It’s time to say goodbye to ‘Empire’ and these other three shows

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

Tonight is the series finale of Empire — a series finale that comes two episodes too early thanks to COVID-19. As you might expect, the finale tonight is not the finale they originally planned. But Empire isn’t the only series taking a final bow this week. In fact, three other series — one a classic comedy, one a feel-good dramedy, and one an award-winning thriller — will all end FOREVER this week. Check out this story over on Chron.com for more information, and an updated season finale gallery. I only had a handful of series in there as of this morning, but it looks like the networks finally sat down and made some hard decisions about when to close out most of their seasons.

HBO Max announced it will debut on May 27. There are a bunch of trailers below for shows that will launch that day, but here is a full list of the shows that will be on the streamer.

Joe Russo believes a Community movie will happen and is willing to help.

Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez might buy the Mets? Huh.

Apparently, people have been going around believing that Jenna Fisher has been going around wearing the ring Jim gave Pam instead of her own wedding ring? FOR REAL? Y’all, IT’S A JOB. NOT REAL LIFE.

Going Viral

Let’s begin with this adorable — and appropriate — performance of “Hello Walls,” by the wonderful Willie Nelson and his two sons. Hope you had a happy 4/20, Willie:

The Bachelorette is never going to be filmed. I mean, yes, eventually, it will be filmed.  I bet they are able to get up and running by late summer at the earliest, and that they broadcast it in the fall. But there is no way The Bachelorette returns this summer. And just go ahead and forget about Bachelor in Paradise.

As for American Idol: here’s how that’s going to work.

The Young the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful will both run out of episodes this Thursday. CBS will begin running theme weeks for both soaps from here on out.

Answered, a series from Vox Media dealing with COVID-19, launches today on Quibi.

Beginning Monday, Amazon will stream 39 SXSW films that were unable to premiere at the festival because of the virus.

The long-rumored Sandman was about to go into production, but then … RONA.

Neighbors, the Australian soap opera, is going back into production. WELP.

Sean Hannity is SO MAD The New York Times pointed out that he called COVID-19 a hoax. I mean, OK, maybe the Fox News fan who went on the cruise, caught the virus and died wasn’t inspired by Hannity’s show in that one instance, but let’s not pretend that Hannity hasn’t been banging that particular hammer for weeks now and that Fox News doesn’t continue to encourage folks to deny the science and open the country too soon.

Today’s Dumb Politician Who is Going to Get Everyone in His State Killed Award goes to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp who has decided to just fling all businesses back open, including movie theaters, hair salons, nail salons, gyms, and bowling alleys because obviously, people can’t possibly go another week without bowling. And being a member of the Anti-Big-Government party, he obviously told local governments that they had to comply with this insanity.

As for the business owners who might not want to open for whatever reason — maybe they live with someone who is immunocompromised or work in a field that will force them to be closer than 6 feet to another person, like a nail or hair salon, they’re fucked by this order because their landlord will expect to get paid — the business owner won’t be able to point to a stay-at-home order to explain why they are closed and won’t be able to make the rent that month. The bottom line is this stupidity is going to get even more people killed.

But hey! The GOP is owning that message. Here’s my idiot Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, once again embracing death with open arms:

“There are more important things than living.” O REALLY? LIKE WHAT?

buffy go on i'm listening all ears oh yea

I am not going to spend a lot of time screaming about President Jellobrain’s response today because, honestly, I know I’m preaching to the choir. And also, I had reason to go back and read some recent entries and I’m sounding a little unhinged. MOMMA IS FEELING IT, Y’ALL.

I’ll just post this video of President Dementia responding, “A lot of people love Trump, right? A lot of people love me. I guess I’m here for a reason. I think we’re gonna win in a landslide,” when asked … wait, let me check my notes … if he was concerned that his downplaying the virus in March led to some people becoming sick:

Then when Yamiche Alcindor pointed out that he held rallies in March and February. He claims he hasn’t left the White House “in months.”

Reader: His last rally was on March 2. He held five in February. FIVE.

And I conclude the President Dumbfuck section with this AMAZING TikTok:

French actor Philippe Nahon has passed away from the virus.

Richard Quest of CNN has tested positive.

George Stephanopoulos says that he’s “cleared” COVID-19 and will be donating plasma.

New York City’s Pride parade and other events have been canceled.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee has been cancelled for the first time in 75 years.

