Our President Is Now Officially a Cartoon

Although I'm hesitant to expose my psyche to any additional Trump-themed material, I do have to say I love the animated version of 45 on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as well as Colbert's impression of the cretin as he reads his tweets on air (complete with "dot dot dot").

Now, Showtime is debuting a half-hour animated comedy starring you-know-who, Our Cartoon President, to debut on Sunday, February 11 at 8 PM Eastern/Pacific (this time, with actor Jeff Bergman as the voice of Trump.)  But if you'd like to get a sneak peek even sooner, check out the link below, to the show's official trailer -- and stay tuned to view a sneak peek of the pilot on-demand, on January 28 -- two days prior to what will certainly be a nail-biting State of the Union address.

SHOWTIME^® RELEASES OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT

PREMIERING ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 AT 8 PMET/PT

Early Preview Of The Premiere Will Be Available Across Platforms

And On Demand On Sunday, January 28, Ahead Of State of The Union

LOS ANGELES, CA – January 6, 2018 – SHOWTIME released the official trailer for the new animated series OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT, executive produced by multiple Emmy^® winner Stephen Colbert, Chris Licht (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and showrunner R.J. Fried. The half-hour parody series, debuting on Sunday, February 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, follows the tru-ish misadventures of the 45^th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, and his merry band of advisors and family members. SHOWTIME will give viewers an early preview of the series, making the first episode of OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT available across multiple platforms online and On Demand on Sunday, January 28. 

To watch and share the trailer for OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT, go to:https://youtu.be/260mj1dmJhU.

The new 10-episode parody OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT examines the quintessentially Trumpian details of the presidency and his most important relationships, and no one is safe – from his close family and confidants to key political figures from both parties and members of the media. In this parallel cartoon universe, the Commander-in-Chief opens the White House doors for an “all access” look at a typical day in the life of the President of the United States. OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT is produced by CBS Television Studios and executive produced by Colbert, Licht and showrunner R.J. Fried. Tim Luecke will serve as lead animator and co-executive producer. Matt Lappin will serve as consulting producer. To learn more about OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT, follow@CartoonPres and join the conversation using #CartoonPresident.

  

SHOWTIME is currently available to subscribers via cable, DBS and telco providers, and as a stand-alone streaming service through Apple^®, Roku^®, Amazon, Google, Xbox One and Samsung. Consumers can also subscribe to SHOWTIME via Hulu, YouTube TV, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Sony PlayStation^® Vue and Amazon Channels. The network’s authentication service, SHOWTIME ANYTIME, is available at no additional cost to SHOWTIME customers who subscribe to the network through participating providers. Subscribers can also watch on their computers at www.showtime.com andwww.showtimeanytime.com.

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Final Episodes of Episodes

Matt LeBlanc at Episodes season 5
premiere screening, Paley Center for Media
Beverly Hills, CA, August 16, 2017
Photo by Imeh Bryant /
 The Paley Center for Media

This Sunday, August 20, Showtime's brilliant comedy Episodes returns for its fifth and final season, of seven...well, episodes.  And having seen the screening of the first two installments of the season at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills the other night, I can tell you the show is back in fine form.  (In fact, while episode 1 was very, very funny, episode 2 is one of the series' best, right on par with the revelation of the "artwork" in Merc's blind ex-wife's living room.  Episode 2 was so screamingly funny that I actually missed some lines, drowned out by audience laughter, and will have to watch again.)

We pick up season 5 right where the season 4 left off:  Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) are stuck working for their odious former assistant Tim (Bruce Mackinnon), who is now the showrunner on the new series he and Sean once came up with together.  Matt LeBlanc is hosting a cheesy game show for his old network, uneasily working with its producer, his nemesis Merc (John Pankow).  Having been fired after her affair with her boss Helen (Andrea Savage), Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins) is wallowing in seclusion at home.  And Morning?  (Mircea Monroe)  We don't know where she is yet -- but as Episodes' creator/writer/producers David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik revealed that night, she returns in episode 3.

