Channel Surfing: Jason O'Mara Signs on to Terra Nova, Marina Klaveno Talks True Blood, Happy Town Yanked Again, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

It's official: former Life on Mars star Jason O'Mara has signed on to topline FOX's new action-adventure series Terra Nova, following the successful close of his deal, according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. Series revolves around a family from the future who travels back in time to the Earth's prehistoric past in order to save mankind. O'Mara will play Jim Shannon, described as "a devoted father with a checkered past who guides his family through this new land of limitless beauty, mystery and terror." (The role was reportedly offered to Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler prior to O'Mara.) Alex Graves (Fringe will direct the pilot. (Deadline)

Back Stage's Jessica Jardine has an interview with True Blood's Mariana Klaveno, who plays Bill's maker, the devious vampire Lorena. "That's one of the really brilliant things about the show," said Klaveno. "[The writers] show how vampires relate to humans, and vice versa: What parts of humanity do they maintain, and what parts do they not? And obviously some do so more than others. Bill fights really hard to maintain some of his humanity, and someone like Lorena doesn't. There's parts of her that are just not there anymore, nor does she want them to be, because that's part of her human life, and that's dead and gone now. But it's interesting to me that love seems to be something that stays with them. Love and jealousy and greed and lust—-those all carry into your vampire life." (Back Stage)

Say goodbye to Happy Town... again. ABC has yet again yanked the low-rated mystery series from its schedule after the network began to burn off the remaining episodes on Wednesday evenings this summer. ABC will instead use the timeslot to house Castle repeats and a Jimmy Kimmel special, though the network does intend to air the final two installments of Happy Town this summer as it will burn them off on a Saturday night in July. Meanwhile, ABC will bring back the final two episodes of The Forgotten on Saturday, July 3rd and the last two installments of Eastwick on Saturday, July 10th. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed, Futon Critic)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck has details on just who Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty) will be playing when she drops by Wisteria Lane this fall. Keck, citing unnamed sources, reports that Williams, who is set to join the cast of ABC's Desperate Housewives, will play Renee Filmore-Jones, described as "an old college chum of Lynette Scavo" (Felicity Huffman) and bitter rival of Lynette's back in the 1980s. "Renee has been married for years to a handsome, hunky man (likely an athlete) named Keith Jones (I'm so picturing NYPD Blue hunk Henry Simmons in this role, though it's yet to be cast)," writes Keck. "They have no kids, meaning Renee has spent all these years just being a housewife supporting her man. But she's reached a time in her life when she wants to do more. Oh, one last thing: she has a secret." (TV Guide Magazine)

SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a spoilery image from the season premiere of House, one that depicts House and Cuddy getting, uh, cuddly on the beach. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous), Shanna Collins (Swingtown), and Caitlin Custer have joined the cast of HBO's telepic Cinema Verte, based on the groundbreaking 1970s reality series An American Family, which stars Tim Robbins, Diane Lane, James Gandolfini, and Thomas Dekker. Elsewhere, Alex Wolff (The Naked Brothers Band) has signed on for a multiple-episode story arc on HBO's In Treatment, where he will play the son of Gabriel Byrne's Paul. (Deadline)

Richard Dean Anderson (Stargate: SG-1) will appear in at least five episodes of USA's upcoming Sarah Shahi-led legal dramedy Facing Kate, where he will play David Smith, described as "a charismatic but secretive man who enters Kate’s life shortly after the death of her father." (Fancast)

HBO's Eastbound and Down is slated to return to the schedule on September 26th, with the launch of its second season. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Warner Bros. Entertainment is said to be in talks to purchase UK production entity Shed Media, which produces Supernanny and Who Do You Think You Are? and itself owns a number of shingle including Wall to Wall, Ricochet, and Twenty Twenty. No deal has been reached but the two sides were said to be in talks. (Variety)

