Photo: Omi Vaidya

Fresh from a fun time of hosting the India International Film Awards in Sri Lanka, Bollywood actor Omi Vaidya is all set to do a longer stint of hosting a show. This time, it’s a TV show on Star Plus.

Best known for his portrayal of a nerd trying to outdo the hero in 3 Idiots, Omi is savoring the success that the hit movie has brought him. The show is set to begin on the 24th of July in the 9 p.m. slot on weekends. Omi Vaidya is reportedly excited about bring on a platform that brings music and children together.

Omi’s highlight in the movie was his difficulty with the Hindi language, but the actor has no qualms about being the anchor of a show that is predominantly in Hindi. He says that far from being paranoid about polishing up his Hindi speaking abilities, he will be keen on bringing his own brand of Hindi to the small screen. Although he does admit that he is getting better at it daily.

Omi is relishing the thrill of being ‘live’ that a reality show brings. He is eagerly anticipating the unexpectedness of events, and children’s as well as judges responses. And getting a live audience response is also part of the thrill of the experience.

Always clear that performing was his forte, Omi took to comedy because he clearly lacked singing and dancing skills. Next in line with him in Bollywood are films with Madhur Bhandarkar and Abbas-Mustan.

Chotte Ustad will have 10 children each from Indian and Pakistan participating and vying for the top honors.  The new twist is that children from the two countries will be paired up to compete with similar duos. The judges for the show are celebrities Sonu Nigam and Rahet Fateh Ali Khan. The show was first aired in 2007, with singers Pritam, Kunal Ganjawala and Shreya Ghoshal as judges. The format is that the participants will be mentored by music experts and will have singing face offs during every weekend.

James Badge Dale, Jon Seda and Joseph Mazzello star in The Pacific, which spotlights the U.S. Marine Corps’ actions in the Pacific. The series, which premiered in the United States on March 14, 2010, is based on memoirs by two U.S. Marines – With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa ( Eugene Sledge) and Helmet for My Pillow ( Robert Leckie).

The miniseries tells the stories of the two authors and Marine John Basilone, during the war against Japan. It also borrows from Eugene Sledge’s China Marine and Red Blood, Black Sand, abd the memoir of Chuck Tatum.

The series features battles involving the 1st Marine Division, such as Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa, and John Basilone’s involvement in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Hugh Ambrose has authored an official tie-in book to the miniseries. The book – the stories of the three men featured in the miniseries and stories of fellow marines – was released in the United States and the United Kingdom in March 2010.

At $200 million, The Pacific is one of HBO’s most expensive mini-series. Shot at actual locations, principal photography took almost 10 months. The series was to be launched in India at the time it was launched in the United States, but was delayed keeping in mind the exam time and IPL mania.

HBO is bringing three other original series to India in 2010. The new series include Bored To Death, Hung and The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. The network also plans to air the third and seventh seasons of hit series True Blood and Entourage, in India.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency stars Grammy Award-winning singer/actress Jill Scott as Mma Ramotswe, theater actor Lucian Msamati as Mr. JLB Matekoni, Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose as assistant detective Mma Grace Makutsi, comedian Desmond Dube as BK (owner of the Last Chance Salon) and Idris Elba as Charlie Gotso, Mma Ramotswe’s rival.

British actor Paterson Joseph makes a recurring appearance as Cephas Buthulezi, a rival detective, while Vusi Kunene plays Gulubane. Tau Maseremule and Thabo Malema play Rra Matekoni’s young apprentices, Fanwell and Charlie.

Filmed on location in Botswana, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency was initially conceived as a film and not a TV adaptation. The TV series is the major production to be filmed in Botswana and the government there reportedly provided US$5 million funding for the series.

Production on the pilot began in July 2007 with Sydney Pollack and British director Anthony Minghella of Mirage Productions and Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Company as producers. The collaboration marks the Weinstein Company’s first foray into television. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is executive produced by Timothy Bricknell, Richard Curtis, Amy J. Moore and Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

In 2007, the producers signed a 10-year-lease for the Kgalewood, in Gaborone, where the set for the detective agency has been set up.