Episodes creators/writers/producers
Jeffrey Klarik (l) and David Crane
Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills
August 16, 2017
Photo by Imeh Bryant /
 The Paley Center for Media

As Crane and Klarik long ago revealed, they had the idea for their show years ago, after a bad experience working with CBS on their underappreciated sitcom The Class.  While they were pitching their show to the BBC, they deliberately set it in Hollywood, thinking -- wrongly, it turns out -- that they'd have to shoot it in L.A.  But ironically, the budget said otherwise.  And even with the injection of funds from partnering with Showtime, the producers found themselves recreating the look of L.A. in London, and living in the U.K. for up to six months to produce each season.  (Limited exterior shooting, plus post-production, is then done in real-life Los Angeles.)

For Sean and Beverly's show-within-the-show, Klarik and Crane -- partners in both writing and life -- wanted to take a smart, prototypical British setting, and dumb it down the way an American network might.  So they started with History Boys -- and then Klarik had an epiphany:  "Hockey!"  Having co-created and -produced all those seasons of Friends, Crane knew just who to approach to play a teacher as far as one can get from British propriety:  Matt LeBlanc.  (When that was revealed on the panel following Wednesday night's screening, LeBlanc feigned insult.  But both writers also revealed that had LeBlanc said no, they would have opted not to proceed with Episodes.  Well, Klarik joked, "maybe with David Schwimmer.")

Episodes panel at The Paley Center for Media, August 16, 2017:
l-r, creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik, stars Mircea Monroe,
Kathleen Rose Perkins and Matt LeBlanc,
 moderator Jarett Wieselman of Buzzfeed News

Episodes cast and creators
The Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills
August 16, 2017

Photo by Imeh Bryant /

 The Paley Center for Media

Other burning questions arose on the panel, such as Morning's real age (even Klarik and Crane don't know, and we love it that way); Myra's constipated noises (which actress Daisy Haggard performs brilliantly, and which Klarik sweetens even more with his own whines in post-production); and Carol's attraction to authority figures, whether they be male or female (a plot point which Perkins says she was told as far back as season 1, and couldn't wait to play.)  And while fans have speculated for seasons now whether the characters of Merc, Carol, Myra, Andy (Joseph May) and others might correlate to any real-life network execs, Crane and Klarik do admit that two characters, Sean and Beverly, are directly modeled on real people -- namely, them.


"I'm like Sean, thinking the glass is half-full," Crane says.  Then, pointing to Klarik, he adds, "And he thinks the glass is an idiot."

David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik on Episodes panel
The Paley Center for Media, Beverly Hills
August 16, 2017

Episodes returns to Showtime Sunday, August 20 at 10 PM Eastern/Pacific

Californication's Final Fling

RIP Californication.  Showtime just announced that this upcoming, 7th season of the David Duchovny-led half-hour, premiering in April 2014, will be the show's last.  Read the official announcement here:

