TV News

National Geographic has named its newest genius.

The cable channel announced at its upfront presentation Wednesday night that Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein,” will be the subject of the third installment of anthology series “Genius,” whose renewal was confirmed.

“Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ left an indelible mark on generations of imaginations,” said Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president, global development and production for National Geographic Global Networks. “Equally inspiring is the story of Shelley’s relentless innovation, coupled with her desire to live on her own unconventional terms despite immense societal and cultural obstacles. I can’t wait for our talented team to bring her remarkable,

Taken has effectively been taken out to pasture.

NBC has yanked the second-year drama — a reboot of the Liam Neeson film — from its home on Fridays, effectively canceling the drama starring Clive Standen and Jennifer Beals. The handful of episodes remaining will be burned off on Saturdays at 8 p.m. starting May 26 (aka after sweeps).

The drama was renewed for a 16-episode second season — with a new showrunner — after the prequel series was a decent, if not great, performer during its rookie run on Mondays after The Voice. The drama's status as a cost-effective co-production between...

“Seven Seconds” has been canceled after just one season at Netflix, Variety has confirmed.

In the series, which was created and executive produced by Veena Sud (“The Killing”), a white cop accidentally hits and critically injures a black teenager, causing a northeastern city to explode with racial tension. Regina King starred as the mother of the boy who was hit, alongside Clare-Hope Ashitey, Russell Hornsby, Beau Knapp, Michael Mosley, David Lyons, Raul Castillo, Zackary Momoh, Patrick Murney, Michelle Veintimilla, Nadia Alexander, and Coley Mustafa Speaks.

Despite the cancellation, Netflix still plans to submit the series for Emmy consideration in the limited series category.

“We loved working with Veena Sud, Regina King and the cast and crew of ‘Seven Seconds,'” said Cindy Holland, vice president of original content at Netflix. “Together they created a compelling, timely and relevant crime drama. The first season is a complete, stand-alone story that we

National Geographic Channel has given a series order to a scripted drama from producers Ridley Scott and Lynda Obst about the origins of the Ebola virus.

The project was unveiled Wednesday afternoon in advance of National Geographic’s upfront presentation to advertisers in New York. “The Hot Zone,” based on the book by Richard Preston, tells the story of a U.S. Army veterinarian who put her life on the line in an effort to stop a broader outbreak of the disease in Washington, D.C. in 1989. The series hails from Fox 21 Television Studios, Scott Free Prods. and Lynda Obst Prods.

As expected, Homeland will end with its upcoming eighth season.

Star Claire Danes has confirmed the news in an interview with Howard Stern on his Sirius Xm show. "Yeah, that’s it," she said when the host brought up the fact that the next season is rumored to be the CIA drama's last. A representative for Showtime said that the network has not made a decision beyond season eight. The drama is currently airing its seventh season, the finale for which is set to air on April 29.

Showtime renewed Homeland for a seventh and eighth season ahead of its sixth season premiere. Sources...

CBS has renewed 11 series, including “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race” and “Hawaii Five-0,” the network announced Wednesday.

Additional series getting another season are “Blue Bloods,” “Bull,” “Madam Secretary,” “MacGyver,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” NCIS: New Orleans,” “48 Hours” and “60 Minutes.”

Combined with previously announced pick-ups, CBS now has 17 series in their 2018-2019 slate, including its entire Tuesday and Friday night lineups. The network previously announced that “The Big Bang Theory,” “Young Sheldon,” “Mom,” “NCIS,” “Seal Team” and “S.W.A.T.” received renewals.

Cinemax has given a straight-to-series order for a new drama series starring Carla Gugino, Variety has learned.

The series is titled “Jett.” It will follow world-class thief Daisy ”Jett” Kowalski (Gugino) who, fresh out of prison, is forced back into doing what she does best by dangerous and eccentric criminals determined to exploit her skills for their own ends.

Jett is described as an intensely practical and self-reliant thief, an unsentimental woman of action. With the birth of her daughter, Jett planned to put her career in crime behind her, only to find herself drawn into doing one last job.

Gugino will also executive produce in addition to starring. The series is written, directed, and executive produced by Sebastian Gutierrez, Gugino’s longtime partner and collaborator. Mark Stern, Stuart Ford, and Dana Brunetti will also executive produce with Stacey Levin co-executive producing. Global Road Entertainment will produce.

Gugino has starred

Syfy has picked up to series Deadly Class, based on the critically acclaimed Image Comics graphic novel by Rick Remender and Wes Craig, from The Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo, Sony Pictures TV and Universal Cable Productions. Adapted for television by Remender and Miles Orion Feldsott, Deadly Class is described as a coming of age journey full of ancient mystery and teen angst. Set in a dark, comic book world against the backdrop of late 80s counter culture, it…

WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino has died. He was 82.

“WWE is saddened to learn that WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino passed away at age 82,” WWE said. “WWE extends its condolences to Sammartino’s family, friends and fans.”

Nicknamed “The Italian Superman,” Sammartino was the second-ever WWE Champion, defeating Buddy Rogers at Madison Square Garden for the belt. Of course in those days, the pro-wrestling promotion was not called “WWE.”

