Just a few little things because I have to run and take care of Upfronts, Game of Thrones and The Bachelorette (HALP):
So. Game of Thrones. I will talk more about this past episode in my recap, but if you watched yesterday’s chat, you’ll know that I really feel like character development is being sacrificed to further plot this season. I’m apparently not the only one who feels that way:
I will pause here to note that whoever made this was clearly pissed off that Arya killed the Night King instead of Jon. I strongly disagree with that take, but I fully agree with the actors’ comments. Oh, and Varys is also pissed.
Speaking of actors and character development and disappointment: this weekend it was my great honor to moderate the Lost panel at Houston’s Comicpalooza. The guests were Mira Furlan who played Danielle Rousseau; Jeremy Davies who played Daniel Faraday/Widmore; and Andrew Divoff who played Mikhail Bakunin. All three actors were very friendly and forthcoming and the panel was interesting. However, any Lost fans who wanted to get into the weeds of the show in terms of plot or theories were sure to be disappointed. These are three actors talking about a show they filmed ten years ago — they don’t have thoughts or feelings about how the show’s finale played out or what it meant for their characters in the sideways timeline or any complicated thoughts about time travel or what the polar bears were doing on the Island.
However, they did have a lot of feelings about the process of acting and character development and much to say about that part of their experiences. Furlan, in particular, had a lot of feelings — none of them very good — about both how her character and she as an actor were treated by the show. She wasn’t very specific, but the gist of it seemed to be that the character contained such potential, and she felt the writers squandered it.
She also shared a story about how she learned that Danielle’s character had been killed off: apparently, when they were filming the episode, she had been told that Danielle had just been shot but there was no indication in the script or otherwise that she was dead. It was only later when a friend called her to tell her that Sawyer had nudged Danielle’s dead body with his foot that she found out Rousseau was dead.
This is interesting for two reasons: 1. the showrunners called Jeremy Davies and Andrew Divoff to tell them their characters were going to die, but did not afford her the same courtesy, which is some bullshit. She jokingly decided it was because they worried that men are so emotionally delicate that they needed the advance notice. But 2. it revealed that she didn’t watch the show herself when it was on. And this, friends, is why I chose to not ask the panel any questions that were too in depth about the plot because, like I said, they are just actors who were on a show ten years ago, they really don’t have anything significant to say about the mysteries of the island. Truly.
Also, Andrew Divoff is NOTHING like the baddies he plays, but Jeremy Davies IS Daniel Faraday. All three actors were just lovely, but Divoff and Davies represent the opposite extremes of how actors relate to their characters — if that makes any sense.
If you have any other questions about the panel or what we discussed, feel free to leave them in the comments, and I will get to them!
Disney now has full control of Hulu after making a deal with Comcast. Comcast is selling its share of Hulu to Disney for $9.2 billion and NBCUniversal will have the right to pull its content from Hulu. This might not need to be said out loud, but this is a shit deal for consumers. Hulu was the one place where consumers had access to programming from all the major networks, and now it’s just becoming Disney+ Part 2. Boo.
Felicity Huffman has pleaded guilty in the college admissions scandal. This is how you begin to repair your image, Lori Loughlin.
GAY OF THRONES:
Time’s Up
I think I mentioned this last week when all the cancellations were announced — the last three or four days have been a blur, sorry — but Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment have pulled out of Bull over Michael Weatherly’s terrible behavior. Seems they don’t want to be on the hook for any more potential lawsuits.
Alyssa Milano is suggesting women go all Lysistrata in response to the Georgia Heartbeat Bill, forgets that women will be equally punished by such a stupid gesture. What actually works in these cases is to hit the states in their pocketbooks. Georgia has more film and TV projects than any other state outside of California. If the production companies refused to film there — which a few are doing — it might make a difference. As for projects that are already underway, take the example of J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele’s production companies, who are donating the episode fees of their upcoming series, Lovecraft Country to the ACLU and Fair Right Georgia to fight this bill. GET ON IT, HOLLYWOOD.
