Once Again, Scott Wolf
Today in show business news: Bailey Salinger has a new gig, NBC is headed to Wonderland, and Starz is getting into ballet.
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You just can't keep Scott Wolf down! Well, OK, you sorta can, but he always squirms out from under you at some point. The Party of Five actor's next miraculous reappearance will be on the TNT show Perception. That's the on with Will from Will & Grace, only in this one he wears glasses and his eyes are magic or something. Well, not magic, but he perceives thing very smartly. He uses that special perceiving to solve mysteries. He's Sherlock Holmes except he's crazy. Though, I guess, in recent version of Sherlock Holmes, he's crazy too, so Will is Sherlock Holmes through and through. Only instead of Watson he has Rachel Leigh Cook. And now he has Scott Wolf! Wolf has been cast in a "major recurring role," playing a sorta slimy lawyer who used to be married to Rachel Leigh Cook. Oohhh, what will Will perceive about him?? "I perceive that you.... were in White Squall!" "How did you know???" "PERCEPTION!" and then Will disappears in a puff of smoke. (A poof of smoke?) It's all going to be very exciting. Welcome back, Scott Wolf! Where ya been? [The Hollywood Reporter]
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NBC has gone ahead an ordered a pilot of a show called Wonderland, about a dog-racing track in Revere, Massachusetts. No, no, if only. In truth it's a freakin' sequel (a freakquel) to Alice in Wonderland. Yup, NBC is trying to get its own Once Upon a Time. On this Wonderland, a woman named Clara who lives in modern times is tipped off that there is also a Wonderland. Then she starts to do battle with Wonderland's queen, who is Alice! Yeah, I guess Alice is sorta bad in this one? Or at last not 100 percent good. Anyway, the point is that this ia shameless ploy on NBC's part to recreate ABC's so-so Once Upon a Time success, and I can't imagine it will work. Especially when the person who created the show is the guy who created CSI. So, OK, he knows how to make a hit, but this is a big fantasy project we're talking about here. It all sounds a little ambitious, if you ask me. But, who knows. It could be a success. Curiouser things have happened. [Deadline]
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Now here's a TV pilot I can get behind. Longtime Quentin Tarantino producer Lawrence Bender is teaming up with a Breaking Bad executive producer to make a show about ballet for Starz. Yes, ballet! From the producers of Breaking Bad and Pulp Fiction. It's going to be called Put On Your Goddamned Toe Shoes and everyone will smoke cigarettes. Well, actually, that's not that far from the truth. The show is about "a young female ballet dancer named Claire with a troubled past who joins a ballet company in New York. The project, which is described as dark and gritty, will explore the dysfunctional underbelly of the ballet world." Tell me that doesn't sound exciting! Sure it's Starz, but it'll be on Netflix eventually! This sounds great. A tough show about ballet, a non-supernatural/psychosexual Black Swan. Here's hoping it's mostly about them beating up the cast of Bunheads. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Showtime has renewed its three series currently airing: Shameless, Californication, and House of Lies. The Shameless news is kind of exciting — though it's often laboriously squalid, the show is still pretty engaging, for maybe that very reason. And who really cares about Californication, it's mostly just good that David Duchovny is getting work. But House of Lies? Man is that a repugnant show. Just really aggressively unlikable, that program. All the filth talk that's supposed to be all edgy and cool but really sounds like dumb teenagers posturing. And all the yimmer-yammer about consulting, which is in fact the most boring job on the planet. It's just very bad, and even worse for wasting talents like Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, and Gabrielle Union. That's its chief sin. Can't you make another show for them, Showtime? One that isn't a frat boy's day dream about what it will be like when he gets a job someday? Thanks. [Deadline]
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Because of the Super Bowl, HBO has decided to premiere its new episodes of Girls and Enlightened on Saturday night. They'll still air on Sunday too, but they'll technically debut on Saturday, unhampered by the game. Aha. Haha. Yes. Because those are two overlapping demos. "Gotta watch the Super Bowl, but I love Girls and the Laura Dern show about a lonely middle-aged woman facing poetic existential problems! What do I do??" I suppose some of these shows' demographic might be tuning into the Beyoncé halftime show or something, but other than that? I'm not sure why HBO is getting all fidgety about this. I think your audience will be intact, guys. [Entertainment Weekly]