THE FINAL FLING BEGINS…

The Hit SHOWTIME® Comedy Series CALIFORNICATION

To Conclude Its Remarkable Run with 12 Episodes –

Season Seven Premieres in April 2014

Photo: Jordin Althaus/SHOWTIME

SHOWTIME viewers will take one last romp with Hank Moody when the hit comedy series’ seventh season premieres in April 2014 (date TBD), it was announced today by David Nevins, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks Inc. The final 12 episodes will neatly wrap up our unforgettable time following Hank (David Duchovny), Karen (Natascha McElhone), Becca (Madeleine Martin), Charlie (Evan Handler) and Marcy (Pamela Adlon) in their audacious comic mis-adventures and sexcapades. “With its unique blend of lyricism and excess, CALIFORNICATION has been one of our groundbreaking signature series,” said David Nevins. “We will always be indebted to Tom Kapinos for leading the creative charge on this memorable comedy, and to David Duchovny for making us root for an unapologetic hedonist like Hank Moody. Tom has carefully planned the final chapter of Hank’s journey and has brought it to a beautiful and satisfying conclusion for new and long-time fans alike.” Created and executive produced by Tom Kapinos, CALIFORNICATION stars David Duchovny (also an executive producer) in his Golden Globe^®-winning role as the hedonistic writer who fights to balance the demands of his insatiable libido, unpredictable career, ex-girlfriend/muse Karen and beloved daughter Becca. He’s aided (and sometimes abetted) by best friend/agent Charlie and Charlie’s bawdy wife Marcy. Over the course of its run, the series has been honored withmany accolades, including five Emmy^® nominations and two wins, six Golden Globe nominations and one win, and a Screen Actors Guild^® Award nomination. CALIFORNICATION had its highest-rated season ever with season six last year averaging 2.9 million weekly viewers across platforms.  An incredibly consistent performer for the network, the series grew steadily over its six seasons on the air, and last year saw a growth of over 20 percent On Demand as well. From his debut in August 2007, Hank Moody quickly became everyone’s favorite unflinchingly honest, self-destructive lothario who bowed at the altar of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. The final season will find him joining the writer’s room as his never-released film “Santa Monica Cop” now becomes a television series of the same name. He’s riled frequently by his boss, the show’s old-school executive producer Rick Rath (guest star Michael Imperioli), and his fellow writing team members, including Goldie (guest star Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Alonzo (co-star Alonzo Bodden). But he’s thrown by the reemergence of old friend Julia (guest star Heather Graham), whose arrival causes chaos in Hank’s already hectic life, and with his on-off relationship with Karen (McElhone). Meanwhile, Charlie (Handler) and Marcy (Adlon) grapple with the aftermath of their reunion and an enticing offer from her ex-husband, Stu Beggs (guest star Stephen Tobolowsky). Rob Lowe, Brandon T. Jackson, Oliver Cooper and Mercedes Masohn will also guest star.  

Fall Preview: CBS' Hostages

Hostages

Mondays at 10 PM Eastern/9 PM Central,

Premiering September 23

With its similarly intense mix of political intrigue and personal drama, Hostages is obviously harboring hopes of becoming the next Homeland.  After all, the two series have more in common than merely the cleverness of their blonde heroines; both action thrillers have origins in Israel, which is fast becoming fertile ground for growing America’s future TV hits.

Showtime’s series, adapted from the Israeli Hatufim, captured critical raves and swept the Emmy Awards in 2012.  Now, CBS’ high-concept Hostages, based on a previously unproduced script out of Tel Aviv, has nabbed both a top-notch cast and one of TV’s highest-profile launching pads for a drama, the network’s Mondays at 10.

Hostages stars Toni Collette in the juicy lead role of Ellen Sanders, a Washington, DC surgeon whose family is taken captive by team of rogue FBI agents on the eve of her operation on the President of the United States.  Commanded to kill her political patient, Sanders is tested in her resolve as a medical professional, as a wife and mother, and as a patriotic citizen.  The scope of the story, says producer Alon Aranya, who teamed with writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff to tailor the original script for an American audience, reaches beyond that of the typical television procedural.  The intricately-plotted, surprise-rigged Hostages “will be like a feature film designed for TV.”

In another way that Hostages will be notable for the network, the series will, following its September premiere, run for 15 straight episodes with few repeats or interruptions, before ceding its timeslot in early 2014 to another hotly anticipated drama. (Intelligence, which stars Lost’s Josh Holloway as a government intelligence operative whose brain has been implanted with a supercomputer microchip and CSI’s Marg Helgenberger as his agency boss, is scheduled to debut February 24.)  Such shorter seasons have long been the norm on cable, but as network president Nina Tassler explains, this is a first for CBS:  “We’re normally in the 22-episode business, because our fans don’t want less of their favorite shows – they want more.”  But Tassler and her team were soon won over by the Hostages producers’ detailed plans for a nailbiting first season, which she describes as “fifteen really terrific episodes, jampacked with big events and plot twists.”

The twists were what lured actors like Collette, who remembers that “when I read the pilot script, it was unlike any other show.  I loved that I didn’t know what was happening -- although I thought I did.  It really was a page-turner, where I couldn’t put it down.”  Collette is joined by Tate Donovan as Ellen’s less successful – and less-than-faithful – husband Brian, Dylan McDermott as Duncan Carlisle, the erstwhile Fed turned conspirator and kidnapper, and James Naughton as the President targeted for assassination.

