Kevin James can’t ‘Wait’ for his turn as a TV dad
Highlights from the Television Critics Association summer press tour, featuring CBS programming.
After film de-tours as a mall cop and a zookeeper, King of Queens star Kevin James is returning to sitcoms — and CBS — with Kevin Can Wait (Sept. 19, 8:30 ET/PT).
Kevin takes James east of Queens as the new series will be the first studio-audience comedy to be taped (and set) on Long Island.
The star of two Paul Blart:
Mall Cop movies and other films after Queens ended its nine-season run in 2007 plays a retired police officer who plans to spend more time with his wife (Erinn Hayes) and go on various adventures with his buddies.
“I grew up with a lot of guys on Long Island who are police offi- cers. These guys are in their 40s” when they retire after 20 years of service, leaving time for family, James said Wednesday. “I never played a dad in a sitcom before, so it’s going to be a lot of fun to work with kids.”
LEBLANC HAS A ‘PLAN’ Former Friends star Matt Le- Blanc returns to network TV in October in CBS’ Man With a Plan. He plays a contractor who agrees to take on more parenting duties when his wife ( Yes Dear’s Liza Snyder) goes back to work.
Man is a big change for LeBlanc, who has spent the past few years playing a variation on himself in the Showtime comedy Epi-
sodes. As much as he enjoyed that show, he says, he wanted to work in “something bigger” — and to play a character who better reflects who he is now.
“I’m not getting any younger. I am a parent, and I wanted to explore what that would be like as a character,” LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc’s last try at a major network sitcom, Joey, did not turn out well. But LeBlanc says that show’s failure did not scare him away from the business.
“They can’t all be hits. Joey was what Joey was. … This is a whole new show with a new side of me. I’m looking forward to it.”
DISCOVER THE NEW ‘TREK’ The newest Star Trek series will be set about 10 years before Captain Kirk’s mission began in the original series and will feature a woman as the lead character.
Executive producer Bryan Fuller dropped those tidbits during a Star Trek: Discovery panel. The premiere will air in January on CBS, with 12 more episodes of the first season streaming only on the CBS All Access service.
No actors have been cast, but production begins in a few months.
Fuller’s lead character will be a lieutenant commander. “We’ve seen six series from the captain’s point of view. To see a character from a different perspective ... would give us a richer context,” he said. The story “is about this woman’s journey. In order to understand something completely alien to her, she has to understand herself.”
Fuller said the series also will feature a gay character, an addition of significance to the gay producer, who remembers hate mail that arrived when he was working as a writer on Star Trek: Voyager after rumors that one of the characters was going to be gay.