Posted Jul 2nd 2009 2:55PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, NCIS, Casting, Reality-Free
Leo G. Carroll did it in 1966. Lisa Bonet sort of did it in 1987. What am I talking about? Double duty. That is, playing the same role on two series which are running at the same time. There are probably quite a few other instances, but Leo was head man Mr. Waverly on both
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. for a year, and Lisa was Denise Huxtable in college (
A Different World) and when she came home to visit the family in Brooklyn on
The Cosby Show.
Now,
Rocky Carroll will appear on both NCIS shows. Doing double duty makes perfect sense for the
NCIS twosome, especially since they're going to be airing back to back on Tuesday, 8-10 P.M.
Continue reading Rocky Carroll doubling down on NCIS franchise
Posted May 20th 2009 10:59AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, The Amazing Race, CSI, Survivor, How I Met Your Mother, NCIS, Upfronts, Reality-Free, The Mentalist, The Big Bang Theory
Coming off a strong 2008 season, CBS is taking some bold moves with their new season program schedule. As we wrote earlier, there are four new dramas, a sitcom and a reality show in the mix.
The big news is how it's shifting around some hit shows on Monday and Thursday, while standing pat on Wednesday. Here's what we know right now...after the jump.
Continue reading The Upfronts: CBS
Posted May 20th 2009 9:01AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, NCIS, Reality-Free
And so ends the sixth season of
NCIS. For some reason, I didn't think the show would even last one season, but sometimes a show just surprises you with how strong it does in the ratings. If anything, the show has gotten stronger as the years have gone on. It survived the departure of its creator and has hung around long enough to spawn a
spinoff this fall, with Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J. No name for that show yet. Any ideas? They'll probably think of something with an "NCIS" and a ":" in it.
Posted May 7th 2009 6:12PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, House, 30 Rock, NCIS, Reality-Free
Then vote for him/her to win in the
Badass TV Character Bracket.
The bracket, by the good folks at Awesomeopolis, pits some of TV's more awesome current characters against each other to determine who is more badass. Readers are asked to vote on the finalists.
So far, it looks like Dr. Gregory House is beating
30 Rock's Jack Donaghy. I'm not sure I agree with that one. I think Jack could have House killed with one phone call. Here's one poll I do agree with: MacGuyver is way more badass than Jethro Gibbs from
NCIS. Even if Mac didn't know how to turn my iPod into a jet, his hair alone puts him way over the top.
Continue reading Is your favorite TV character a badass?
Posted May 6th 2009 9:06AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, NCIS, Reality-Free
This was the second part of "Legend," the episodes that are acting as the
NCIS spinoff starring Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J. It looks like a sure thing for the fall, though CBS will make it official at their upfront on May 20.
What did you think of this two-parter? Can you imagine following O'Donnell and LL Cool J for as many seasons as you've followed Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly?
Posted May 1st 2009 5:40AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Cancellations, Pickups and Renewals, NCIS, Chuck, Reaper, Reality-Free, The Mentalist, TV Squad Ten, Dollhouse
Last week,
TVSquad readers made our "
Which shows are renewed, canceled, or on the bubble?" post the most viewed and most commented of the week. Most of the commenters voiced their opinions as to which show should be renewed, and since I also watch loads of TV, it's with no surprise that I wanted to chime in, as well. (Look for my "Series that I think should be canceled" post later this week.)
Here I present you, the 10 shows I think should be renewed. Note that I did not include in this list shows that have been confirmed as renewed by the network (such as
Gossip Girl), nor those that have been officially canceled (bye bye
Pushing Daisies).
If you just want the list, click here.Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Series that should be renewed
Posted Apr 29th 2009 8:26AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, NCIS, Reality-Free
So ... what did you think of the first part of
NCIS' big spinoff episodes? "Legend" is the episode that serves as the spinoff launch for a new series starring Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J. Maybe this is the first step in an
NCIS franchise, a la
CSI. Let's hope not.
Posted Feb 9th 2009 2:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: CSI, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, NCIS, Reality-Free, Mad Men, Burn Notice, The Mentalist, TV Squad Ten
What is cool? Can you define that thing, that quality that makes certain characters seem like they're more with it than everyone around them? Maybe cool is a state of being, not a thing you can pick up by wearing Armani or drinking Grey Goose or driving a BMW.
As I was looking around the current crop of television shows, I found ten characters who seem to capture the essence of cool -- whether they know it or not. After the jump, we count them down.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: The coolest characters on TV now
Posted Feb 6th 2009 3:09PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Casting, Reality-Free
This is what I call thinking out of the box. Instead of simply
replicating NCIS, the producers seem to be envisioning a completely different show. Reports claim that the CBS
spinoff of NCIS may star Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J.
Could you find two more different actors to pair in a procedural? (Okay, Ice-T and Richard Belzer on
Law & Order: SVU aren't a typical teaming either, but at that's supposedly a New York police squad.)
Anyway, it's still in the talking stages, but it's exciting nonetheless. O'Donnell, best known for playing Robin in two
Batman movies, being Al Pacino's young charge in
Scent of a Woman, and more recently hunked it up as Dr. Finn Dandridge on
Grey's Anatomy, would be playing an investigator for the Navy who's a master of disguise. Apparently, he can fake out everyone around him.