HBO began broadcasting the series in March 2009. In 2010, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency won a Peabody Award for the 2009 season.

Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is the story of the delightful and appealing Precious Ramotswe who becomes a detective “to help people with problems in their lives.” She opens shop in Gaborone and is immediately inundated with cases such as tracking down a missing husband, uncovering a con man, following an errant daughter and tracking a missing 11-year-old boy who may have been taken by witch doctors.

The first book in the series –  1998’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – received two Booker Judge’s Special Recommendations, and was followed by Tears of the Giraffe (2000), Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001), The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002), The Full Cupboard of Life (2003), In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004), Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006), The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007), The Miracle at Speedy Motors (2008), Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (2009), and The Double Comfort Safari Club (2010).

Alexander McCall Smith declined to write the adaptation for TV, but remained involved as an adviser and visited the set during production.

Born in Zimbabwe, Alexander McCall Smith is a professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh. His books include works on medical law, criminal law and philosophy, books for children, collections of short stories, and other novels. He has authored three other series – The Sunday Philosophy Club series, The von Igelfeld series, and The Scotland Street series.

The prequel comprises an eight-issue miniseries, with art by Robert Adler, and is being sold as a standalone as well as a companion to BOOM! Studios and Electric Shepherd’s Eisner Award-nominated Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? comic series.

So what happened before we dreamed of electric sheep? Find out in Chris Roberson’s Dust to Dust, which kicks off the continuing battle against androids hidden in a war-ravaged future society.

Chris Roberson fell in love with Philip K. Dick’s books when he was about 25. He says he felt like a bomb went off in his head, after which he devoured each and every book. Philip K. Dick’s varied approach to the same theme – reality, identity and humanity, and the fact that he told terrific stories within these themes had an immense impact on Chris Roberson.

He felt the same way about Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a 1968 science fiction novel that chronicles the life of Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter of androids. The novel also follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who befriends some androids.

Set in a post-apocalyptic near future (the Earth and its populations have been damaged by nuclear war during World War Terminus), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has Rick Deckard on a new job – retiring six Nexus-6 model androids, the latest and most advanced model. The novel explores the issue of what it is to be human and what separates humankind from androidkind. The 1982 film Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Chris Roberson says he signed up on the dot when he was approached to do the prequel Dust to Dust by BOOM! Studios.

So what happens in Dust to Dust? Who hunted androids before Rick Deckard took on the job? The prequel opens in the aftermath of World War Terminus, which ended when one side released dust, a radioactive substance, into the atmosphere. Animals started becoming extinct, and many humans either died or started developing genetic defects.

Many survivors in Dust to Dust ready to leave Earth and head to off-world colonies, where they will be assisted by androids that have programmed to serve their every wish. Originally developed for combat, some of the androids don’t fancy the idea of becoming servile servants. A group of androids goes rogue, and veteran Charlie Victor is sent after them.

Victor’s partner in Dust to Dust is a special (those affected to dust exposure) named Malcolm Reed. Reed, diagnosed a schizophrenic when he was a teenager, developed a brain tumor after exposure, which prevents him from joining off-world colonies.

Reed’s brain tumor gives him a heightened empathic sense and the ability to pick up emotions of those around him. Reed becomes Victor’s android detector- if he can’t feel any emotions from someone, chances are it may be a rogue android (since androids don’t have emotions). Meanwhile, Samantha Wu, a Stanford biologist, is fighting to save the last of the living animals.

Chris Roberson says his Dust to Dust is a completely new story with fresh characters that explores Philip K. Dick’s world of androids. His goal, he said, was to do a smart, fun, adventurous bit of science fiction. Will Dust to Dust take the reader on a great big adventure through Philip K. Dick’s world? We’re waiting to find out!

In The Special Relationship, which premiered on May 29, 2010, on HBO, Peter Morgan’s Tony Blair is an intelligent and decent executive with the ability to learn and apply lessons of political strategy. Tony Blair reportedly saw parallels between himself and Bill Clinton, who turned the tide for the Democratic Party with his charisma and a message that was fashioned to resonate with voters.

Bill Clinton had a hand in boosting Blair’s candidacy – the former US president hosted him at the White House before elections were held in the United Kingdom. Tony Blair was a loyal friend, too – he stood by Bill Clinton when the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted.

