Instinct, a crime procedural starring Alan Cumming as an openly gay detective (and the first U.S. drama with an openly gay lead character) was canceled by CBS this weekend after only two seasons. I used this story as an excuse to build a gallery of all the shows that are ending or have been canceled in 2019, and there are A LOT. Some of my very favorites that are abandoning me this year include: You’re the Worst, Veep, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Broad City, Game of Thrones (of course) and Baskets which ends this week. GOODBYE, OLD FRIENDS. REST IN PEACE, ALL Y’ALL.
When asked whether the show’s ending – which received mixed responses from both critics and fans – affects his own, he is clear. “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything at all… As Rick Nelson says in Garden Party, one of my favourite songs, you can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”
Now, some people are taking this to mean that his ending will be different than the show’s in some significant ways: maybe Bran won’t be king! maybe Daenerys won’t lose her damn mind! maybe Jon won’t kill her! But yeah, don’t get too excited. It’s clear from a number of other stories that Martin gave Benioff and Weiss the broad strokes of how the series would end, and I doubt he will diverge too much from those points. Bran will be King, Daenerys will go mad, Jon will kill her. However, I do think there is much more wiggle room with other characters and their endings as the books and the show have not always traveled on the same path. All we can do is wait and see (and hope and pray he FINISHES THE DAMN BOOKS ALREADY).
WOW, Jessica Lange’s ranking of her favorite seasons of American Horror Story is in couple opposite order of mine.
Suits slipped a Meghan Markle joke in last week’s episode:
Turns out Rachel is doing REALLY well. 😉 #Suits pic.twitter.com/Xt4cofVECd
— Suits (@Suits_USA) August 15, 2019
You can now watch all 64 episodes of the classic Addams Family episodes on Amazon. ~snap snap~
By the way, I mentioned Anderson Cooper’s interview with Stephen Colbert last week, but I failed to mention the most moving portion of the interview, Colbert’s explanation of how grief is a gift. This is beautiful.
Your Baby President is SO MAD that Fox News won’t run fake polls suggesting he’s more popular than he is, and is having a big orange tantrum about it. He’s also screaming about Juan Williams. OK.
As I mentioned last week, the head of Marvel is a big supporter of President Brokenbrain. So, when Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Art Spiegelman wrote an introduction for a series of books on the history of Marvel comics, and he discussed how Marvel’s classic storylines were thinly veiled allegories about fighting fascism to our modern moment and went so far to compare Trump to the Marvel villain “Red Skull” calling him “Orange Skull,” Disney insisted he retract the piece. He refused and quit the project. In an essay for The Guardian, the author of Maus explained:
In today’s all too real world, Captain America’s most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America. International fascism again looms large (how quickly we humans forget – study these golden age comics hard, boys and girls!) and the dislocations that have followed the global economic meltdown of 2008 helped bring us to a point where the planet itself seems likely to melt down. Armageddon seems somehow plausible and we’re all turned into helpless children scared of forces grander than we can imagine, looking for respite and answers in superheroes flying across screens in our chapel of dreams.
…
I turned the essay in at the end of June, substantially the same as what appears here. A regretful Folio Society editor told me that Marvel Comics (evidently the co-publisher of the book) is trying to now stay “apolitical”, and is not allowing its publications to take a political stance. I was asked to alter or remove the sentence that refers to the Red Skull or the intro could not be published. I didn’t think of myself as especially political compared with some of my fellow travellers, but when asked to kill a relatively anodyne reference to an Orange Skull I realised that perhaps it had been irresponsible to be playful about the dire existential threat we now live with, and I withdrew my introduction.
A revealing story serendipitously showed up in my news feed this week. I learned that the billionaire chairman and former CEO of Marvel Entertainment, Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, is a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s, an unofficial and influential adviser and a member of the president’s elite Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. And Perlmutter and his wife have each recently donated $360,000 (the maximum allowed) to the Orange Skull’s “Trump Victory Joint Fundraising Committee” for 2020. I’ve also had to learn, yet again, that everything is political… just like Captain America socking Hitler on the jaw.
#MeToo
Intimacy coordinators on TV sets have James Franco to thank for their jobs.
In a remarkable act of chutzpah, Representative Steve King is demanding the media apologize to him for reporting the terrible things he said about rape and incest being actually awesome for society.
Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide, the autopsy says. As a result of his death, Hugh J. Hurwitz, the acting head of the Bureau of Prisons, has been fired over Epstein’s death. Meanwhile, someone found Ghislaine Maxwell: eating a burger at an In-n-Out in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias has been suspended for 20 games for abusing his wife.
Renewals
- RuPaul’s Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars have both been renewed at VH1 for seasons 12 and 5 respectively, halleloo.
- James Corden will continue hosting The Late Late Show through 2022.
Cancellations
- Instinct has been canceled at CBS after two seasons.
- Krypton has been canceled at Syfy after two seasons. Additionally, the planned spinoff, Lobo, is not going forward at Syfy. The creator is shopping it around to other outlets.
In Development
- A He-Man anime from Kevin Smith is in the works at Netflix.
- Agent King, an animated Elvis action comedy created by Priscilla Presley, is coming to Netflix.
- HBO Max ordered three new pilots: Rules of Magic, a prequel to Practical Magic; Generation, a Lena Dunham-produced high school dramedy; and Red Bird Lane, a psychological horror series.