Matthew Lillard (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and Gillian Vigman (Defenders) have landed the leads in CMT single-camera comedy pilot The Hard Life, from creator/executive producer Bill Diamond. Lillard and Vigman will play a married couple who attempt to be great parents and spouses but who find it difficult to juggle everything in their lives. (Deadline)

Paul Hewitt has been promoted to SVP of network communications at the CW, replacing Paul McGuire, who has been moved into Warner Bros. corporate communications. He'll report to Dawn Ostroff. [Editor: congratulations, Paul!] (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Starz Gets Spartacus Prequel, ABC Pulls Happy Town, Burt Reynolds to Burn Notice, Sarah Silverman Axed, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing.

Starz is heading back to Spartacus, ordering six episodes of a prequel series that will be set before Season One of the gladiator drama series, which wrapped its run last month. The six-episode prequel, as yet untitled, will revolve around the House of Batiatus and its champions and will star John Hannah and Lucy Lawless, as well as Peter Mensah, Manu Bennett, Antonio Te Maihoha, Nick E. Tarabay, and Lesley-Ann Brandt, and feature a brief appearance by Andy Whitfield, who is currently undergoing treatment for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Production will begin this summer, with the pay cabler eying a January 2011 launch, clearly an effort to keep the franchise humming until a second season can be produced. "The prequel story maintains the excitement and entertainment value of the first season of Spartacus, giving audiences the engaging experience they've come to expect," said Starz President and CEO Chris Albrecht in a statement. "We look forward to continuing the Spartacus story." (via press release)

Bad news for Happy Town: ABC has opted to pull the supernatural drama series from its schedule beginning next week. The series, produced by ABC Studios, will return on Wednesday, June 2nd at 10 pm ET/PT to begin burning off its remaining five installments, wrapping up its run on Wednesday, June 30th. Happy Town's current timeslot will be filled by an episode of Primetime: What Would You Do? next week and the network broadcast premiere of Transformers on May 26th. (TVGuide.com)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Burt Reynolds will guest star on an upcoming episode of USA's Burn Notice, where he will play Paul Anderson, described as "a legendary operative, now retired and cast out of the CIA, who serves as somewhat of a cautionary tale for Michael (Jeffrey Donovan)." Reynolds is slated to appear in the fourth season of Burn Notice, which launches June 3rd. "Things have not gone well for him since he left the spy service," creator Matt Nix told Ausiello. "He’s now working as a bartender under an assumed name, and he gets into trouble with some very nasty Russian guys... He’s not precisely like Michael. He’s Michael should Michael succumb to some of the demons that haunt ex-spies." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Comedy Central has cancelled The Sarah Silverman Program after three seasons after it failed to earn a renewal, despite a Twitter campaign to save the series, which had in its last season been bumped to a midnight timeslot. (Deadline.com)

Alan Ball and Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films have pacted to produce an HBO original telepic based on Rebecca Skloot's book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," about a Baltimore mother of five children who died of cervical cancer at age 31 in 1951. However, the cancerous cells removed from her body led to major breakthroughs in medical research, including leading to the cure for polio and AIDS treatments. No screenwriter is currently attached to the project, which will be produced by Ball, Winfrey, Kate Forte, and Peter Macoissi. (Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that NBC is preparing to give comedy Perfect Couples a series order and the network has authorized writers Scott Silveri and Jon Pollack to begin staffing the writing team for the series. Meanwhile, NBC is said to still be high as well on comedy Friends with Benefits and is said to be looking for a showrunner for the series. Drama Garza--which stars Jimmy Smitts--will likely be retooled for midseason. (Deadline.com)

Sir Derek Jacobi (Gosford Park) has been cast in a multiple episode story arc on Showtime's upcoming period drama The Borgias, where he will play Cardinal Orsini, described as "a nemesis to Pope Alexander (Jeremy Irons)" in several episodes. Elsewhere, Richard Griffiths (Harry Potter, History Boys) has been cast in the pay cabler's comedy series Episodes, where he will play a version of himself, "a brilliant British actor deemed 'too sophisticated' by an American TV network to star in a fictional comedy pilot who instead is replaced by Matt LeBlanc." (Hollywood Reporter)

Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Office) will star in BBC One's six-part drama Accused, created by Jimmy McGovern (The Street), each episode of which will follow an individual man accused of a crime and lead to court to hear his fate. "In the time it takes to climb the steps to the court we tell the story of how the accused came to be here," said McGovern in a statement. "We see the crime and we see the punishment. Nothing else. No police procedure, thanks very much, no coppers striding along corridors with coats flapping. Just crime and punishment – the two things that matter most in any crime drama. It's great to work with Chris again and I've often tried in the past to get Mackenzie into something of mine. And needless to say, it's wonderful to reunite the team that made The Street." (BBC)

E! Online's Drusilla Moorhouse has an interview with The Amazing Race's Jet and Cord McCoy, who sadly failed to come in first place this season. "I don't know if it was that one single act that cost us the race," said Jet about Jordan's queue-jumping move at the Shanghai airport. "It was more about the principle than it was anything. We were standing in a marked line of three people, and [Jordan] thinks that's where he wants to play his ace or whatever. Me and Cord were just kinda blown away. My goodness." And those of you wondering whether we'll see the cowboys on television again should take note of the fact that Cord's fiancee wants him to do Dancing with the Stars. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Universal Media Studios has signed a new two-year overall deal with Friday Night Lights executive producer David Hudgins, under which he will remain aboard the drama series as co-showrunner (a title he shares with Jason Katims) until the series' end and will develop new projects for the studio. (Variety)

Spike has promoted Sharon Levy to EVP of original series and animation. She will continue to report to Kevin Kay. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Talk Back: ABC's Series Premiere of Happy Town

Did you tune in to last night's series premiere of ABC's new mystery-horror-supernatural-drama Happy Town?

If so, I'm curious to see just what you thought of the first episode, which was written by Scott Rosenbaum, Andre Nemec, and Josh Applebaum, and which introduced the sleepy and seemingly idyllic town of Haplin.

You can read my advance review from last May of the original 90-minute pilot here, but now that the first episode has aired, I'd love to hear what you thought of the series opener.

Were you intrigued by the series' eerie vibe? Or put off by the convoluted plot and the kitchen sink narrative, which piled high every single supernatural trope previously used on Twin Peaks or in the works of Stephen King? Were you charmed by the characters or irritated by them? Like the nickname "Root Beer" or put off by it? Did you think that Amy Acker was criminally undervalued?

And, most importantly, will you tune in again next week?

Talk back here.

ABC Heads to Happy Town, I Stay Home

I originally wrote about the pilot episode of ABC's new supernatural mystery drama series Happy Town last May (the review for which you can read here).

While some of the actors have changed--Steven Weber stepped in to replace Dean Winters and Ben Schnetzer replaced John Patrick Amedori and the first episode is now a regular-length installment (the original pilot has been split into the first two episodes)--the overall tone and feel of series itself hasn't changed a bit since I first viewed that early cut of the pilot.

While I intended to revisit Happy Town and write a new one, there weren't any discernible improvements to Happy Town--which comes from Scott Rosenbaum, Andre Nemec, and Josh Applebaum--to warrant writing a brand-new review, so last year's pilot review stands.

You've been warned...

(Meanwhile, I'd also advise you to check out Maureen Ryan's hilarious faux-ABC memo regarding Happy Town over at The Chicago Tribune.)

Happy Town launches tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on ABC.

