FIRST LOOK
http://www.eonline.com/news
ON TELEVISION (THURSDAY 8/18/16)
A&E: 60 Days In (Premiere) at 9pm
ANIMAL PLANET: Lone Star Law (Finale) at 10pm
GREAT AMERICAN COUNTRY: Lakefront Bargain Hunt (Finale) at 9pm
Succumbing to the increasing challenges facing niche cable nets to attract audiences and maintain carriage deals, Pivot TV, launched in 2013, is going off the air. “As the media landscape changes, we have been evaluating how we fulfill our mission to entertain and inspire social action around the world’s most pressing issues,” said David Linde, CEO of parent company Participant Media. “That process has led us to the decision to move away from owning and operating a cable network.” Millennial-friendly Pivot, home to HitRecord on TV and Please Like Me, is expected to shut down in late fall or winter.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Women and minorities continue to struggle to land their first-time episodic TV directing job, reports the DGA. Last year 23 percent of first-timers were women and 15 percent were minorities, up slightly for women and flat for people of color, according to a DGA study. One issue: two-thirds of first-time directors were already affiliated with the show and given the job as a perk, and were significantly less likely to direct again than outsiders with directing experience. “To change the hiring pool, you have to change the pipeline,” said Bethany Rooney, co-chair of the DGA Diversity Task Force. “Year after year when we put out our TV director diversity report, the media and public are stunned that the numbers remain virtually the same. But how can it change when employers hand out so many first-time director assignments as perks?”
(Source: Cynopsis)
Nickelodeon ordered 13 additional episodes of preschool series Mutt & Stuff, which heads into season two Friday, August 19. Show airs weekdays at 9:30a.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Wind Dancer Films announced production of season two of animated Ready Jet Go!, for PBS Kids. New season includes 24 episodes and an hour-long special, set to launch in late 2017.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Big Brother is airing a special county fair-themed episode on Friday, August 19 at 8p, with reggae artist Ziggy Marley making a surprise appearance at the house. The CBS reality show’s regular time slots are Sundays and Wednesdays at 8p, and eviction Thursdays at 9p.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Discovery grabbed U.S. and international rights to Huntwatch, chronicling the fight to end the commercial seal hunt in Atlantic Canada. Doc will air Thursday, September 22 as part of the “Discovery Impact” series.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Christina Aguilera will perform on the two half-hour premiere episodes of Spike TV’s Tracks on Thursday, September 1 at 10:30p, right after her appearance on the net’s Lip Sync Battle. Aguilera is an exec producer on the new musical game show, hosted by Shad Moss (a.k.a. Bow Wow).
(Source: Cynopsis)
Thirty years after “Preppy Killer” Robert Chambers was charged with killing a young woman he met up with in an NYC bar, CBS’s 48 Hours is re-airing the only interview Chambers gave after his release from prison. Updated encore will be broadcast Saturday, August 20 at 10p.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Nick Jonas will give a special performance, joined by Ty Dolla $ign (“My Cabana”), as part of the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, airing Sunday, August 28 at 9p.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Retired quarterback Peyton Manning, Bo Derek, Rob Riggle, Pete Davidson, Jimmy Carr and Roast Master Jeff Ross are getting ready to take down Rob Lowe at the Parks and Recreation star’s Comedy Central Roast. David Spade hosts the insult-fest, filming August 27 to air Monday, September 5.
(Source: Cynopsis)
A&E docu-series 60 Days In returns tonight at 9p. This time around, the groundbreaking show from Lucky 8 TV, following citizens who voluntarily enter a jail undercover, attempts to go further. “In Season 1, we were able to provide the sheriff and viewers with an unprecedented look at what it is to do time and the true culture within the jail,” said Lucky 8 co-president and exec producer Greg Henry.“In Season 2, we go even deeper with eight new participants, with fresh cover stories, who are on a mission to not only understand the world of incarceration, but to also identify solutions that’ll help the jail improve.”
(Source: Cynopsis)
See you in September: OWN drama Queen Sugar has a two-night premiere: Tuesday, September 6 and then in its regular slot the next day, September 7 at 10p. On Saturday, September 10 at 9p, Iyanla: Fix My Life returns, followed on Tuesday, September 13 by the comeback of Tyler Perry drama If Loving You Is Wrong at 9p.
(Source: Cynopsis)
The season 10 premiere of ID’s Deadly Women has moved from August 26 to Saturday, August 27 at 10p. The true crime net is also re-airing Steven Avery: Innocent or Guilty? on Saturday, August 20 at 11a, in the wake of the overturned conviction last Friday of Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, also found guilty of the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halback.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Netflix original Stranger Things is a creepy nostalgia trip that takes viewers back to the classic horror films of the ’80s, say the experts at cultural insights agency TruthCo., which featured the buzzy supernatural drama in its August Show to Know. But Stranger’s appeal goes beyond homage. “In a moment of deep political divides and eroding trust in institutions,” TruthCo. tells Cynopsis, “the show uses this temporal distance to provide a safe vantage from which to examine anxieties about government conspiracy and real-life monsters.”
(Source: Cynopsis)
Billy Crudup (Spotlight) will star opposite Naomi Watts in Netflix drama Gypsy, about a therapist who develops dangerous relationships with people in her patients’ lives.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Susan Sullivan (Castle) will guest on season 2 of ABC’s The Real O’Neals as the mother of Vice Principal Murray, reports TVLine. Comedy returns Tuesday, October 11 at 9:30p.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Sam Page (Mad Men) landed a series regular role in Freeform pilot Issues, inspired by the life of Cosmopolitan magazine editor Joanna Coles. Page will play a charming member of the board of Scarlet magazine.
(Source: Cynopsis)
J. Mallory-McCree (Quantico) has been cast in a recurring role in season 6 of Homeland. Showtime drama returns Tuesday, January 17.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Nick Sagar (The Haves and the Have Nots) will recur on season two of Freeform drama Shadowhunters, back in 2017.
(Source: Cynopsis)
Connor Jessup is returning for season three of ABC anthology series American Crime, along with Timothy Hutton, Felicity Huffman, Regina King, Lili Taylor Richard Cabral. “I believe Connor’s performance will be even more emotionally shocking than last year as his character helps shed new light on the opiate addiction epidemic that is plaguing America,” said exec producer Michael McDonald.
(Source: Cynopsis)
John McLaughlin, host of syndicated Sunday morning political affairs program The McLaughlin Group since 1982, died August 16. He was 89. McLaughliin, a former Roman Catholic priest and aide to President Richard Nixon, missed his show last weekend for the first time in 34 years.
(Source: Cynopsis)
BROADWAY
Finding Neverland closes on Sunday August 21, 2016.
http://ppc.broadway.com/shows/finding-neverland/
Keely's Korner 