We'll Finally Meet 'Your Mother' Next Year
Today in show business news: How I Met Your Mother officially has one more season to go, Katie Couric will keep gabbing for another year, and Saturday Night Live gets a strange host.
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CBS has announced that, after nine long and arduous seasons, the popular flashback sitcom How I Met Your Mother will finally wrap up next year. Yes, one more season has been ordered, and then it's done. Meaning we finally get to meet this famous mother! The kids have all grown up and left the couch, Bob Saget has been replaced with a weird Bob Saget Robot that people are pretty sure is just Dave Coulier painted silver, and everyone but Josh Radnor and Alyson Hannigan seems desperate to get the hell out of there. And now, finally, we are going to meet mom. So who do we think it is? It's not someone we've seen before, right? So they'll have to cast someone kinda big to make the whole thing worth it, won't they? Meryl Streep is the mother! Ha, no, let's be realistic. Hilary Swank is the mother! Whoever it's going to be, the writers have to get started figuring it out, for real this time. This is it, guys. No fooling around anymore. Next year you're telling us who that damn mother is, once and for all. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Meanwhile, Katie Couric's talk show, bafflingly titled Katie, who knows what that means, has been renewed for a second season. The show has performed decently so far, though it did just hit a big series high last week with Katie's exclusive Manti Te'o interview. Couric's show overall ranks sixth in daytime, which could be better, but it could also be Jeff Probst's new show, so. There but for the grace of Probst, or something. The next season of Katie will be broadcast in 95 percent of the country, so, sucks to be you, Illinois. [Deadline]
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Oh dear. Put the children to bed and tell them to say their prayers, because Christoph Waltz will be hosting Saturday Night Live next month. Which means, at least in a metaphorical sense, that Christoph Waltz will be entering your home in the middle of the night. Of course he does so every Christmas, sneaking through the kitchen window as Christowaltz the Christmas goblin, leaving raisins and mincemeat pies other treats for the children. But if he comes any time other than Christmas night? Well, legend goes that means he will take your children back to ice caves and make them work in his crystal mines forever. So, maybe take the kids to your mother's house if you plan to watch. Because you don't want them taken by Christowaltz. Once that's taken care of, you can sit back and enjoy what is sure to be one of the season's weirdest and most uncomfortable episodes. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Will Gluck, the director behind the wonderful, effervescent Easy A and the shiny little turd Friends with Benefits, has been tapped to direct a new movie version of the musical Annie. This is the one that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett are producing, the one that their daughter Willow was supposed to star in. But she was nine years old when they were first planning it, and now she's too old for the role, so they'll have to cast someone else. Oh... dear. What a... shame. That Willow Smith... can't play... Annie. She would have made a perfect... Nope, sorry, can't do it. This is good news. It is definitively good news that Willow Smith can't do the movie. Sorry, but she would not have been good for the role. Jaden would have be better than Willow, for Xenu's sake. So, phew, crisis averted. But now who do they cast? Can Quvenzhané Wallis sing?? If she can, we're done. Case closed. Whoever you get for the role, don't go and muck this up, Gluck. Several adult weirdos are counting on you. [Deadline]
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Ellie Kemper, who plays receptionist Kelly on the soon-departing The Office, is apparently one of the most in-demand actresses this pilot season, but she may be ready to go off the market. While lots of spec scripts have been passed around the studios this year without any selling, including a comedy with Sarah Michelle Gellar set up as the lead (poor SMG), one called Brenda Forever has been purchased by NBC, and that's the one Kemper is interested in. She's friends with the guys who wrote it, and it sounds like a fun concept: "Stories from Brenda Miller’s past and present are interwoven to give a unique portrait of how a chubby, awkward, but incredibly confident 13-year-old grew up to be a 31-year-old woman who still marches to the beat of her own drum." Maybe a little cutesy, sure, but could also be a nice Wonder Years-y nostalgic kind of a thing? Half of it, anyway. Well, good luck, Ellie! And maybe see if your pals can write a good part for Sarah Michelle? She needs this. Nay, she deserves it. [Deadline]
