News: a new Sherlock Holmes story?, Laura Benanti is Supergirl’s mum, Rowan Atkinson is Maigret + more

23 February 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film casting

Books and Comics

Australian TV

French TV

  • William Fichtner leaves Crossing Lines, Elizabeth Mitchell and Goran Visnjic join

Internet TV

  • Trailer for season 3 of House of Cards
  • Jason Biggs not returning for season 3 of Orange is the New Black

UK TV

New UK TV shows

  • Trailer for BBC Two’s Pompidou, with Matt Lucas and Alex MacQueen
  • Rowan Atkinson to star in ITV’s Maigret

New UK TV show casting

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV show casting

  • Camille Guaty joins ABC’s Mix
  • Marianna Jean-Baptiste joins NBC’s Blindspot
  • Dave Foley joins ABC’s Dr Ken, Scott Michael Foster joins ABC’s Boom, Matthew Shiveley and Bebe Wood join Family of the Year
  • Lauren Ash joins NBC’s Superstore, Christine Ko joins CBS’s The Half of it
  • Rob Brown, Audrey Esparaza, Ukweli Roach join NBC’s Blindspot; Graham Rogers joins ABC’s Quantico
  • Laurie Holden joins NBC’s Chicago Med
  • Stephen Schneider and Jack Carpenter join NBC’s Sharing
  • Joel Gretsch leaves MTV’s Scream
  • Jay R Ferguson to star in ABC’s Dan Savage comedy
  • Laura Benanti to play Supergirl’s mum in CBS’s Supergirl
  • Stacey Farber to star in NBC’s Take It From Us, Morris Chestnut to star in Fox’s Rosewood, Scott Michael Foster joins ABC’s Boom
Weekly Wonder Woman

Weekly Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman #39, Superman/Wonder Woman #16, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three #21, Sensation Comics #25

22 February 2015 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Futures End #42

After a few weeks of relative calm, it’s been action stations this week, as DC has deployed the big guns: as well as the usual Injustice: Gods Among Us – Year Three (aka ‘International Superpunching Weekly’) and Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #25 (aka ‘Let’s see if we can get by on Tumblr agitprop, rather than good writing’), we’ve had a brief cameo appearance in Futures End #42, we’ve seen Diana take on virtually the entire Justice League single-handed in (you guessed it) Justice League, an old enemy has come to break up the happy couple and make the Amazons look not quite as bad in Superman/Wonder Woman and over in Wonder Woman, Diana’s been having the same problems balancing her responsibilities as before – but thankfully, we have the return of a very important old friend to help her.

Phew. No wonder I’m late this week. I might have to take a holiday next week after all this…

Continue reading “Weekly Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman #39, Superman/Wonder Woman #16, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three #21, Sensation Comics #25”

Wanted: ideas to help a new female MacGyver

20 February 2015 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Remember MacGyver? If not, this should refresh your memory (or at least tell you who he was).

It may be too late to create a new series of the original MacGyver with Richard Dean Anderson, but that’s not stopping Lee Zlotoff, creator of the original show, from trying to resurrect it. Admirably, though, he’s trying to create a show about a female MacGyver (his daughter, maybe?). And he needs your help. You could even win some cash.

Hollywood and top engineers are crowdsourcing ideas for a TV series with a female MacGyver, the brainy 1980s small-screen secret agent who used little more than a paper clip to solve tricky problems.

The University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering is launching the competition for series ideas with Washington’s National Academy of Engineering and the MacGyver Foundation, officials said on Thursday.

“We want to be surprised. We want to be amazed,” Lee Zlotoff, the creator of the original “MacGyver” series, told a news conference.

Organizers are hoping that a show featuring a dashing female engineer will do for the field what the “CSI” series has done for forensic sciences.

They also want to get more girls and young women interested in engineering. Less than 20 percent of engineering bachelors degrees go to women, and trends point to even fewer in the future.

“Who among us wants to live in a world designed primarily by males?” said Ruth David, former deputy director of science and technology for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Zlotoff urged people to send in ideas for the new TV show by April 17. Five winners will receive $5,000 and be paired with producers to create a script, which will then be pitched to a network.

Got any ideas?