Channel Surfing: Mystery Man in Black from "Lost" Talks, FX Aims for Hit with "Archer," "Harper's Island" Doomed, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

TVGuide.com talks to Lost's Titus Welliver, who played the mysterious man in black seen in the fifth season finale (that many of us are referring to as Esau). "The way that I interpreted it, on a biblical level, is that it's a sort of Cain-and-Abel scenario," said Welliver of the showdown between Jacob and his character. "So by destroying Jacob, what does that prove — that [the man in black] can ultimately have power over the island? Do the castaways become solely his playthings? And why was it so important that he find the loophole to be able to kill Jacob? That moved me in the direction of thinking that if he needs this loophole, there's a greater power than the two of them that they're answering to." (TVGuide.com)

FX has ordered six episodes of animated comedy Archer (working title), about the eccentric employees of an international spy agency, from writer/executive producer Adam Reed. Project, which will launch this fall and be paired with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, features the voices of Jon Benjamin, Jessica Walter, Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler, and Judy Greer. Says Variety's Michael Schneider, "Benjamin plays Sterling Archer, a suave spy who goes by the code name Duchess. Walter plays his mother, while Tyler is his ex-girlfriend, Agent Lana Kane. Greer plays his secretary; Parnell is the spy agency’s comptroller." (Variety)

Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice is reporting that there's no hope for CBS' Harper's Island, citing unnamed insiders who "insist" that there won't be a second season of the serialized slasher series. CBS, meanwhile, wouldn't comment officially on the likelihood of a cancellation. Series was originally intended to be an ongoing franchise where each season would introduce a new killer and a new batch of victims. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

Steven Weber (Brothers & Sisters) and newcomer Ben Schnetzer are in talks to come aboard ABC midseason drama series Happy Town, where they would respectively replace Dean Winters and John Patrick Amedori, who appeared in the original pilot. (Which I reviewed here.) Weber will play John Haplin, scion of the town's founding family who is distraught after the kidnapping years earlier of his daughter by the mysterious "Magic Man." Schnetzer will play John Haplin's son who is himself enmeshed in a star-crossed romance with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. (Hollywood Reporter)

Modern Family director Jason Winer has signed a new multi-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television, under which he will remain on board ABC's single-camera comedy Modern Family as a director and co-executive producer. He'll direct six additional installments from the series' initial thirteen-episode commitment as well as develop new series for the studio with his writing partner Ryan Raddatz. (Variety)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan talks to Torchwood: Children of Earth star John Barrowman about the event season of the Doctor Who spin-off series. "I say this with my hand on my heart: If I were only asked to be Captain Jack for the next 10 years, I would do it," said Barrowman. "I'm definitely up for [Season] 4, 5, 6, whatever. For as long as they want to do it, I'm there." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Former Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville scribe Drew Z. Greenberg has joined the writing staff of Syfy's Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica, according to showrunner Jane Espenson. (Twitter)

Ryan Seacrest has signed a new contract that will pay out $15 million a year for the next three years that will keep him on board as host of FOX's American Idol through 2012 and make him exclusive to 19 Entertainment/CKX. Simon Cowell is already in the midst of renegotiating his own contract and Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, and Kara DioGuardi are all said to be "expected to ink new deals to return next year." (Variety)

Taryn Manning will guest star in the third episode of the CW's Melrose Place, where she will play a singer whose latest music video is directed by Jonah (Michael Rady). (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Los Angeles Times' Liesl Bradner profiles ubiquitous actor Patrick Fischler, who has appeared on the small screen this past year on such high-profile series as Lost, Mad Men, and Southland. "After Mad Men I got a lot of 'How dare you speak to Don Draper like that?'" Fischler said. "People -- mainly women -- were mad at me that I told Don off. I took it as a compliment." (Los Angeles Times)

Showtime has ordered six episodes of half-hour variety series Live Nude Comedy, described as a "mix of stand-up comedy and modern-day burlesque." Project, from Salient Media and The Collective and executive producers Gary Binkow and Michael Green, is hosted by Shannon Elizabeth and will launch on Thursday at midnight ET/PT on the pay cabler. Format will include an audience-participation sketch with Elizabeth, followed by two comedians and two dancers. (Variety)