The two leaders may have differed on strategies and world policies (they disagreed on what NATO should do in former Yugoslavia, where slaughter and brutality rose), but The Special Relationship isn’t about that.

The film subtly focuses on the fragile but always-there “special relationship,” – a phrase invented by Winston Churchill for the connection between the United States and Britain, – which is seen through a British eye.

The special relationship has often been there between leaders of the two countries – there were Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and then there were Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. The two leaders have shared a unique, at times tumultuous, political equation – this is what The Special Relationship is all about.

The Special Relationship is Peter Morgan’s third film based on Tony Blair. The first film was 2003’s The Deal, which chronicled the former prime minister’s rise to power. The Oscar –nominated second part The Queen (2006) focused on the protocol conflicts in the wake of the death of Princess Diana. The Queen won Helen Mirren (who played the titular role) an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award.

The Special Relationship’s Tony Blair is inexplicably drawn to the Bill Clinton way of thinking. Cherie Blair (played convincingly by Helen McCrory) jokes about her husband’s submissive meekness in Clinton’s presence. “Clinton hair, Clinton tie, everything except the tarty girlfriend,” she says, even as her husband wonders about what to wear and how to look.

The Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal also has its moment in the spotlight in The Special Relationship.

A scene shows beleaguered Bill Clinton readying to tell his wife, Hillary, (played by Hope Davis), the truth about Monica Lewinsky.

“It’s much more serious than I let on,” Bill Clinton says in The Special Relationship.

Later, on the way to a formal event after publicly acknowledging his misconduct, Bill Clinton asks Hillary how she wants to handle the appearance. “You first? Me a few steps behind? Together?”

Hillary’s reply? “I have to find my way through this on my own time. By myself, OK?”

The Special Relationship also reveals the impact the Lewinsky scandal had on the wives of the two leaders and their friendship.

Photo: Andy Whitfield in Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Andy Whitfield, said to be responding well to treatment, will make a brief appearance in the prequel to Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

The first series focused on Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator, who from 73 to 71 BC led a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

In the still-untitled prequel, co-stars Lucy Lawless (Lucretia) and John Hannah (Batiatus) – who were killed off in the finale of Spartacus: Blood and Sand – will play the main characters. The series will focus on the rise of the House of Batiatus before Spartacus’ arrival as a captured Thracian slave.

Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, Joshua Donen, and Steven S. DeKnight are in charge of production. Filming is expected to begin in New Zealand soon, and the miniseries will start airing on Starz in January 2011.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand drew a solid viewership – the series averaged 1.2 million viewers during its Friday night slot. The 18-49 demographic nearly doubled to 725,000 by the end of the season, according to reports.

The prequel to Spartacus: Blood and Sand is part of an aggressive strategy by Starz to compete with HBO and Showtime. A prequel to the hit series may well be one of the ways the channel can keep the interest generated by the hit series alive.

Starz chief executive Chris Albrecht – a former HBO strongman – said Andy Whitfield was “responding to his treatments,” and “as soon as he’s able, we look forward to continuing the Spartacus story.”

Speaking about the new series, Chris Albrecht said the storyline would capture “the excitement and entertainment value of the first season of Spartacus, giving audiences the engaging experience they’ve come to expect.”

Starz is scaling up production, with a focus on period dramas. Among the shows in the development stage is writer S. Craig Zahler’s Men of the Dusk, the story of a former Confederate soldier who administers a group of workers transporting items and people from town to town. Albrecht is also working with former NBC chief Ben Silverman on William the Conquerer and Peacekeeper.

As the world awaits the reunion of Sarah Jessica Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattralll and Kristen Davis in Sex and the City 2 (the movie releases May 27), author Candace Bushnell offers an insight to a time when the savvy New York singleton was a small-town teenager attempting to find herself.

HarperTeen on April 27, 2010, releases The Carrie Diaries, Candace Bushnell’s chronicle of how Carrie Bradshaw evolved into a sophisticated writer and fashionista from a high school senior in a Connecticut town.

