‘Roseanne’ ends season with hopeful note as storm brews
Gere to return to TV
NEW YORK, May 23, (Agencies): The reboot of “Roseanne” ended the season Tuesday with a flood, a feast and a prayer. It was a hopeful climax to a show that’s been popular and yet also divisive.
Roseanne Barr, who plays the titular character on the hit ABC show, plans to go to the hospital for knee surgery when her family surprises her with a goodbye meal that includes cake and casserole. Outside a storm is raging.
The flooded community has been declared part of a presidential state of emergency. So Roseanne’s husband is suddenly flush with construction work and the family can pay for her surgery. “I hope to see my husband’s face and not yours,” she prays to God. “No offense.”
Barr said she was thrilled that so many people have tuned in every week and that many of the hot-button issues that were raised in the reboot will continue in the coming season.
“The show did great. Scrutiny is always good — it’s part of being successful,” she said. “It gives everyone something to talk about. And everyone gets to express their opinion, too.”
Politics made an immediate impact in the first episode, when it was clear that Roseanne Conner embraced President Donald Trump, while her sister, Jackie, was a staunch opponent. In the series finale, the show mocks Trump for his inability to spell “Illinois” in a tweet.
The Trump factor earned the show a wealth of media and other attention, including from the president himself. He called to congratulate Barr on the show’s 18 million-plus debut audience and in a speech said the show “was about us.”
“Roseanne” has tackled hot-button topics such as the opioid epidemic, single parenting, undocumented workers, unions, military veterans, debt and the struggles facing lower middle-class families.
“We want to be brave. We want to tackle things that other shows are worried they can’t either make funny or will make people uncomfortable,” said executive producer Bruce Helford, who also worked on the original series, which ran from 1988-97.
The reboot also has prompted some outrage, including a joke about two other TV shows featuring minority characters that was deemed dismissive, and an episode some people called Islamophobic.
Sara Gilbert, who has returned to play Roseanne’s daughter, Darlene, and is also an executive producer, said the negative criticism illustrates a fractured media landscape.
“When you get big numbers, you kind of have to expect some kind of extra scrutiny. And because of the way the internet works, and the clicks on news articles, the most negative stories get the most pickup,” she said.
“Overall, I’m so grateful that people are watching and supporting us,” she added. “Overall, I think the experience has been very positive.”
The show’s writers regroup May 29 to start working on the next season, which will have 13 episodes. Whitney Cummings, who had been co-show runner with Helford, will not return, but comedians Wanda Sykes and Norm Macdonald are back.
New to the staff will be comedian Ali Liebegott (“Transparent”), Emily Wilson (“AP Bio”), Ted Jessup (“Family Guy”) and comedian Jena Friedman, who has written for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
“We have a lot of new voices, younger voices, which I think is important on the show,” Helford said. “We run a democratic room, almost nobody has a stronger voice than anybody else; everybody’s input is there.”
Barr stressed that an unusual number of female writers were being added. “We have all points of view in our writers’ room. It’s kind of like conducting an orchestra of opinion. I like it. That’s what I do best,” she said.
Gilbert said she wants the new season to focus on the characters’ “emotional lives,” including Roseanne’s addiction and her own character’s romantic life. But both Gilbert and Barr said the show would not shy away from tough issues.
“I think we want to talk about the same struggles that we believe working-class Americans have, so we’re always going to address those. That’s inherently political on some level. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be talking about any particular candidate’s policies. But we’ve never done that,” Gilbert said.
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Richard Gere will play a media baron in upcoming BBC drama “MotherFatherSon,” the Hollywood star’s first TV role in almost three decades. His character in the BBC Two series, Max, is a charismatic self-made American businessman who owns media outlets in London and around the world.
“It’s been almost 30 years since I worked in television,” the star of “Pretty Woman” said. “I’m so pleased to be working now with the BBC on this extraordinary eight-hour project with such talented people and which resonates so much the time we live in.”
Gere joins Helen McCrory (“Peaky Blinders,” Harry Potter films) and Billy Howle (“On Chesil Beach”) in the series. McCrory stars as Kathryn, Max’s estranged wife, and Howle as Caden, the couple’s son. With clear echoes of the James and Rupert Murdoch relationship, Caden runs his father’s British newspaper business and is primed to follow in his footsteps as one of the most powerful men in the world.
Caden’s self-destructive lifestyle spirals out of control, however, with devastating consequences for the family and its business empire. Tom Rob Smith (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) wrote the show.
