Lisbeth Salander could well be poster girl of Swedish crime fiction. The social punk, described as “mentally incompetent” by the Swedish government, is an unlikely heroine. She’s a loner, she has a dragon tattoo on her neck, a photographic memory and rides a Kawasaki.
NBC has announced that romantic comedy Perfect Couples will join five new scripted series – Chase, Undercovers, The Event, Love Bites and Outsourced – for the 2010-2011 season.
Perfect Couples details the life of three engaging couples who are attempting to figure out the whats and whys of an ideal relationship — and how to keep it going. The series will explore their journey – as couples and as friends – in search of the perfect relationship.
The three couples have distinctive characteristics – one is “normal” and “relatable” (played by Kyle Howard and Christine Woods); there’s a needy husband and a neurotic wife (Dave Walton and Mary Elizabeth Ellis) who seem to bring out the best and the worst in each other, and there’s a reformed partier (Hayes MacArthur) and his wife (Olivia Munn), the mother hen of the group.
Created by Jon Pollack (30 Rock) and Scott Silveri (Friends), the new romcom series will be produced by Universal Media Studios.
The network’s entire current Thursday lineup is returning next season along with five other new shows.
Chase, a drama from Jerry Bruckheimer and Jennifer Johnson, has been described as a cat-and-mouse game as a team of U.S. marshals hunt down America’s most dangerous fugitives.
Kelli Giddish (Past Life) will star in the thrilling drama as a U.S. marshal. Accompanying her Cole Hauser (K-Ville), Amaury Nolasco (Prison Break), Rose Rollins (The L Word) and Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives).
Undercovers is the story of two CIA spies who come out of retirement for a mission. Steven Bloom (Boris Kodjoe) and his wife, Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), are your typical married couple in Los Angeles. They own a small catering company and are often helped by Samantha’s younger sister, Lizzy (Jessica Parker Kennedy).
Five years ago, the couple was with the CIA – they were the best spies on the job until they fell in love and chose to retire. When fellow spy and friend Nash (Carter MacIntyre) goes missing while on the trail of an arms dealer, the Blooms are called back into service by boss Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney). Their mission? To find and rescue Nash. The pair returns to their cloak-and-dagger world, globe-trotting to follow their leads. Will the undercover life bring back the excitement and romance that has gone missing from their marriage?
Love Bites – starring Becki Newton (Ugly Betty) and Jordana Spiro (My Boys) – is an hour-long romantic comedy series that features three loosely connected, modern stories of dating, love, sex and marriage. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Greg Grunberg, Craig Robinson, Jason Lewis and Charlyne Yi will make guest appearances as romantically challenged characters.
The Event – starring Jason Ritter – is labeled an emotional, high-octane conspiracy thriller. Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) is an ordinary guy probing the mysterious disappearance of his fiancée, Leila (Sarah Roemer). He ends up exposing the biggest cover-up in U.S. history. Blair Underwood plays newly elected U.S. President Martinez.
Outsourced is a culture-clash comedy set around an American company that sells novelty products and whose call center is outsourced to India. All-American company Mid America Novelties sells whoopee cushions, foam fingers and wallets made of bacon. When the call center is suddenly outsourced to India, Ben Rappaport (the manager who is transferred to India to run the operation) must give his new staff a crash course in all things American even as he figures out all things Indian.
Rizwan Manji, Sacha Dhawan, Rebecca Hazlewood, Parvesh Cheena, Anisha Nagarajan, Diedrich Bader and Jessica Gower star in leading roles in Outsourced.
It is speculated that the strength of NBC’s development season could bring about the end of Heroes. Heroes had a viewership of less than 5 million viewers during its fourth season, but it was rumored that NBC was planning a 13-episode fifth season for the sci-fi drama. Now that the network has six new shows in its kitty, Heroes is most likely to be shown the door. The network may opt for a two- to four-hour movie to end the series, reports suggested.
HarperCollins will release Sarah Palin’s new book America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag on November 23, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »