TV News Roundup for Week 2 of 2019
Welcome to the weekly TV news round-up, where we go into the latest TV news regarding renewals, cancellations, and pick-ups. This week we have a sort of cancellation and trailers. So many trailers.
Renewed
CBS has renewed procedural drama Criminal Minds for a fifteenth and final season. In recent years the series was always one of the final series on CBS to be renewed, often on the edge of Summer. Mostly because of budget negotiations. The final season will consist of ten episodes, making the total episode count of the series 324. Launched in 2005 Criminal Minds outlived two spin-offs, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, that ran for one and two seasons respectively. The series was also adapted into a Korean version that ran in 2017 for 20 episodes.
To the surprise of no one Disney Channel has renewed animated series Star Wars: Resistance for a second season. The initially dividing series has proven to be a hit, and will have the second season premiere somewhere in the second half of 2019. The news came along with a trailer for the back half of Season 1, which you can find a bit further on.
Picked up
Netflix has ordered Love, Death & Robots, an animated anthology series covering the science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy genres. The series comes from David Fincher (Gone Girl) and Tim Miller (Deadpool), but every episode will have a creative team of its own and will run between five and fifteen episodes. The first season will have 18 episodes in total. No further details are currently known.
Al Pacino will be hunting Nazis along with Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) in a new Amazon Prime Video miniseries from executive producer Jordan Peele (Get Out), called The Hunt, according to Deadline. Pacino, Lerman, and a band of others will be hunting on-the-run Nazis in 1977 set New York City. No release date is currently known.
Other developments
It looks like HBO has the main cast of the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel sorted. Naomi Watts (King Kong) and Josh Whitehouse (Poldark) were already known to play roles. New additions are Toby Regbo (Reign), Ivanno Jeremiah (Humans), Georgie Henley (Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia movies), Naomi Ackie (Star Wars Episode IX), Denise Gough (The Fall), Jamie Campbell Bower (Twilight), and Alex Sharp (How To Talk To Girls at Parties). The pilot will be directed by SJ Clarkson (Marvel’s The Defenders), who was up for the fourth Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movie. The story, which is set thousands of years before Game of Thrones, comes from A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin and Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class), of which the latter will be showrunner.
HBO also released a first official picture of Jude Law and John Malkovich in The New Pope, the follow up to The Young Pope. Jude Law (Captain Marvel) reprises his role of Pope Pius XIII, the first American Pope. No premiere date for the limited series is announced yet.
Netflix is developing an adaption of the Grishaverse fantasy novel series the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. The novels will be adapted by Eric Heisserer (Bird Box, Arrival) into an eight-part series. Author Leigh Bardugo will be executive producer.
According to Deadline Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar will executive produce and star in Sometimes I Lie. A limited series based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Alice Feeney. Gellar will play Amber Reynolds, a woman who wakes up in hospital completely paralyzed. She can hear, however, and the story follows her piecing together how she got there. Warner Bros. TV will produce with Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Kleeman (Splitting Up Together) also being attached as executive producers. No broadcaster is currently known.
American broadcast network CBS has ordered a pilot for Evil. The proposed series will be supernatural and comes from Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife and The Good Fight). Evil would follow a team of a sceptical female clinical psychologist, a priest-in-training and a blue-collar contractor, who investigate extraordinary occurrences, like processions and miracles.
Upcoming streaming service Disney+ has multiple Marvel series in development. One of these has apparently now found a writer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Captain Marvel writer Jac Schaeffer will be the showrunner for Vision and Scarlet Witch. It’s expected that Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen will reprise their roles from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, like Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter Star Trek head honcho Alex Kurtzman has confirmed that the upcoming Jean-Luc Picard series, featuring the return of Patrick Stewart to the role, will indeed be dealing with the destruction of the planet Romulus. In 2009’s Star Trek the Kelvin Timeline was created by mourning and vengeful Romulan Nero and his crew of the Narada when they and Spock travelled back in time to The Original Series era. These events were caused by the destruction of Romulus by a supernova in the Prime Timeline. In the tie-in prelude comic Star Trek: Countdown, Jean-Luc Picard was revealed as Federation Ambassador to Vulcan. It remains to be seen if everything from that comic will remain canon, but it now definitely looks possible.
Kurtzman wasn’t finished dropping Star Trek news. He told The Hollywood Reporter that two more Star Trek: Short Treks are on the way for Spring, when Star Trek: Discovery has finished its second season. The thing is, these two new Short Treks will be animated. Kurtzman also teased the development of a second animated Star Trek series, next to Star Trek: Lower Decks.
NBC has ordered a pilot for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, a comedic musical drama created by Austin Winsberg (Gossip Girl) with Paul Feig (Spy) involved as executive producer. The story will centre around a late-20s girl who suddenly has the ability to hear peoples thoughts in musical form.
Another pilot ordered by NBC is Emergence. A thriller from Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters (Kevin (Probably) Saves the World) in which a sheriff takes in a child who pulls her into a conspiracy.
Trailers
Amazon Prime Video has released a promo for Hanna, the TV version of the 2011 action thriller starring Saoirse Ronan. The story is about a young, highly trained girl who is chased by the CIA. The first season is released in March.
Netflix has released a trailer for comedy series Russian Doll. Natasha Lyonne (Blade: Trinity) plays a woman who tries to escape a party alive. Trapped in a time loop every time she wants to leave she dies one way or another. Season 1 drops on Friday, February 1.
Another trailer from Netflix is for Grace and Frankie Season 5. The comedy series stars Jane Fonda (Book Club) and Lily Tomlin (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Grace and Frankie respectively, two women who are put together when their husbands announce they are in love and are going to marry. Season 5 is released on Friday, January 18.
American cable channel FX has released a promo for Fosse/Verdon. The miniseries will tell the biographical story of Broadway legends Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell), choreographer and director, and Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams), one of the greatest dancers on Broadway ever. No exact premiere date has been given, but it will be in April.
HBO has released a promotional video for its 2019 series. It features numerous series, but most notable gives us some new bits of Game of Thrones Season 7 and the very first moving images of DC Comics adaption Watchmen.
US streaming service Sony Crackle has released a trailer for Season 2 of The Oath. The crime drama centred around gangs comes from executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. It stars Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) and Katrina Law (Arrow, Spartacus), among others.
American premium cable channel Showtime has released a trailer for the back half of Season 9 of comedic drama Shameless. The American, Chicago set remake of the UK series follows the dysfunctional Gallagher family. The upcoming Season 9 episodes will be the last starring Emily Rossum (The Day After Tomorrow), who will leave the series. William H. Macy (Room) currently stays on.
A trailer has been released by Netflix for the second (and presumably final) season of Marvel’s The Punisher! Frank Castle is welcomed back on Friday, January 18 with 13 new episodes. For those who care about continuity, the new season, like every Marvel TV series at the moment, is set before the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
Lucasfilm has released a mid-season trailer for Star Wars: Resistance Season 1. The new trailer shows that we are in for an interesting second half. It looks like the series has already caught up with Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. That would also mean that it also soon will catch up with the events of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. It will be interesting if the just-announced second season will start filling the gap between The Last Jedi and Episode XI. The first new episode will be released on Sunday, January 13.
That’s it for this week, but join us next time when we round-up the TV news of that week.
