SpinOff-related stories
Posted Oct 26th 2009 10:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Top Chef
If you're a fan of
Top Chef, there's nothing tougher for the contestants than desserts. Just this past week during 'restaurant wars,' did you notice that one team decided to have no desserts on their menu at all. They just didn't want to risk blowing it.
Well, Bravo noticed, not just last week but all through the
Top Chef series.
Bravo's creating a Top Chef spinoff called Just Desserts in which chefs will have no choice, they'll have to deal with sugar, icing, cakes and struedels.
Top Chef: Just Desserts is the second
Top Chef spinoff, after
Top Chef Masters. I'm anticipating
Top Chef: Maitre D's down the road, aren't you?
Continue reading Bravo orders from the Dessert menu
Posted Oct 1st 2009 9:31AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Reality-Free
Oh, no. Please. CBS, please don't. I know it's tempting when you see the
NCIS: LA ratings -- number two for last week, topped only by
NCIS! -- but please, refrain. What am I talking about?
CBS is pushing a spinoff of Criminal Minds, asking the show's executive producer Ed Bernero and executive producer Chris Mundy to come up with a variation on
Criminal Minds. Hmm...
Criminal Minds 2.0?
Son of Criminal Minds?
Criminal Guts?
Continue reading No, no, please, not a Criminal Minds spinoff
Posted Jul 26th 2009 1:34PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Video, Spoilers Anonymous, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
Happy or not that The CW will air a new version of
Melrose Place, you must admit that you'll at least watch the premiere out of curiosity, especially if you watched the first show.
Tidbits about the show released these past weeks will have viewers tune in to know
how the show will revive Sydney, a very much dead character played by Laura Leighton on the original series.
If that mystery is not enough to get you to tune in on Tuesday, September 8 at 9 p.m., maybe the new spoilers and casting information below will.
Warning! Spoilers coming up!Continue reading Melrose Place 2.0 updates and other spoilers
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 Jun 27th 2009 9:03AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Spoilers Anonymous, Reality-Free
This is
Spoilers Anonymous, a weekly column here at
TV Squad where we supply you with the dirt on some of the more popular shows on the air. We'll never put spoilers up here on the main page in order to help the reformed stay unspoiled. If you have anything to add to the group, feel free to step up and let yourself be heard, either with our
tips form or by emailing us at
tvsquad at gmail dot com, or call and leave a message at
(775) 640-8479. Your anonymity is guaranteed, if you wish to remain as such.
Note that over the summer,
Spoilers Anonymous will be published every two weeks due to production hiatus for most TV series. Weekly columns will resume in August.
This week we have spoilers for:
90210, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, Greek, Grey's Anatomy, House, NCIS: Los Angeles, One Tree Hill, Scrubs, Smallville, The Office and Ugly Betty. (SPOILERS FOLLOW!) Continue reading Spoilers Anonymous
Posted May 15th 2009 1:35PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Upfronts, Reality-Free
Next Wednesday, CBS will be announcing its schedule for the new season, and while rumors have swirled that
Cold Case or
Without A Trace might be on the chopping block -- despite good ratings -- one sure thing seems to be the spinoff from
NCIS.
Well, now that I've seen the two-part
NCIS episode that served as a pilot for the show, I'm hoping that CBS gives this new series a thumbs-down. I don't expect that to happen, but if it were my decision, I wouldn't dump a solid series with a loyal viewership like
Cold Case or
Without A Trace, for the hope of LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell's overly fussy, overly procedural
NCIS derivative step-child.
Continue reading Why CBS shouldn't pick up the NCIS spinoff
Posted May 11th 2009 9:02PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, TV Squad Polls, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Gossip Girl
(S02E24) "If you think we're bad, you should have seen our parents." - Gossip Girl about those who complain about today's youthAfter weeks, if not months, of hearing about it, we finally saw what the
Gossip Girl spin off could be like. Set in the 80s, the spin off would star Brittany Snow as a young Lily, Krysten Ritter as her sister Carol, and Andrew McCarthy as their father. The action would, as expected, follow Lily's life as a young woman trying to make sense of the world and find her place in it.
This past week, the Internet has been filled with reports that the potential spin off was dead even before this week's episode aired. Other reports claimed that there was still a chance for the spin off to be picked up and find its way on The CW's 2009-2010 schedule. How about we don't listen to those reports and make our own decision on if the network should give the spin off a chance?
Continue reading Gossip Girl: Valley Girls
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 Apr 8th 2009 3:39PM by Michael Pascua
Filed under: Programming, Early Looks
Bravo has announced the show
Top Chef Masters will begin Wednesday June 10th. The show is basically the celebrity version of
Top Chef, where "world-renowned" chefs will compete for $100,000. The money will be given to their favorite charity. The format hasn't changed: the quickfire and the elimination challenges remain, but there will be a five-star grading system implemented.