E! Online's Watch with Kristin is reporting that Michelle Trachtenberg will fulfill her guest turn on the CW's Gossip Girl this fall, despite NBC shifting her midseason medical drama series Mercy to the fall. "Our sources tell us that Michelle Trachtenberg won't miss a beat of Gossip Girl," wrote Team Watch with Kristin. "She's doing everything she was expected to do as of last spring, and Georgina's episodes are good!" (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

HBO and Cinemax have joined Comcast's TV Everywhere initiative, allowing the cable operator to stream its series, movies, and other premium content to 5000 subscribers in the Philadelphia area in a pilot program to start in several weeks' times. The pay cablers join TNT, TBS, and Starz in the test program, which if it is successful, will be made available to Comcast subscribers around the country at no additional cost. (Hollywood Reporter)

It's official (finally!): CBS has announced that Neil Patrick Harris will host the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, to be broadcast live on September 20th. (Variety's Emmy Central)

Cabler VH1 has ordered four episodes of concert series Live and Loud Fridays from Live Nation. Series, which will feature rock performances from venues around the country, will launch this week with Poison and Def Leppard. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Pilot Inspektor: An Advance Review of ABC's "Happy Town"

ABC made a bold statement at its upfront presentation the other day when it presented new midseason drama series Happy Town as hailing "from the network that brought you Twin Peaks."

The statement rubbed me the wrong way for a number of reasons. First, it's not exactly like the executives who developed Twin Peaks even still work at ABC. Second, ABC may have brought us Twin Peaks but it just as quickly canceled David Lynch's groundbreaking drama, which aired a stunning nineteen years ago. And third, Happy Town should not be making any comparisons between itself and Twin Peaks because it is certainly no Twin Peaks.

I had the opportunity the other night to watch Happy Town's 90-minute pilot and the only similarities I could find between it and Twin Peaks were that (A) they both air on ABC and (B) they are both set in small towns where the sunny exteriors belie a secret underbelly of darkness. (Happy Town itself seems to relish the comparison, even having one character hail from Snoqualmie, Washington, where many of Twin Peaks's exterior shots were filmed.)

But while David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks reveled in its supremely surreal weirdness and slow-burn mystery, Happy Town, from October Road creators Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg, tries way too hard to make itself different, throwing at the audience a kitchen sink's worth of bizarro plot twists, flatly quirky characters, supernatural goings-on, red herrings, secret identities, murders, kidnappings, druggings, mutilations, nefarious motives, blue doors, sigils, tattoos, stalkers, star-crossed lovers, forbidden boarding house third floors, and vigilante justice. (Not to mention "The Magic Man.") And that's just in the series' first episode alone.

It's a shame as Happy Town boasts a fantastic cast of well-known (and, in some cases, much beloved) actors but they are hampered by a ridiculous plot, insipid dialogue, and an overabundance of exposition that's about as subtle as an anvil. At its best, Happy Town comes off as a cheap knock off of Twin Peaks without that series' effortless wit, intelligence, or flair. At its worst, it's laughably bad and cartoonish.

The series' sprawling cast includes (but isn't limited to) Geoff Stults (October Road), Lauren German (Hostel: Part II), Amy Acker (Dollhouse), Dean Winters (Rescue Me), John Patrick Amedori (Gossip Girl), Linda Kash (Best in Show), Sarah Gadon (Being Erica), Jay Paulson (October Road), Robert Wisdom (The Wire), M.C. Gainey (Lost), Abraham Benrubi (ER), Peter Outerbridge (Fringe), and Sam Neill (The Tudors).

The effect is to create the feeling of community that such a small town would have but it means that several characters are given short shrift. Amy Acker in particular seems to have precious little to do and it's a shame to see her squander her considerable ability playing a one-dimensional bread factory tour guide and wife and mother here. (A single brief look between her and Dean Winters' character is the sole storyline her character warrants here.)