- Anthem, a musical drama, has been bought at Fox.
- The Home Edit, a home organization series from producer Reese Witherspoon, has been ordered at Netflix.
- Dead Eddie has been given a pilot order at Fox.
- Mr. Black, an Australian half-hour comedy, is being developed at Fox.
- CBS has given a put pilot order for a mother-daughter comedy by the Fam team.
- SAS: Rogue Heroes has been ordered by BBC.
- Generation Z has been ordered at Channel 4.
- The Chestnut Man is being adapted at Netflix.
Casting News
- Hey! Terry O’Quinn is going to join the cast of Emergence on ABC. May he bless it with his Lost-ness.
- Andrew Scott (the hot priest on Fleabag) is joining His Dark Materials on HBO.
- Tituss Burgess will host the series Dishmantled on Quibi.
- Stephen Amell will star in Heels, a wrestling drama on Starz.
- Dan Stevens is joining the cast of Eurovision on Netflix.
- Sarah Chalke will star on Firefly Lane on Netflix.
- Niecy Nash will recur on the FX series Mrs. America.
- Dame Harriet Walter and Danny Sapani are joining Killing Eve on BBC America.
- Olivia Colman will guest star on The Simpsons.
- Kate Micucci will guest star on Supergirl on The CW.
- Jessica Hecht, Parisa Fitz-Henley, and Eddie Martinez have joined the cast of the third season of The Sinner.
- Izabela Rose and Siena Agudong will star in Upside-Down Magic on Disney Channel.
- Damon Herriman is joining Amazon’s Underground Railroad.
- Catherine Haena Kim has joined the cast of HBO’s Ballers.
- Maria Taylor and Rachel Nichols will host NBA Countdown on EPSN.
- Katie the Monkey of Friends‘ fame might co-star in Y: The Last Man on FX.
- Carrie Underwood will host the CMAs on ABC.
Mark Your Calendar
- Silicon Valley will return on HBO on October 27.
- The Politician will debut on Netflix on September 27.
- The Morning Show will debut on AppleTV+ sometime this fall.
- Shameless returns on Showtime on November 3.
- City on a Hill will return on Showtime … sometime.
- Raising Dion will premiere on Netflix on October 4.
- Deadline Crime will return on Investigation Discovery on September 8.
R.I.P.
Peter Fonda, Actor best known for his role in Easy Rider among countless other roles, son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda and father of Bridget Fonda.
Katreese Barnes, Musical director of Saturday Night Live, vocalist, musical producer, and composer of “Dick in a Box” among others.
Patricia Louisiana Knop, Screenwriter and producer
Roger Williams, Academy-award winning animator of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Jack Whitaker, Sportscaster who called the first Super Bowl
Kip Addotta, Comedian and actor
Nancy Parker, News reporter for Fox 8 in New Orleans. She died in a plane crash while shooting a story about a stunt pilot.
WATCH THIS
Bachelor in Paradise: Zoolander and Play-Doh’s friendship, such as it is, is tested. 7 p.m., ABC
I Ship It: A writer of fan fiction about a TV show becomes a writer’s assistant on said show on this new musical comedy. Series premiere. 8:30 p.m., The CW
Wall-E: I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Babe is one of the three greatest children’s movies ever. The other two, in my opinion, are Charlotte’s Web and Up, but this beautiful — and underappreciated — film is high on the list. 6 p.m., Freeform
Paranormal Emergency: Here I was, believing that I was at least aware of all the goofy paranormal shows out there, and then lo and behold, this series about first responders dealing with weird shit is already up to episode three before I found out about it. In this episode, a police officer helps a man who apparently “is being stalked by Bigfoot.” YES to this. 9 p.m., Paranormal Emergency
Late Night:
- Conan: Gerard Butler
- Lights Out with David Spade: D’Arcy Carden, Henry Winkler, Bill Hader
| MON. | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | Bachelor in Paradise (new) |
Grand Hotel (new) |
| CBS | The Neighborhood (repeat) |
The Big Bang Theory (repeat) |
The Big Bang Theory (repeat) |
Mom (repeat) |
Carpool Karaoke Special (repeat) |
| CW | Penn & Teller: Fool Us (new) |
Whose Line is it Anyway? (new) |
I Ship It (new) |
Local |
| FOX | Beat Shazam (new) |
So You Think You Can Dance (new) |
News/Local |
| NBC | American Ninja Warrior (new) |
Dateline (new) |
I’m sorry to see Instinct cancelled. I like the premise, the stories, the characters and the actors. It looks like the network decided to burn off the remaining episodes. I have my DVR set up to automatically record new episodes and was looking forward to the resolution of the serial killer plotline. But, CBS changed their programming w/o notifying my provider. That episode started 50 (?!) minutes early. So I recorded the last 10 minutes of that one and the first 50 minutes of the next (last?) one. Thanks, CBS.
SO MADDENING. BOO, CBS.
-T
On the flip-side of great TV, I’m watching the past season of The Orville because I hate myself and I so wish you would have hate recapped that season. It’s so bad. The words you would have put to page. LOL The first two episodes are about the Klingon type character Bortus (ep1) going to his home planet to take his once a year pilgrimage to pee with everyone watching and (ep2) him overcoming a porn addiction in the simulator that downloads a virus onto the ship. It’s…..really something.
I wish I could post gifs in the comments section.
-T