There are 24 chefs, but I will have to trust the producers with their use of the words "world-renowned" since I'm just an average guy. One of the few chefs I know is
Top Chef guest judge
Wylie Dufresne, who is well known for his work on molecular gastronomy. The contestants' bios are available on the
Bravo website.
Continue reading Top Chef Masters premieres this June
Posted Feb 13th 2009 2:22PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Spoilers Anonymous, Reality-Free
Back in October 2007, we learned that FOX was looking into making
a Prison Break spin off set in a prison for women. The plan was to introduce the new series as an episode of
Prison Break. This way of testing the waters before officially launching a spinoff has been used to introduce series such as
NCIS and
Private Practice and will be used this spring to launch the planned
Gossip Girl and
NCIS's spinoffs.
The
Prison Break spinoff idea was put on the back burner and most of us thought it would never happen after all. However, a casting call for
PB's episode 4.23 makes me think that FOX is going forward with the spinoff set in a prison for women, especially now that
Prison Break has been cancelled. Or they at least want to test the idea before making their final decision.
Spoilers for episode 4.23 and potential Prison Break spinoff coming up!Continue reading Is the Prison Break spinoff still in the works?
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 Feb 2nd 2009 11:02AM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: OpEd, Lost, Casting
Call us crazy, but wouldn't it be rad if Lindelof and Cuse, the bigwigs behind
Lost, had a little fun in light of the superspeed at which we're plowing through the final two seasons of the show? Specifically, would it not be absolutely amazing if one of the characters from
Lost left the island for greener pastures, and those greener pastures were a sitcom?
Picture it: Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell) (disclaimer: my favorite character on the show) has escaped the island with her hubby, Bernard (and, because it's a sitcom, she's completely healthy). The lovebirds have returned to The Bronx, where Bernard (Sam Anderson) has resumed his dental career while Rose has taken a job as a safety specialist at Kennedy Airport (*wink wink*).
Continue reading Lost & Found - the Lost spin-off of our dreams
Posted Dec 30th 2008 6:08PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Industry, Scrubs, Reality-Free
It's a question worth asking as we approach the show's supposed final season.
In an article that ran in yesterday's
New York Times,
Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence confirmed that ABC, the show's new home, might continue the show in some form after the upcoming eighth season. As we
reported in November, star Zach Braff and Lawrence are both leaving
Scrubs after season eight, even if the show continues. I'm not opposed to the idea of keeping the show going without them, but I got one question -- What would a Braff and Lawrence-free
Scrubs look like?
"It would have to be like
Frasier was to
Cheers, " Lawrence told the
NYT.
Continue reading Would you watch Scrubs sans Zach Braff?
Posted Dec 19th 2008 3:01PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, 90210, TV Squad Ten
When a spin-off is launched, people - and I include myself in the lot - are quick to criticize. "This show sucks!" "It's not the same as the original!" "Rip off!!!" Let's face it, it's not easy for a spin-off to live in the shadow of the show that launched it. One of these series is The CW's
90210.
When
Beverly Hills, 90210 premiered in October 1990, I was a 13-year-old looking for a new series that would tackle issues teenagers like me could face. As a Canadian,
Degrassi Junior High had been entertaining me and providing answers to questions teenagers ask since 1987, but
Degrassi's quality made me crave for more of the like. Thankfully,
BH90210 was launched and I never missed an episode during its 10-year run.
When The CW announced that it would revive the series by creating a spin-off, I was all giddy inside. Could Dylan, Brenda, Kelly and company be back? Would it be set at the same high school? Would it be as good as the original? Who? How? When? What? Why? Argh!!! My expectations were getting high. Too high.
As expected, I didn't enjoy the first few episodes of the spin-off much and found a lot of flaws in it. However, out of nostalgia, I stuck with the series and started to find reasons why people should give
90210 a chance. Let's see if you agree with my reasons.
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: Why you should give the new 90210 a chance
Posted Dec 11th 2008 10:03AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: OpEd, The Shield, Reality-Free
It's been more than three weeks since
The Shield ended its seven-year run, and I still find myself wanting more. Not just wanting it. Craving it, needing it, willing to do anything for it -- the way one of Vic's CI junkies would gather intel on the One-Niners in the hopes he'll get to trade it for a taste of the sweet liquid heaven of Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
The ending isn't my problem. In fact, it's one of the better series endings I've seen in my lifetime. The show didn't go out all guns a blazin' in a fiery final showdown, with Shane or Vic waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette and realizing the entire season was just a dream that took place in an autistic child's snow globe.
Continue reading There is no Noloxone for Shield junkies
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