Continue reading Will Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J star in an NCIS spinoff?
Posted Jan 5th 2009 11:01AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, House, The Simpsons, NCIS, WGA Strike, Reality-Free, TV Squad Ten
A year ago at this time, who would have guessed that Jay Leno would be leaving late night and NBC would be handing him five hours of prime time instead? Who would have predicted CBS continuing to dominate in the ratings or that ABC's sophomore series like
Eli Stone and
Pushing Daisies would stumble and fall so completely after being off the air all last spring? Predictors from last January were on target about there being a
writers' strike; that did happen and it was definitely not a good thing.
Fortunately, I don't see a SAG strike in the future. However, here are ten things I'm betting will happen by the time the ball drops on December 31st.
1. Martin Scorsese will be the next big thing on HBO. He's producing a drama based on the book
Boardwalk Empire. HBO is overdue to launch another big series in
The Sopranos tradition.
Boardwalk Empire seems to have all the right elements: violence, sex, gambling, and Oscar-winning, iconic director Martin Scorsese.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Fearless predictions for 2009
Posted Dec 24th 2008 2:05PM by Brett Love
Filed under: OpEd, CSI, Festivus, Heroes, Ratings, NCIS, Reality-Free
I'm sure that many of us could go round and round over the quality of the episodes in this latest chapter of Heroes. If you're following along with the weekly reviews, you've no doubt seen it play out in the comments. The thing that is a little harder to argue is the ratings. Over these last few months, the one time flagship NBC drama has seen its numbers drop to drastic levels. Put another way, if Heroes was a space ship, and dropping ratings signified an increase in speed, the show has gone plaid.
Continue reading Top TV Stories of 2008: The decline of Heroes
Posted Nov 26th 2008 2:04PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, NCIS, Reality-Free
Considering the fact that
CSI has been the basis for two very, very successful CBS spin-offs --
CSI: Miami and
CSI: New York (in case you've been out of the loop for the past six years) -- it hardly comes as a shock that another CBS ratings powerhouse,
NCIS, is planning a spin-off. Maybe the only shock is that they've waited till now to really put thought into action.
EW's Michael Ausiello landed the exclusive and reports that the
NCIS spin-off will be like the other
CSI's in that they will not take a character from the show and make him/her the centerpiece of that new series. That means you don't have to worry about Ziva, Tony, Abs, McGee and Gibbs breaking up.
And after the fans' reaction at the end of last season, when the team was split up as the new director took over only to be reunited early this season, that's a major relief.
Continue reading NCIS planning a spin-off
Posted Nov 18th 2008 3:04PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
Something amazing has happened recently in the TV media: the critics have discovered CBS's stealth ratings champ,
NCIS, and it's now cool to come out of the closet and declare your fandom. Articles in
USA Today, the
Los Angeles Times and
The New York Times have reported the fact that not only is
NCIS consistently in the top five of the weekly Nielsen ratings, but it's also a smart, well-acted and compelling TV show.
There are reasons to admire
NCIS, and if you haven't been watching, here's five really good reasons to check out the show. I know that before I got coerced into giving
NCIS a try, I didn't think I'd like it, but boy, was I wrong.
Continue reading Five reasons why it's cool to like NCIS
Posted Sep 24th 2008 12:05AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S06E01) All summer long,
NCIS fans have been simmering about how the team was broken up in
the season finale. It was bad enough that Jenny had died and a new director -- well, actually, the acting director -- was named to take her place, but then his first action was to reassign DiNozzo, McGee and David and give Gibbs three new agents. As the ads for
NCIS reminded us, "breaking up is hard to do."
Well, I'm relieved to report that the team may not be together, but they're still intact. It's not as confusing as it seems and if you watched tonight's return, it was clear that the powers that be knew what they were doing with the storyline. Picking up 126 days since the break up, you got the sense that Jethro was nearly as vexed about the changes as Abby, even though he was refraining from putting pictures and postcards on the bulletin board.
For more about how all the pieces of the puzzle have come together so that those that are scattered can still be whole, read after the jump.
Continue reading NCIS: Last Man Standing (season premiere)
Posted Sep 2nd 2008 12:42PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Industry, OpEd, CSI, NCIS, Reality-Free
A
CBS press release landed in my inbox today with this earth-shattering news: CBS's fall programming ads (20 total) will be featured exclusively in
People's Sept. 22 issue.
From the release: "In a special arrangement with the magazine, CBS will be the exclusive broadcast advertiser in the issue, on stands Sept. 12." Of course, that's right before the launch of CBS's new fall lineup.
And it sounds like this might be a first. George Schweitzer, president of CBS Marketing Group says, "CBS has long valued its relationship with
People, and we're elated that they worked with us to pull off this first-time strategy to be the sole broadcast advertiser in this well-timed issue." You know, whatever. Blah, blah, blah.
So why should we care? Honestly, I really don't. I just keep thinking,
People? What, they couldn't come up with anything snappier? Like, I dunno ... maybe
Entertainment Weekly?
Vanity Fair? I guess with 43 million readers, they'll reach a lot of people in
People.
Continue reading CBS to rule People magazine
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TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
TV Squad previews CBS's new shows
