CHARMED MAKERS DEFEND REBOOT
CW touts ethnic diversity, new perspectives
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. The Television Critics Association summer meeting, at which TV networks and streaming services are presenting details on upcoming programs, continued on Monday. Canadian networks usually pick up U.S. network shows, but there has been no official word yet on where these shows might air in Canada.
GIVE CHARMED A CHANCE, CREATORS SAY
The cast and producer of CW’s new Charmed series are defending the reboot as a story for its time.
The drama series about three young half-sisters who are witches will confront modern issues including the #MeToo movement, executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman said.
The varied ethnicity of the sisterly trio — white, Latina and African-American — also gives the reboot more currency, Urman said. The women have the same mother but different fathers.
Most people she’s talked to are in favour of the switch to characters of colour, said Urman. She also produces CW’s Latino family comedy Jane the Virgin, which will end after its upcoming fifth season.
“We’ve had the chance to see three white witches. And obviously coming off Jane, I know so much more about what it means to be on screen, to see yourself represented, to see yourself being the hero of the story,” Urman said.
The varied backgrounds of the witches played by Sarah Jeffery, Melonie Diaz and Madeleine Mantock also allow the show to explore witchcraft as it exists in different cultures, she said.
Urman acknowledged there’s been fan unhappiness with the fact Charmed is a reboot and not a revival of the original series. The drama debuted in 1998 with Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty as the three Halliwell witch-sisters. Rose McGowan joined the series in 2006.
Combs has expressed annoyance as well, posting tweets in which she derides the series remake as “capitalizing on our hard work.”
“Charmed belongs to the 4 of us, our vast amount of writers, crews and predominantly the fans,” she wrote on Twitter last January. “FYI you will not fool them by owning ” a title.
Those involved with the reboot understand that Charmed is a “sacred thing ” to the original cast and its fans, Jeffrey said.
“Of course, we can’t help but be a little disappointed because I think the script is fantastic,” Mantock said. She said she hopes Combs watches the show and likes it, but understands she is protective of the drama and “entitled to feel however she wants.”
At its core, the show is a love story of the three sisters, Urman said, making it true to the original despite changes.
LEBRON GOES HOLLYWOOD
LeBron James has yet to play a minute for the Los Angeles Lakers, yet the NBA superstar is already busy in Hollywood.
James is behind the three-part documentary series Shut Up and Dribble, announced Monday by Showtime.
Set to debut in October, the same month James suits up for his new team, the series looks at the changing role of athletes in the current political and cultural climate against the backdrop of the NBA.
Its title comes from a comment Fox News host Laura Ingraham made to James in February when she sought to rebuke him for talking politics during an interview.
James is the executive producer of the series along with his business partner Maverick Carter and his agent Rich Paul. Gotham Chopra, who directed Showtime’s documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse in 2015, helmed the project.
The series traces the modern history of the league and its players starting with the 1976 merger of the freewheeling American Basketball Association and the National Basketball Association. It also explores how the top players have expanded their notoriety off the court in fields such as business and fashion while becoming icons in the process.
James has another show, The Shop, debuting Aug. 28 on HBO, in which he leads conversation and debate among his guests in barbershops around the country.
James found himself drawn into politics last week when U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a withering attack on him in a tweet after an interview aired with CNN anchor Don Lemon in which he deemed Trump divisive.
Although James has long been a Trump critic, calling the president “U bum” in a 2017 tweet, the tweet was Trump’s first attack on the player, who just opened up a school for underprivileged children in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.
“LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon,” Trump posted. “He made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy to do.”
HOMELAND WRAPS
Showtime says that its acclaimed series Homeland will end in 2019 with its eighth season.
The show’s conclusion was announced Monday by Showtime Networks chief David Nevins, who called the Emmy-winning Homeland a game-changer for the premium cable channel.
Nevins told a TV critics’ meeting that creator-producer Alex Gansa will bring the national security drama to what he called its “proper conclusion.”
Gansa said he was sad to see the series end but said that it’s time.
Claire Danes stars in Homeland, which has taken her bipolar, now former CIA agent Carrie through dangerous conflicts that sometimes mirrored real-world events.
Last season, Carrie struggled to uncover an international conspiracy trying to harm U.S. democratic institutions.
The final season of Homeland will debut in June 2019.
PRESIDENCY VS. THE FBI
Showtime will air a new documentary series from awardwinning filmmaker Alex Gibney examining the history of clashes between U.S. presidents and the FBI. The four-part series inspired by the book Enemies: A History of the FBI by Tim Weiner will debut Nov. 18, Nevins told TV critics.
The program, with the working title Enemies: The President, Justice & the FBI, will explore what Showtime called “epic confrontations” between presidents and FBI directors from J. Edgar Hoover to James Comey.
The series’ analysis of the past will be used to gauge what may come of the federal investigation of possible co-ordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, Showtime said.