Happy Town's plot revolves around Haplin, a seemingly idyllic small town in Minnesota (nicknamed "Happy Town"), only just recovered after a slew of unexplained child abductions seven years earlier. The crimes were perpetrated by a man the town has nicknamed "The Magic Man," someone you could walk past in the street without knowing, and resulted in the disappearance of several local children who vanished without a trace. The only sign that they were taken was the positioning of their favorite toy in the spot where they were taken. After a period of seven years, Haplin is finally recovering from this series of tragedies but old wounds prove hard to heal and there is friction in the town over a banner displaying the faces of the children who disappeared at the town's annual Thaw Fest.

But this is almost incidental as Haplin itself is once again shaken to its core when another crime occurs: the murder of a local man who liked to watch women and who was rumored to be The Magic Man himself. He was killed by a railroad spike to the head and the town is baffled by the gruesome crime. It's a blow to Sheriff Griff Conroy (Gainey), who has overseen the town and presided over a community that boasted no major crimes since the end of The Magic Man's kidnapping spree. A blow that seems to have weakened his mind as the sheriff keeps mentioning a mystery woman named Chloe at odd moments. His son Tommy (Stults), a family man who serves as one of the deputy sheriffs, and Detective Roger Hobbes (Wisdom) are concerned... and even more so when the Sheriff locks himself in the office, rants about the Magic Man coming back now that blood has been spilled, and proceeds to chop off his own hand with an old Indian tribal axe that seems to have been ceremonially placed on his office wall for that very purpose.

But there are other mysteries in Haplin as well. Such as the sudden arrival of New Girl in Town Henley (German), who claims to be in Haplin after the death of her mother, who vacated there years earlier, and to open up a candle shop with her inheritance money. She's given a room at a local boarding house where the draconian owner demands absolute quiet during mealtime as well as punctuality and tells Henley in no uncertain terms that she is not to visit the third floor. (Dun-dun-dun.) Also at the boarding house, Henley encounters a group of widows and the single male resident, a British gentleman named Merritt Grieves (Neill), who has just opened a classic movie memorabilia store in town and who introduces Henley to an old film entitled The Blue Door, which seems to rip off Twin Peaks' Killer BOB/Dwarf/Giant plot about otherworldly creatures entering man's heart through a rip between worlds. Henley, of course, isn't quite whom she claims to be but many of the townsfolk, including Merritt, seem to be keeping secrets of their own.

There's also the "Romeo and Juliet" secret romance (and, yes, the two characters actually do refer to themselves as Romeo and Juliet) between teenagers Georgia Bravin (Gadon), the daughter of a ne'er-do-well meth head, and wealthy town scion Andrew Haplin (Amedori), whose parents (including Dean Winters'John Haplin) never recovered from the disappearance of his little sister. Visiting Griff at the hospital, Georgina is seemingly drugged by a Mystery Man (referred to in the script as "Handsome Sam") in the hospital cafeteria and begins a strange hallucinatory journey that includes the transformation of the elevator into the blue door, the repetitive use of Carly Simons' song "You're So Vain," and the creepy smiles of the Mystery Man as she collapses in the vacant hospital lobby. When she awakens, she finds herself in the rundown junkyard home of local outcasts the Stiviletto Brothers. How did she get there? What happened to her? Why was she deposited there? We don't know and, honestly, we really don't care.

Exhausted yet? It's just one of the omnipresent mysteries that we're meant to be invested in but none of them are particularly original, compelling, or well-executed. The real tragedy with Happy Town is that it's nowhere near as clever or engaging as it believes itself to be and the haphazard plotting, hackneyed cliches, and painfully extensive pilot storylines demonstrate a lack of narrative editing on the part of the creators. After all, Twin Peaks took a few episodes to introduce all of its surreal and terrifying subplots before paying them off.

Ultimately, it's hard to imagine just why ABC decided to greenlight this project (based on a spec script written by the trio), even if it is as a midseason replacement that could use the down time to massively retool. My advice: stick to the highway and avoid this Happy Town.



Happy Town will launch in midseason on ABC.