Sammartino went on to hold the title for nearly eight years — by far the longest reign ever. The way wrestling storylines are written these days, that mark will never be eclipsed.

More to come…

“Stranger Things 3” has added Cary Elwes (“The Princess Bride”) and Jake Busey (“Starship Troopers”) to its cast.

Elwes, who is pictured above, will play Mayor Kline. Busey’s character is named Bruce — that’s about all we know at this point.

Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos made the announcement today at the streaming service’s What’s Next event in Rome.

As previously announced, Maya Hawke will be one of the third season’s new leads and Priah Ferguson has been promoted to a recurring role.

“Roseanne” just keeps rolling. The revived ABC sitcom hauled in 13 million viewers last night, and held steady from last week in the key 18-49 demographic, with a 3.4 rating.

ABC finished first last night in the demo, though CBS topped primetime’s overall audience averages.

Anchored by the Season 1 finale for “Black Lightning,” The CW finished fifth on Tuesday, beating both Spanish-language networks by both main Nielsen metrics.

Netflix is about to bring you some laughs from Idris Elba and a new true crime series to obsess over courtesy of the Duplass Brothers.

Elba is set to star in “Turn Up Charlie,” while Mark and Jay Duplass will be taking on the docuseries “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist,” the streaming service announced Wednesday at a showcase event in Rome.

In the comedy, created Elba and Gary Reich, Elba plays a struggling DJ and eternal bachelor, who’s given a final chance at success when he reluctantly becomes a manny to his famous best friend’s problem-child daughter.

The cast of Glow, Netflix's comedy series about an Eighties all-female wrestling company, lip sync to the Flashdance classic "Maniac" to reveal the premiere date of the show's second season.

Glow's Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin and the rest of the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling get pumped for their matches in the locker room by dancing along to the Michael Sembello track before Marc Maron, who plays Glow's manager Sam, interrupts the fun. The promo then reveals that the Glow girls will be back in the ring on June 29th.

James Corden’s production outfit Fulwell73, producers of shows including Sounds Like Friday Night, The Late Late Show and Roast Battle, are expanding their TV development team with the hire of Caroline Roseman as UK Head of Development. Roseman will work across Fulwell's TV slate, including their two new formats Pants On Fire and Virtuosos, reporting into Fulwell's senior executives Heather Greenwood and Carly Shackleton. Prior to joining Fulwell, Roseman worked at Whizz…

Office Space is for the worker that has ever had to slave away in a cubicle, or just any other job where you feel disrespected, unappreciated, and seen as just another asset. It’s also one of the funniest comedies to ever be made. Peter, Michael, and Samir are fed up with taking the kind of garbage that their eight, yes count them eight, bosses dish out to them on a constant basis and come up with a brilliant plan to steal enough money from the company so that they’ll never have to work for them again. The only problem is

10 Things You Didn’t Know about “Office Space”

UK TV and radio host Dale Winton, known for fronting popular shows including ITV’s Supermarket Sweep and BBC’s lottery program In It To Win It, has died aged 62. The host died at his home on Wednesday according to his agent Jan Kennedy. Winton spent nearly a decade hosting the ITV daytime game show Supermarket Sweep between 1993 to 2001 and again when it was rebooted in 2007. Contestants on the show were tasked with running round a supermarket collecting items to win cash…

Bridge of Spies is a story based in real life during a very trying time in America when spies were busily gathering information back and forth between countries and threats of war were abundant. In the midst of this Tom Hanks’ character became embroiled in something that could have sparked another war had it gone sideways. Worse for him however was the fact that he and his family were thought to be traitors after he was asked to defend a Russian spy by the Us government in what could only be called a travesty perpetrated by those claiming to serve

10 Things You Didn’t Know about “Bridge of Spies”

Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch said the business is in good shape and on track to hit its full-year targets, posting a 5% increase in overall revenue of £10.1 billion ($14.4 billion) for the nine months to end-March. Ebitda profit increased 10% year-on-year, taking the total to £1.7 billion, and ad revenues were up 9% across the group.

Sky extended its rights deal for Premier League soccer in the U.K. in the latest quarter and also signed bundling deals with Netflix and Spotify. Darroch said Netflix would launch on Sky in Britain later this year. Sky has 23 million customers across its European footprint.

With 21st Century Fox

Wipe out by the Surfaris is such a well known song that once it hits people either start grooving or switch the station. More often than not people will play it when they want to have a good time and just need a good, grooving song to dance to or to use as a background to a party. It might be an old song but it’s something that people can get behind and admit is a good song. It doesn’t have too many lyrics and it’s not the most popular song among younger crowds but for those of us that

The Top Uses of Surfaris’ “Wipe Out” In Movies

Jon Favreau is kind of a surprise because you wouldn’t initially expect him to be both a director and an actor. He started out as the latter but went smoothly, it seems, into the former. It would be honest enough to say that he excels at both since he knows the game inside and out and can work it to his advantage. He’s also had some great roles as both a director and an actor throughout his career and has put up some stellar performances that some might argue with but are still in my mind some of his best

The Top Five Jon Favreau Movie Roles of His Career