But both Hostages’ producer and leading lady warn not to blindly accept these simplified descriptions of the show’s characters.  “The show is a conspiracy thriller – and as such, all is not what it seems.  There’s always another layer,” Aranya teases.

“People keep asking Dylan, ‘How is it to play the bad guy?’” Collette adds.  “But he may not be entirely bad.  All of these characters have their reasons for doing what they do.  And those reasons will slowly be revealed.”

More "Lies" to Come

As PR executive Marty Kaan on Showtime’s House of Lies, which returns tonight at 10 PM for its second season, Don Cheadle is a sublime slime. (Make that an Emmy-nominated sublime slime!)

But in the current Iron Man film series, Cheadle’s James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes uses the powers from his War Machine suit only for good.  And the versatile actor was nominated for an Oscar for his 2004 role as Paul Rusesabagina, a noble African innkeeper rescuing Tutsi refugees from genocide in Hotel Rwanda.

In the fall of ‘92, the now 48-year-old Kansas City native had checked guests into a much cheerier establishment in Miami, making his series regular debut as put-upon desk clerk Roland Wilson on CBS’ Golden Girls much maligned sequel sitcom, Golden Palace.  Today, Palace producer Tony Thomas looks back on the casting which helped launch the lauded actor's career.  “Don Cheadle is a brilliant actor whom I’ve often seen since, and said, ‘I’m so sorry we gave you that material.’”

At the time, Thomas worried he might have ruined Cheadle’s career.

Hardly.

Meet The Borgias

For those fans who are about to mourn the impending passing of The Tudors, which will soon debut its final season -- "We've run out of wives," Showtime's president Robert Greenblatt joked today at the TCA -- the network is announcing today a show they hope will be a suitable replacement, The Borgias.

The show is to star Jeremy Irons, in his first series role, as Rodrigo Borgia, patriarch of the infamous Italian Renaissance family in 1492 Italy. The cast of characters includes Rodrigo's two twisted sons, Cesare and Juan, as well as, of course, daughter Lucrezia, who at 14 was the most sought-after political marital match in Europe and who reputedly developed an expertise with poison.

The Borgias was created and will be executive produced by famed film director Neil Jordan, and also produced by the man who wrote all 40 episodes of The Tudors, Michael Hirst. The show will go into production this summer, for a scheduled debut in early 2011.

Let's get REX on the air!

This afternoon, I watched Rex, a new comedy pilot created by Guy Shalem, whose work I loved in Lifetime's Lovespring International.

Check out this show -- it's HILARIOUS, with Simon Rex playing a version of himself, an actor in need of a career boost. The show has brilliant cameos from Lance Bass, Jaime Pressly, and believe it or not, Paris Hilton -- who's deadpan funny! (Who knew?)

I believe that Rex is a pilot for Showtime, which is still considering it. The show is building a Facebook fan base -- and that will be a really interesting precedent. We've all heard of a few examples of popular outcry saving a nearly-cancelled show -- but if Rex gets its pickup, this could be the first time that popular reaction gets a show on the air in the first place. Technology may be making it harder in some ways for the TV networks, but here's a great example of technology possibly democratizing the process as well.

To watch the show, click on the following link, which will bring you to Rex's Facebook fan page. From there, click on the info tab to get the viewing password, and then return to the Wall page, where the vimeo link is on the left-hand side.

Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rex/98094022154?ref=ts

Nurse Jackie: Vital Signs Positive

On Tuesday night here in New York City, Showtime rolled out its newest comedy series, Nurse Jackie.  Edie Falco, in her first regular series role since her career-making portrayal of mob wife Carmela Soprano, stars as Queens native Jackie Peyton, a married mother of two who pops pain pills to soothe her back and shtups her coworker doctor (played by her recurring Sopranos co-star Paul Schulze, aka Father Phil Intintola), all to get her through the rough days at Manhattan's All Saints Hospital.

