US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

Next season’s Simpsons voices

26 July 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It lost its edge years and years and years ago, but The Simpsons is still worth watching occasionally, particularly for the guest voices. Fox has announced that guest stars for next season will include Kiefer Sutherland, Natalie Portman, Michael Imperioli, Joe Pantoliano, The White Stripes and Dr Phil. Can’t wait for the Kiefer appearance, myself…

But here’s the weirder bit: they’re also getting on authors Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen. That’s just odd.

US TV

William Petersen takes a break

26 July 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

William PetersenEveryone’s favourite insect fan, Gil Grissom from CSI, is going to take a leave of absence for a couple of episodes this season after reaching some kind of “emotional high”. Turns out William Petersen is off to do some theatre for a bit, which is something he’s been threatening to do for some time, so the producers are going to write around his absence.

It’s been promised that a ‘big name’ is going to fill the gap left by Petersen, which is an interesting fact indeed. Consider that this coming season is going to be the seventh for CSI, which is the traditional end point for most shows after which all contracts have to be renegotiated. Petersen has been extremely vocal about his desire to head back to the theatre just as soon as contract expires.

However, CSI is still such a ratings champion, it seems unlikely that CBS will simply end the show. That means they’ll either need a new Grissom or will promote from within, given they have such a large cast. Will this ‘big name’ be a test run for Grissom’s season eight replacement?

Babylon 5 fun

25 July 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

It’s been gone for a while now, and its lustre is starting to dull, but Babylon 5 is still one of the most popular sci-fi shows of the 90s.

So some no-doubt crowd-pleasing news is that creator J Michael Straczynski reveals that he’s going to be making some direct-to-DVD anthology shows featuring Babylon 5 characters at Warner Brothers’ request. Production starts in September, with the release of the first DVD in Q2 2007.