Oktoberfest has been cancelled.

The Many Saints of Newark; King Richard; The Batman; The Flash; Shazam 2!; and the Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie have all been pushed back to 2021 and 2022.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are being sued over their cancellation and postponement policies which they changed in response to this outbreak.

 

Good News:

The delay in the taping of Friends reunion has allowed them to use the event to raise some money for COVID relief efforts. Want to attend? Donate some money!

TikTok is donating $2 million to the Actor’s Fund.

This person made all of the suggested recipes on the Ritz Cracker box because PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO LOSE THEIR DAMN MINDS.

In Development

  • TRE CNT, a backyard wrestling series from Dwayne Johnson, Issa Rae, and Dany Garcia, is in development at HBO.
  • Find Love Live has been set at TLC.
  • Cancelled, a comedy starring Nikki Glaser, has been ordered at Quibi.
  • The Starling, a dramedy starring Melissa McCarthy, Kevin Kline, Timothy Olyphant, Chris O’Dowd, and Daveed Diggs, has been bought by Netflix.
  • Enola Holmes, a film starring Millie Bobby Brown has been bought by Netflix.
  • Netflix has struck a deal with Mk2 to stream some 50 classic films from filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin, Alain Resnais, David Lynch, Emir Kusturica, Jacques Demy, Michael Haneke, Xavier Dolan, Steve McQueen, and Krzysztof Kieślowski.
  • Vudu has been bought by NBCUniversal.

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

  • The Lovebirds will debut on Netflix on May 22.
  • Love Life will debut on HBO Max on May 27.
  • The Wrong Missy will debut on Netflix on May 13.
  • Legendary will debut on HBO Max on May 27.
  • On the Record will debut on HBO Max on May 27.
  • Craftopia will debut on HBO Max on May 27.
  • The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo will debut on HBO Max on May 27.
  • Fraggle Rock has returned on Apple TV+.
  • Looney Tunes Cartoons will debut on HBO Max on May 27.

R.I.P.

Tom Lester, Actor known for playing Eb Dawson on Green Acres

Herb Stott, TV commercial director

Peter Beard, Photographer

WATCH THIS

Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince: A whole bunch of inferior artists performs Prince’s music. LOOK, IT’S A NICE GESTURE, BUT NONE OF THEM ARE THE PURPLE ONE, SO. 8 p.m., CBS

Empire: Lucious realizes that family is more important than anything (for the one-thousandth time) in the series finale. 8 p.m., Fox

Middleditch & Schwartz: Hey, like improv? Series premiere. Netflix

Accused: Guilty or Innocent?: A docuseries that follows an individual’s journey through the justice system from the moment they are charged to their trial. Series premiere. 9 p.m., A&E

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Halle Berry, Russell Westbrook, Meghan Trainor
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Michael Moore, Brett Eldredge
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Joe Biden, Melanie C
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Tom Holland
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Conan: Lin-Manuel Miranda
  • Watch What Happens Live: Leslie Grossman, Scheana Shay

 

TUES. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC The Conners
(repeat)		 Bless This Mess
(repeat)		 mixed-ish
(repeat)		 black-ish
(repeat)		 For Life
(new)
CBS NCIS
(repeat)		 Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
CW The Flash
(repeat)		 DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
(repeat)		 Local
FOX The Masked Singer
(repeat)		 Empire
(new)		 News/Local
NBC Ellen’s Game of Games
(repeat)		 Ellen’s Game of Games
(repeat)		 New Amsterdam
(repeat)

2 thoughts on “It’s time to say goodbye to ‘Empire’ and these other three shows”

    1. Now that you say it, I haven’t seen a single thing about The Voice’s plans. I just looked it up, and in a March 20th interview, John Legend said, “There were only three weeks of live shows planned and those were for May. So who knows what we’ll do? I don’t know if we’ll be able to do them without an audience. I haven’t spoken to the producers about what the plans are,” he told The Associated Press in an interview this week.

      “And I think everybody’s playing things by ear because we don’t know where the world’s going to be in May. But if we can do those shows in May, that’d be great. Possibly without an audience, that would be understandable,” he added. “But, you know, if we can pull it off, then that would be great. We’ll see if that’s doable.”

      It looks like they’ll do what Idol is doing: having contestants perform from home. Good question, though!

      -T

      Reply

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