Okay, so Jackie may have her flaws.  And it's quite possible -- and I already heard from one nurse who called in to The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius OutQ yesterday -- that there may be some in the medical profession who balk at this portrayal, and at some of the unorthodox and yes, even illegal, things we see Jackie do.  But the heart of the show -- and some of its darkest, most hilarious moments -- comes from Jackie's machinations to make The System work, to save lives even if it means completely breaking the rules.   (And by the way -- the show does employ several actual RNs as consultants, to keep things real.)

Produced by a highly pedigreed team that includes creators Linda Wallem (Cybill, That '70s Show) and Liz Brixius, Sex and the City alum John Melfi and a rotating group of highly esteemed directors like Falco's Sopranos costar Steve Buscemi,  Nurse Jackie had a lot going for it right from the start.  No wonder Showtime was able to lure Falco right back to TV.  As the actress told me a few weeks ago, in an interview for an upcoming piece in the July/August issue of CBS Watch Magazine, she spent her post-Carmela time reading scripts in all different genres -- plays, screenplays, TV scripts.  "As far as something that I was going to be interested in doing, and be challenged by, the options were few," she explained.  "I've gotten very picking, because the writing was so good on Sopranos that it's hard to compare... Nurse Jackie was the first thing that really grabbed me."  And it's a testament to Falco's immense talent that, moments into Nurse Jackie's pilot episode, you forget that such a looming pop cultural icon like Carmela Soprano ever existed.

Nurse Jackie grabbed me, too, in its first two episodes which Showtime screened on Tuesday night.  The network, its CEO Matt Blank noted in a funny introduction at the Directors Guild Theater, is already the socially responsible home to a pot-dealing suburban mom on Weeds, a serial-killer forensics expert on Dexter, and now a pill-popping nurse.  In the crowd, I spotted Buscemi and Schulze as well as Jackie co-stars Eve Best, Peter Facinelli, Anna Deavere Smith, Haaz Sleiman, Dominic Fumusa and Merritt Wever and guest stars Eli Wallach and Swoosie Kurtz, Falco's former Sopranos costar Aida Turturro, Bobby Cannavale, Julianna Margulies, LL Cool J, Donna Karan, Caroline Rhea, Richard Kind, Daphne Rubin-Vega, BD Wong, CBS News' Bob Simon, and later, at the jam-packed after party at the Parker Meridien hotel, Andrea Martin and Tovah Feldshuh, who stopped by after their respective Broadway shows.

Check out Nurse Jackie starting this Monday, June 8 at 10:30 PM Eastern/Pacific.

Tracey Ullman back to check the State of the Union

On Sunday, April 12, Tracey Ullman will return to Showtime with season 2 of her show State of the Union.

At today's TCA, Ullman appeared with her fellow executive producer -- and husband of 25 years -- Allan McKeown and talked about the process of playing so many different characters.  Ullman and her crew shot season 2 last fall -- 7 new episodes in 3 weeks -- adding an extra challenge to playing Arianna Huffington because the presidential election hadn't yet been decided.  As a result, Ullman and her fellow writer Bruce Wagner came up with alternate endings -- an Obama and a McCain -- for those sketches.  "There was very low enthusiasm [when we were filming] the McCain endings," McKeown remembered.

Also in the political vein, Tracey -- who recently became a U.S. citizen after 25 years living here -- now "takes on" (to use a phrase from her earlier HBO show) Laura Bush.  "I was just obsessed with Laura Bush," she admitted.  "I know that by the time the show goes on, she'll be back in Crawford and it'll be 115 degrees," surrounded by her "objets d'art and trying to fit in."

Among her favorites from State of the Union's first season, Huffington will be back, as will singing pharmacist Padma and her spot-on take on a squinting Renee Zellweger.  And she'll be adding plenty more.  This year, Tracey impersonates Jonah Hill.  ("I'm never keen seeing Tracey dressed up like a guy.  She always tries to kiss me and it upsets me," McKeown admits.)  She's always watching odd people, she says, getting ideas.  And listening to NPR.  Then, it's time to write.

