A collection of this week's best television news stories, compiled by my good self....
- More casting news from 24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, which this week started filming in London ahead of its May premiere on Fox. Stephen Fry has joined the cast as Prime Minister Trevor Davies, a "strong and charismatic leader whose friendship with President Heller (William Devane), and the Anglo-American alliance itself, come under tremendous pressure because of personal and political crises." Now look, I like Fry and he's proven himself a good actor in a number of straight roles over the years (most notable Wilde), but there's something about this I don't like. Maybe it's because 24 tends to cast lesser-known character actors, or at the very least ones with lower cult appeal. Fry's presence threatens to give me Blackadder flashbacks. Or maybe I'll be proven completely wrong and he'll do a fantastic job. Did they really have to call the PM Trevor, though? You can tell the writers are American. I bet Basil was second on the list. [via Deadline]
- It's still struggling to breakthrough into fan affections, but "superhero drama" AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D is hoping that the introduction of actual superheroes will aide its fortunes. We already know that Thor's Sif (Jaime Alexander) is guesting on an upcoming episode, but now Elena Satine (Magic City) has been cast as Asgardian villain Lorelei. However, the biggest news is that... SPOILER AHEAD... J. August Richards' recurring character of Mike Peterson is destined to be transformed against his will into cyborg Deathlok (who boasts a high-tech eye allowing him to see through walls, super-strength and amazing speed). Could AoS finally start to become interesting with all these guest stars and super-people hanging around the core team? [via MTV]
- A remake of kitsch classic BARBARELLA has been on the table for years now, but Amazon Studios have finally come to the project's rescue to make a pilot for their streaming service. Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives) was attached to direct the aborted movie remake, but will now step back to just produce this television version. A Jane Fonda cameo would be nice, too. [via GeekWire]
- HBO have swung a might axe, culling two comedies with British leading men: Stephen Merchant's comedy HELLO GIRLS (where he played an inveterate nerdy bachelor living in L.A) and Chris O'Dowd's FAMILY TREE (where he played a man researching his oddball ancestry). Neither is a big surprise to me. Hello Girls was a one-joke idea that became tiresome after a few episodes, and Family Tree was a clever enough idea that got increasingly tedious. I was only really watching out of habit once O'Dowd's genealogy quest reached America. [via RadioTimes]
- Fans of THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN have hungered for the quartet to reform for a new project, ever since they went on an extended sabbatical after their 2005 movie. Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson finally reunited for the Rock with Laughter charity gig, and apparently the BBC offered them a chance to reform for another television project as a result. Good news! However, they declined because the offered seemed to only come on the back of renewed interest in their earlier work. Still, while promoting new horror-comedy series Inside No.9, Shearsmith did still insist they have ambitions to reform, just that "… it would be a new thing by me, Mark, Steve and Jeremy – still The League of Gentlemen, but it wouldn't be those [Royston Vasey] characters. It would be a new project, under the banner of us." [via DigitalSpy]
- I once joked they should remake MURDER, SHE WROTE with Mad Men beauty Christina Hendricks (renaming it Murder, She Blogged). Such is my influence on US TV, NBC began working on such a remake last year. Although Hendricks wasn't available to star, or something like that. Octavia Spencer was instead hired to replace the irreplaceable Angela Lansbury as crime author and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher (although she was being restyled as a hospital administrator who's self-published her first crime novel). To be honest, it felt like a bad idea and now NBC have dropped their plans to remake the show. Given the bad track record with bringing back classic US shows (Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels, Ironside), I think we dodged a bullet. [via EW]
- I rather enjoyed 2010 comedy-drama The Trip, and Michael Winterbottom's finally made a sequel with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon returning as exaggerated versions of themselves. THE TRIP TO ITALY sees the pair's dining relocate to you-know-where, and a funny clip has been released (see above). It's a little worrying they're doing the 'competing Michael Caine impressions' joke again, which already suggests a paucity of new ideas, but we'll see how this second series pans out. It will first be released as an indie movie, before being re-edited into a BBC series. [via The Independent]
- Channel 5 seem determined to make one bad decision after another, for the admittedly tiny proportion of their audience that enjoy quality US drama without the acronym CSI in the title. Little more than a week after deciding not to buy season 4 of Justified, Channel 5 have now announced they have no plans to show season 4 of THE WALKING DEAD. The US cable phenomenon has its UK premiere on Fox (24-hours after the US broadcast now, too*), but until now Channel 5 had the mass-market "terrestrial premiere". But I guess that bigger audience had either seen it on FX or torrented it by the time Channel 5 got around to showing it, so perhaps you can't blame them for abandoning what was probably an expensive acquisition. But for all those who relied on Channel 5's broadcast to see zombies getting knives thrust into their eye sockets by rednecks, this is a very sad day. (* The show returns 10 February in the UK, if you're wondering.) [via Metro]
