Stars on screen
Lights on: It’s finally December, and that means Christmas is just around the corner.The days may be getting shorter, but that doesn’t mean that the nights are any darker — especially not with all the Christmas lights going up in neighborhoods across the country. Of course, while some folks are content with just a single string of mono-colored LEDs, other families go all out with displays impressive enough to be jaw-dropping.
It’s the latter sort of holiday decorators that ABC’s “The Great Christmas Light Fight” is interested in, and for a fifth year, the annual competition series is pitting the best of the best light-stringers against one another. Premiering Monday, Dec. 4, the new season airs back-to-back episodes every Monday evening from now until the week before Christmas.
Each episode of “The Great Christmas Light Fight” shows off four of the most over-the-top Christmas light displays that families from across America have put together to help celebrate the season. “Trading Spaces’” Carter Oosterhouse and frequent “Rachael Ray” guest Taniya Nayak both return for a third year to judge the competition.
In each episode, once all four displays have been showcased, Oosterhouse and Nayak get to judging.The pair evaluates each display in a variety of categories, including just how much Christmas spirit has been included, and rewards the winner with the coveted Light Fight trophy. But of course, that’s not all: the winners also get a huge $50,000 prize — merry Christmas, indeed!
This season also features an extra holiday surprise: neighbors! In one episode, next-door neighbors team up to build a double-sized display that they hope will beat other neighboring pairs doing the same.
There are more bulbs than ever before when this year’s “Great Christmas Light Fight” premieres Monday, Dec. 4, on ABC.
Cops and authors: Nathan Fillion is sticking with ABC.The longrunning dramedy “Castle,” in which he played the titular bestselling novelist who solved real-life crimes, was suddenly cancelled by the network in 2016, but the actor has landed a straight-to-series order for a new drama.
“The Rookie” is inspired by a true story, and stars Fillion as a middleaged man who upends his cozy small-town life to pursue his dream of being a big-city cop. Now a rookie in the LAPD, he’s surrounded by other newly minted police officers 20 years his junior, making him an “old” man in a young person’s world.
The drama also reunites Fillion with “Castle” showrunner Alexi Hawley, who is writing and producing the new series, with Fillion also serving as an executive producer.
Although nowadays he’s best known for his starring role in “Castle,” the Canadian-born and raised Fillion first rose to prominence for his role in the soap opera “One Life to Live,” for which he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. His leading role in the science fiction series “Firefly” earned him a devoted fan base, which his time starring in “Castle” only bolstered.
“The Rookie” is still in early production, with no release date or episode count announced yet.