Leslye Headland, the co-creator of Russian Doll, doesn’t have time for straight white lady bullshit. GET ‘EM, LESLYE.
Y’all need to quit pranking the R. Kelly hotline.
Ex-World Series MVP John Wetteland has been accused of sexually abusing a child. Gross.
In Development
- Love, Wedding, Repeat has been bought by Netflix.
- The Alison Tolman pilot, Emergence, has moved from NBC to ABC. I’m sure I’ll have more information in the Upfronts post.
Casting News
- Kerry Washington has joined the cast of Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons.’
Mark Your Calendars
- Game of Thrones: The Last Watch will air on HBO on May 26.
- Douglas, a Hannah Gadsby special, is coming to Netflix in 2020.
- ATL Homicide returns on TV One on June 17.
- Liberty: Mother of Exiles, a documentary about Diane von Furstenberg, will air on HBO this fall.
WATCH THIS
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: “The Show Must Go On” 8 p.m., Bravo
Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate: A celebration of the classic comedy series. Netflix
What’s My Name: Muhammed Ali: A documentary about the GOAT. 7 p.m., HBO
The Flash: Season finale. 7 p.m., The CW
FBI: Season finale. 8 p.m., CBS
NCIS: New Orleans: Season finale. 9 p.m., CBS
New Amsterdam: Season finale. 9 p.m., NBC
Late Night:
- Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Jeff Daniels, Maluma
- Late Night with Seth Meyers: Bill Hader, Kathryn Newton, Johnny Radelat
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Gayle King, Anthony Mason, Tony Dokoupil, Pete Holmes, the National
- The Late Late Show with James Corden: Lily Collins, Charles Melton, NCT 127
- Conan: Daniel Sloss
- Busy Tonight: Chelsea Handler
- Watch What Happens Live: Erika Jayne, Paris Hilton
| TUES. | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | American Housewife (new) |
The Kids Are Alright (new) |
black-ish (new) |
Bless This Mess (new) |
1969 (new) |
| CBS | NCIS (new) |
FBI (new) |
NCIS: New Orleans (new) |
| CW | The Flash (new) |
The 100 (new) |
Local |
| FOX | MasterChef Junior (new) |
Mental Samurai (new) |
News/Local |
| NBC | The Village (new) |
The Voice (new) |
New Amsterdam (new) |
“… I really feel like character development is being sacrificed to further plot this season.”
I know you’ll say more later, but let me say now that I totally agree. We’re getting a rushed final season which has lots of action but no real development. They could have slowed things down a little, added 2-3 more episodes and explained so much! It’s almost like they decided to just get it over with already so they could move on to something else.
SPOILER ALERT. I know they want to make Dany the villain so after spending 7+ seasons developing her as the hero they’ll turn her into a monster in 2 episodes. There are supposed to be “clues” in past seasons that she will go bad, but they just don’t work. Yes, she’s killed a lot of very bad people in often horrible ways, but when has she targeted the innocent?
Hard to buy, and just the most obvious example.
She’s been talked out of doing exactly what she did on Sunday no less than 4 times that I can remember. Burning the Tarley family was also not great added to burning the loot train. While it looked awesome, there was a lot of food in there for her army. She’s been quick to dragon fire everything and has lost all of her trusted advisers in fairly quick succession.
“Yes, she’s killed a lot of very bad people in often horrible ways, but when has she targeted the innocent?”
And she’s killed some not-so-bad but openly fighting/defying her. (Like the Tarleys. They put her in a position where she couldn’t back down. Never do that to a woman with a dragon.) And she’s been talked down from doing worse things *to her enemies, not to innocents*. Her first act after getting the Unsullied was to kill their former master and have them kill the other masters … everyone with a sword *but not the innocent*.
This whole “monsterization” could have been played much better, not just this season but in past seasons. This season moves too fast and in past seasons they needed to make her the hero so they had to downplay and/or justify the darkness.