“The scripts for ‘MotherFatherSon’ seal Tom Rob Smith’s reputation as one of the most individual and original writers of his age,” said BBC drama chief Piers Wenger. “We are thrilled that in Richard, Helen and Billy he has found the perfect eponymous lead characters to bring his series to life.”
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USA Network announced Elisha Henig will join the second season of “The Sinner” as a series regular. Henig will play Julian, described as a bright but peculiar young boy on the brink of adolescence who is from a sheltered, unconventional background and is now thrust into the outside world.
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Nickelodeon has renewed the shows “PAW Patrol,” “Blaze and the Monster Machines,” “Rusty Rivets” and “Top Wing.” The renewals are part of the network’s largest preschool content pipeline ever of more than 300 returning shows and new series for the 2018-2019 season.
HBO has renewed the late-night series “Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas” for a second season. The series covers a wide range of social and cultural issues in its first season, including student loans, mental health, police accountability, and sexual assault.
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CBS announced premiere dates for its summer schedule, including: the obstacle course challenge “TKO: Total Knock Out” hosted by comedian Kevin Hart, which debuts July 11 at 8 pm ET; the 20th season of “Big Brother,” which returns with a twohour premiere June 27 at 8 followed by new episodes Thursdays at 9 and Sundays at 8; and drama series “Salvation,” which returns for its second season June 25 at 9.
TV Land’s comedy series, “Teachers,” will return for a third season on Tuesday, June 5. “Teachers” revolves around a group of elementary school teachers who are trying to mold the minds of America’s youth, but don’t have their own lives together at all. The series is created by and stars the improv group The Katydids - Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien, Kathryn Renee Thomas and Cate Freedman.
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BET Networks announced Academy Award-winning actor and Grammy Award-winning musician Jamie Foxx as this year’s BET Awards host. Returning to the stage as host for the second time after nearly a decade, Foxx joins a roster of comedians and entertainers including Leslie Jones, Anthony Anderson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Chris Rock, Mo’Nique, Kevin Hart and Chris Tucker. This year’s broadcast celebrates 18 years of dynamic performances, groundbreaking moments, the hottest talent in the game and entertainment’s most thought-provoking players. The “BET Awards” 2018 will air live on Sunday, June 24 at 8 pm ET from the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif on BET.
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Drama series “UnReal” is set to move from Lifetime to Hulu for its fourth and what will likely be its final season.
The streaming service and A+E Studios are close to a deal, sources tell Variety, that would see the fourth season, which has already been shot, air in its initial window on Hulu. The agreement would see Hulu pay an additional fee on top of it was already set to pay for subscription video on-demand rights for the season.
Hulu is, through a previous agreement with producer A+E Studios, the exclusive SVOD home for the series, with seasons 1-3 moving to the service following their initial broadcasts on cable channel Lifetime.
Sources tell Variety that the series has been a strong performer for Hulu, and that it made sense for the service to pick up first-window rights when approached with them by Lifetime corporate sibling A+E Studios.
Season one of “UnReal,” from Sarah Gertrude Shapiro and Marti Noxon, was surprise critical favorite and awards contender, earning a Peabody Award as well as an Emmy nomination for co-creators Shapiro and Noxon. Subsequent seasons have been less well received.
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Peter Lenkov has inked a new overall deal with CBS Television Studios.
The deal keeps Lenkov at the studio which produces all four of his current shows: the reboots of “MacGyver” and “Hawaii FiveO,” the summer series “Salvation,” and the upcoming reboot of “Magnum P.I.” starring Jay Hernandez in the title role. Under the deal, Lenkov will continue to develop and create new projects for the studio.
Other producers currently set up at CBS Television Studios include Robert and Michelle King, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Alex Kurtzman. Lenkov is repped by CAA and Del Shaw. “Hawaii Five-O” will go into its ninth season at CBS in the fall, while “MacGyver” will be entering its third. Both shows are part of CBS’ stable Friday night lineup, along with the procedural “Blue Bloods.” The network is keeping that lineup intact going into the fall. “Salvation” will enter its second season starting June 25.
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“The Expanse” could find new life on Amazon.
Variety has confirmed with sources that the streaming giant is in talks to pick up the sci-fi series for what would be its fourth season. The news comes after NBCUniversal-owned cable network Syfy announced they would not be picking up the show again once its third season concludes in June. The series is produced and fully financed by Alcon Television Group.
The story unfolds across a colonized solar system 200 years in the future, when two strangers become unwittingly swept up in a vast conspiracy. Based on the New York Times bestselling book series collectively known as “The Expanse,” written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S. A. Corey), “The Expanse” stars Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham and Frankie Adams.