Candace Bushnell said the story is not about Carrie Bradshaw as a teenager in 2009, but about Carrie Bradshaw in the late 1970s – “a time when young women for the first time…were being told to go college, to have a career, to pursue your dreams.”

The Carrie Diaries details – as usual, in first-person narrative – Carrie’s evolving fashion sensibilities, her romantic relationships, her thoughts on teen culture and her hopes of becoming a writer. The book, which Candace Bushnell hopes will attract teen readers and young women, can be best described as Carrie’s coming-of-age story.

The Carrie Diaries is Bushnell’s sixth novel. Her last, One Fifth Avenue, was released in 2008. Former best-sellers Sex and the City (1996) and Lipstick Jungle (2005) were hit TV series, which were followed by the Sex and the City movie.

Candance Bushnell, 51, moved to New York when she was 19 years old, hoping to become a writer. She says it was a fascinating time, something she wanted to write about. She says it’s fascinating to revisit a character in an earlier time and see how it evolved, adding that Carrie Bradshaw seems the perfect character to go back in time with.

She rubbished reports that this was her memoir, stating that the book is completely fictional.

The young Carrie has shades of the grown-up Carrie. On her first day of senior year, she rocks a pair of vintage white patent-leather go-go boots, perhaps the beginning of her trend-setting status. She also has a couple of close BFFs – Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are replaced by Lali and Maggie.

What of romantic relationships? While the adult Carrie has an on-off, not-married, married relationship (the marriage is kind of on the rocks in Sex and the City 2 movie!) with Mr. Big (Chris North), in high school she gets the boyfriend every young girl dreams of – Sebastian Kydd.

Alessandra Balzer, Candace Bushnell’s editor, expects that The Carrie Diaries will appeal to a wide fan base, despite being a teen book. Women of any age will love it, she said.

The Carrie Diaries is the first of two books about young Carrie. The second, about Carrie’s first summer in New York, is slated to be released in summer 2011.

In the second book, Carrie meets Samantha – who’s about eight years older to Carrie – and spends a lot of time with her, Bushnell said.

Back to the adult Carrie Bradshaw. For those who want to know what happens two years after Carrie and Mr. Big tie the knot, watch Sex and the City 2, the much-anticipated sequel to the first movie.

The heir to the British throne is taking his climate change campaign to TV screens in the United States.

A TV movie made by Prince Charles about climate change and attempts to find pioneering solutions to the world’s environmental problems will be showcased by U.S. TV network NBC Universal in November 2010.

The film, Harmony, will be broadcast by NBC in November 2010 and has been described by the network as “an urgent, accessible and practical call to action.” The screening will be part of NBC Universal’s fourth annual week of programming to promote green lifestyles.

NBC said Harmony, and a companion television special, emerged out of three decades of work on climate change by Prince Charles, once mocked as the “tree-hugging prince.”

The film follows Prince Charles at work in Britain and overseas, and has contributions from farmers, business and government leaders. It also includes clips from an interview the Prince of Wales did about the environment in 1988 with former U.S. vice president Al Gore.

Prince Charles, 61, the eldest son of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, is an organic farmer and has long campaigned for environmental issues.

Harmony highlights Prince Charles’ view that man has lost his once instinctive understanding of how to live in harmony with the natural world.

“Just as mankind has the power to push the world to the brink, so too does he have the power to restore it,” the Prince of Wales says in Harmony.

In another clip, he asks: “Is it really our intention to wipe all these people away from the land?”

Prince Charles’ crusade for the environment follows those by other celebrities and politicians who have used their status to back the green cause. The Prince of Wales’ project will be compared to that of Al Gore, the former U.S. vice-president, who won an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize for An Inconvenient Truth, his book and film on climate change.

Prince Charles has recently emerged as a vocal champion of environmental issues.

In December 2009, he joined Al Gore and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Copenhagen climate summit where he warned world leaders that the planet’s life-support system was failing, and threatening “our very survival as a species.”

“Remember that our children and grandchildren will ask not what our generation said, but what it did. Let us give an answer, then, of which we can be proud,” he said in Copenhagen.

In 2007, Prince Charles co-authored a book about organic gardening. His book on the environment, to be published by HarperCollins, will be released in 2010. A children’s version is expected to be published in 2011.