"Bruce Wagner and I sit and throw out ideas all day together, and you write.  To impersonate actual people is something I started to do [only] on State Of The Union.  I hadn't done that before -- I always thought it was SNL's domain.  But i thought if i'm going to do a trip across America, I should do some celebrities to add flavor to the show.  But I'm not Rich Little.  I didn't want to be Sarah Palin, which i think Tina Fey nailed and was a genius thing.  I wanted to be that lesbian Sarah Palin talked about who was her best friend for years.  Where was she -- Juneau?"  

In the resulting show, tied together with a voice-over narration by Peter Strauss, Tracey plays a plethora of characters as they live and breathe one day in America dawn to dusk, in pieces lasting no longer than two minutes.  The show has a lot of similarities to Little Britain -- and particularly to HBO's current Little Britain, USA, which is also set on a trip thru the States.  But a format framed by voice-over is nothing new, Tracey says of the similarity.  Plus, McKeown points out, whereas Little Britain is all sketch comedy, State of the Union has Tracey playing the truth in realistic American characters first, with punchlines coming second.

I asked Tracey if characters her fans (like me) love from her earlier series -- like Francesca, being raised by two gay dads on The Tracey Ullman Show, or Fern Rosenthal, the Jewish Florida matron from Tracey Takes On -- might ever pop up on this newest show.  Fern, she realized, thinking quickly, would be perfect:  she's undoubtedly a Bernie Madoff victim.  So although all of this season's episodes are already in the can, don't be surprised to see Fern kvelling on Showtime should there be a Season 3.

But there are other things about her older shows Tracey is happy to leave behind.  Watching Tracey Takes On now, she says, she's struck by how each character scene seems to go on forever.  Now, she says, doing these quickie bits of characters is much more in fitting with the times, with our "youtube mentality."

And, of course, it also offers her the chance to cram in so many more personalities.  "I can't do a show where I play just one character," she admitted.  "Even if I love playing a character and have a great time, at the end of the day I say 'What are we going to do tomorrow?'  I just have that energy.  And until I get too old, that's what i'm going to do.  Then I can do Murder She Wrote where I live in Cornwall and solve mysteries."

Tracey Ullman's State of the Union

Season 2 Premiere

Sunday, April 12

The L Word Goes out on Top

This Sunday night at 9 PM, Ilene Chaiken's groundbreaking Showtime drama The L Word enters its final season, with one storyline providing a framework for the season:  who killed Jenny Schechter?

As Chaiken told critics at today's TCA convention in Los Angeles, her show is going out on top.  Season 6, she says, is the show's strongest.  "We've had our ups and our downs, but it has all come together."

When asked why Showtime has chosen to promote the show this season by revealing Jenny's death, rather than using it as a big bang surprise during this weekend's opening installment, Chaiken didn't question the network's wisdom.  The mystery angle will be eminently promotable.  And Jenny's demise, she said, "happens in the first 20 seconds of the episode."

Guests to look forward to this season will include Xena lesbian icon Lucy Lawless and gay camp icon from Showgirls Elizabeth Berkley.

And let's not forget the show's fabulous cast, who was in attendance, including another icon, Pam Grier, as well as Leisha Hailey, Laurel Holloman, Katherine Moennig and the incredibly beautiful Jennifer Beals.

Beals spoke eloquently about how much The L Word has meant to its fans -- not just as entertainment, but as a lifesaver for questioning women and men.  She remembers one older lesbian couple who won walk-on roles on the show as an auction prize; the show, they told her, had inspired them late in life to come out to their families.  And Beals began to cry when she recounted other stories of how much the show has meant.

I told Ilene when we started this show, "I want this show to change the world!"   And she said, "Calm down, it's just a TV show."  I want the show to be for that young girl in the middle of nowhere who decides that she's gay and has no one and has to come out to her family.  I want her to turn on the television and have her see the most

 fabulous, resourceful version of herself shown back to her.  I recently got a letter from a young woman who told me she had just come out.  She was 16 years old.  She said it was the loneliest time of her life.  And she said by watching the show, the show had saved her life.  Because she had contemplated killing herself. And that by realizing there were other people who were out there like her and there was a larger community to which she belonged, and in which one day she might be able to take part, she was encouraged.

Beals went on to compare the show to Flashdance, where her character was also an "other," or outsider.  In Flashdance, she says, the woman finds her outlet in dancing.

[On The L Word], in playing this character, it's an extension of what it means to be "other."  I don't know what role will be next.  but what will be the most difficult thing to do is to find something that is written as well and as helpful as [The L Word] has been to people.

The L Word

Season 6 Premiere

Sunday, January 18, 2009

9 PM Eastern

Secret Diary from the Lady Garden

If you're looking to Showtime for some more soft-core porn, like their famous old series Red Shoe Diaries, you may be out of luck.  

The British-made Secret Diary of a Call Girl, which begins its second U.S. season on Showtime this Sunday night, January 18, won't be bringing you the full Monty -- or the full Marie, for that matter.

Although star Billie Piper is often called on to show her naked backside -- "the diet starts when I get back home," the actress, who had a baby a mere 11 weeks back, admitted to the critics at the TCA today.  "It's so hard here.  The portions are so large, and the food is so delicious" -- she will never be asked to show what the show's producer Rebecca de Souza quoted a gentleman as euphemistically calling her "lady garden."  

But will we ever see any of Billie's character Belle's clients' "man gardens," shall we say?  No -- mostly.  The male actors on the show are required to wear "modesty sacs," as they're known, which Piper says are really no more than "penis socks.  They're horrible.  You do end up being able to see, and by the end they're falling off..."  And I learned something about Britain's broadcast standards, too.  "You can't see [penises] ready for action.  That's the rule," de Souza clarified.

So much for Big Ben.

Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Season 2

Premieres Sunday, January 18

10:30 PM

Breaking news: L Word spinoff details

Today at the TCA convention in Los Angeles, Showtime president Robert Greenblatt leaked a few details about the highly anticipated L Word spinoff (which according to imdb.com, is currently titled The Farm.)

As had previously been reported, the spinoff will star Leisha Hailey (aka Alice), who will unfortunately be going to prison.  There, she'll be joined by a whole new cast of characters, only some of whom are lesbians, played by such well-known and hottie actresses as Famke Janssen, and Roseanne's Laurie Metcalf, last seen in the underappreciated and quickly-cancelled CW series Easy Money.

When asked if the new show could be considered a female version of HBO's infamously brutal drama Oz, Greenblatt replied, "That might be a good comparison."

More as they happen, including further details from L Word creator Ilene Chaiken when the L Word panel begins at 3 PM Pacific time today.

Meet Tara -- and T, and Alice, and Buck

This Sunday, January 18, Showtime will begin airing its newest season of The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, as well as the final season of The L Word.

As part of that new lineup, the pay cable network will also premiere a new "dramedy," The United States of Tara.  The show, starring Toni Collette as a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), comes from writer Diablo Cody, who this past year won an Oscar for the screenplay to Juno.

The Tara idea, however, originated with none other than Steven Spielberg.  Spielberg and Showtime president Robert Greenblatt then came across Cody's Juno screenplay, nine months before the film even went into production, and, loving her original voice, hired her to flesh out the idea to series.

So, how much about Tara will be as quirky as Juno?  Well, the show definitely is funny, and honest. Tara's alternate personalities (teenager T; Alice, a Donna Reed-like housewife; Buck, a macho man in a trucker hat) definitely know that they're inhabiting her body.  And even more intriguingly, Tara and her family -- including her gay son Marshall, played by Keir Gilchrist, who was so funny as the kid on the short-lived Fox sitcom The Winner opposite Rob Corddry -- are "out" about her disorder; it's not a secret, kept from a nosy Mrs. Kravitz.  "Your neighbor could talk openly about being on an antidepressant, or their kid taking ritalin," Cody theorized.  "So it seemed unrealistic for it to be this huge taboo in town. ...Obviously some people are frightened, but others are intrigued.  And I think that would be the natural response to something like this."

Cody was also careful to explain that the series doesn't spring entirely from her imagination -- particularly the details about the real-life condition DID.  "I've been able in the past to use my imaginations for situations I've never been in, but in this case, when you're dealing with a sensitive topic like this, you absolutely have to do your homework."

