• Stephen Fry to return to Bones
• Kevin Rankin to star in Trauma
• Breaking Bad gets a third season
• Justin Bartha to star in The Station
• George Segal to appear in Entourage
• Clips of Chevy Chase and Scott Bakula in Chuck
• Numb3rs' Diane Farr to appear in Californication
• My Name is Earl moving to Fox?
• Heroes' Tim Kring to work on cell phone content for Nokia
• Bryan Fuller on why Heroes starting sucking and what's up with Ali [spoilers]

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Read other posts about: Gavin and Stacey, My Name is Earl, Numb3rs

Film

• Lots of casting on Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Hobbits back for The Hobbit?
• Spiderman 4 to start shooting in 2010

British TV

• Emma Fryer gets her own BBC2 sitcom

Canadian TV

• Flashpoint doing well in the ratings
• Broadcasters looking to US digital streaming for revenue

US TV

• Fox greenlights most of its pilots
• A clip of the first few minutes of the next episode of Burn Notice
• Danny Glover to play Crab Man's dad in My Name is Earl [spoilers]
• Smallville bosses to remake Melrose Place?

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Doctor Who

• James Strong to direct Easter special

Film

• Steve Carell to play Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard?
• Pics from Star Trek XI
• Trailer for Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson's Bride Wars

Art

• Welsh national art gallery delayed by four years

Canadian TV

• New channel for women, Viva, to show Lost in Austen
• CTV picks up Merlin

British TV

• BBC's Out of London plan moves Casualty to Cardiff
• Odeon to install IMAX screens at Greenwich and Wimbledon

• NBC picks up David E Kelley father-daughter legal drama
• HBO Film boss quits
• New Witchblade anime on iTunes
• Will Arnett signs seven-figure deal with Fox
• CBS orders full season of The Mentalist
• Tuesday ratings good
• Three more episodes of Medium ordered
• Amy Sedaris to write and star in a comedy series
• Simon Fuller looking for new Monkees
• CBS to make one of three Tribeca pilots
• James Van Der Beek to guest on One Tree Hill
• Jason Priestley to play Brandon on My Name is Earl
• Patrick Swayze in The Beast
• My Own Worst Enemy gets 7.3 million viewers

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In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, NBC
In the UK: E4, Channel 4, at some point. Assuming there aren't any cutbacks

My Name is Earl used to be quite a cool show. Well, maybe not cool. Sweet maybe. Maybe a little patronising to red necks, but the general idea of nice things happening to a guy who decides to make amends for all the bad things he's done was lovely and usually enjoyable to watch, even if it was a little low on the belly laughs.

Season three messed that up, by sending Earl to prison and generally looking at the darker side of things. No one liked that much. I believe that a UK TV executive even cited it as a show that had lost its way - "it's like a road movie but it's forgotten to have any jokes" was his general summing up of it.

Is season four back on the right side on the road?

Continue reading "Review: My Name is Earl 4x1-4x2"

Read other posts about: My Name is Earl