NBC Universal has partnered with Prince Charles in an effort to continue its battle to save the environment. The network plans to launch a week of programs promoting healthy lifestyles on June 21. The programming will include health tips from Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels, a healthy food version of Top Chef on Bravo, a Be Well, Be Happy series on NBC News programs and a program on details about health problems faced by Hispanics to be aired on the Telemundo network.

Photo: Aamir Khan on GQ cover

Aamir Khan is yet to make a decision in this regard. Synergy is said to have offered to top the Rs 75 lakh per episode that was paid to Shahrukh Khan for KBC 3.

If the deal comes through, Kaun Banega Crorepati 4 will be Aamir Khan’s first television outing. Khan has not confirmed or denied the news so far.

Siddharth Basu, CMD of Big Synergy which owns the rights to KBC, said it is too early to comment.

Some reports say that the deal is far from being finalized and that other stars, including Shahrukh Khan, are also in the running. Interestingly, Shahrukh Khan, who had earlier turned down 3 Idiots, will now do Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s next, Ferrari Ki Sawaari, to be directed by Raj Kumar Hirani. The role was first offered to Aamir Khan who turned it down to focus on his upcoming home productions, Dhobi Ghaat, Delhi Belly, and Peepli Live.

The last two years have been extremely kind to Khan. His last two movies – 3 Idiots and Ghajini – were huge box office successes. In fact, 3 Idiots turned out to be the highest grossing Bollywood film ever.

All of Aamir Khan’s home productions so far – Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par, and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na – have received both critical and box office success.

Aamir Khan was recently honored with the Padma Bhushan award, on April 1, 2010.  Kaun Banega Crorepati 4 will be another feather in the actor’s cap if he accepts the offer. But, given Khan’s track record of focusing only on one project at a time, one can never be sure if he will do it.

Kaun Banega Crorepati is based on the UK reality show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The game show, that was previously screened on STAR Plus, will now be aired on Sony TV after Sony Pictures Television bought the rights.

The first two editions of Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan, respectively, were hugely successful.

The grand prize for Kaun Banega Crorepati 3 was Rs 2 crores.

Bollywood Actors’ forays into television game shows

Amitabh Bachchan: The angry young man of the big screen metamorphosed into the pop guide and person you could turn to on the small screen. Kaun Banega Crorepati gave his sinking career a lifeline, and with Big Boss 3, he made himself comfortable in Indian drawing rooms, five days a week.

Shahrukh Khan: Shah Rukh had two innings on the small screen. In the first, with Kaun Banega Crorepati, he was always compared to Big B. In the second, Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain, he made the waistcoat sexy!

Salman Khan: When the brash and brawny Khan took to the small screen with Dus ka Dum, not many expected him to do too well. But his TV persona was extremely likeable – he was endearing and made his way to people’s hearts.

Abhishek Bachchan: He recently joined the telly brigade with National Bingo Night, an interactive game show. While he did a competent job as the host, it’s not clear is his career gained due to this move.

Akshay Kumar: The khiladi was in his element on Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi, urging on 13 beautiful girls to overcome their fears and perform stunts of various kinds. He was also part of a seven-episode special on martial arts aired on National Geographic.

Rani Mukherjee: The vivacious Bengali actress is a judge on a dance show, Dance Premier League, an assignment she took up because of her “interest in dance”.  More than her judging skills, people end up watching her Sabyasachi wardrobe.

The American Idol, America’s most watched TV show on Fox TV, has thus lost one of the most powerful personalities of reality TV. It was Simon Cowell’s sarcastic quips that were a big draw for the TV show.

Cowell confirmed that he would bring to Fox a US version of his UK reality show “The X Factor” in the fall of 2011. Cowell would be both a judge and executive producer of the show.

Simon Cowell’s contract with America Idol ends in May 2010 and Cowell has said that he is sure that the show will continue doing well without him.

Paula Abdul – the original judge of American Idol – quit the show last summer over differences over her contract and Cowell has hinted that she might join him on his show.”I adore Paula. Whatever happens, I will be working with her in some capacity because I miss her,” he said.