"I didn't want to make fun because [the condition] is serious and comes from a sad place," Collette agreed.  "With all the research everyone's done, it's very personal.  I have a friend who had experience with DID who was blown away by how realistic it was."

In fact, Collette pointed out it was the pilot script for Tara that convinced her to do TV at all.  "I never had any aspirations to work in TV but I picked up this script one day from my agent and read it immediately," she explained.  "As soon as I closed last page turned to my husband and said, 'I have to do this.'  It was so delicious to read, so original and unusual, it's a complete dream for an actor.  It is about a woman with a mental illness, but it goes beyond that, into how a family lives and makes that quite normal for their lives.  It's incredibly funny but also moving and very real.  I like stories you can't fit into a box and that you can relate to as a human being."

The United States of Tara

Premieres Sunday, January 18, 2009

10 PM Eastern

Dead Like Me Lives!

For all of you who call in and write me about Showtime's long-dead series Dead Like Me, here's the news you've been waiting for:  the series is being resurrected as a straight-to-DVD movie, which will be released on February 17, 2009.

Click here for the full press release.

And Now, a Word from...

Lauren Lee Smith
Actor, CBS' CSI

After the departure late last season of Jorja Fox, CSI’s Las Vegas forensic investigations team was down one member – not to mention one lesbian icon. Enter Lauren Lee Smith, the chameleon-like actress who starting in her teenage years in Canada quickly landed a series of ever-more-impressive roles in such shows as MTV’s 2gether, CBS’ Christy miniseries, and the syndicated sci-fi show Mutant X (opposite my fave, Victor Webster!)

In a few short years, Smith became the girlfriend of a boy band member, a Smoky Mountain schoolteacher, a mutant, a Russian stripper spy (on the Canadian procedural series Intelligence) – and most importantly, a chef named Lara Perkins, the love interest for tennis player Dana Fairbanks on Showtime’s The L Word. Recently, I had the chance to interview Lauren about her new role on CSI, where she debuts as CSI-2 Riley Adams in this season’s second episode, airing Thursday, October 16. And of course, along the way, I couldn’t help but ask her what it had been like to become one our icons on Showtime’s groundbreaking gay show.

Must-Hear TV: Back in 2004, you had already found success in quite a few TV shows and in Canadian independent film. What had interested you in joining The L Word?

Lauren Lee Smith: The L Word had a huge appeal to me at the time, because it was something that hadn’t been done before. It was bringing to mainstream television a TV series based on the lives of lesbians. And I just thought that it was an important project, and I thought that all of the people involved I really admired. We had such an amazing group of directors for every episode, and the producers and writing team and all of the actors. Getting to work with Pam Grier and Jennifer Beals was amazing, and the list just goes on and on.

MHTV: You were very young [23 or 24] when you started on the show. Had you ever done love scenes before? Particularly same-sex scenes?

LLS: That was the first time that I did a same-sex scene, yes. Everyone always says, “Oh, is it nervewracking?” And I have to say, it was much easier. Girls look out for each other.

MHTV: But does it make you self-conscious?

LLS: I don’t really have many hang-ups about that.

MHTV: Your generation has fewer hang-ups about the whole issue of sex in general.

LLS: It’s true, I think. Really, I’ve never been a fan of gratuitous nudity or sex scenes, and I pride myself in never having had to fall into that category. But I do find it somewhat ridiculous when you’re doing a love scene, and it’s very unrealistic. So I have no problems doing love scenes as long as there’s a realistic aspect.

MHTV: Even though you’ve got 30 crew members staring at you.

LLS: You know, you put that out of your brain. You have to, otherwise you become very self-conscious, and it’s not real at that point.

MHTV: Did anybody advise you against playing a lesbian when you went into that show, and have you found that you get stereotyped?

LLS: No one advised me not to take it. Everyone was very supportive about the project when they heard about it. There were certainly several more offers after I did The L Word to play lesbian characters, but I don’t think that was necessarily because of me. I think it was because The L Word opened it up a little bit to have more of these characters. So I found that there were more and more characters coming out who were gay. Which is a great thing, I have to say.

CSI

Season 9

Thursday, October 9
9 PM Eastern
CBS