TV Bits: ‘Happy!’, ‘Game Of Thrones’, ‘Therapy Dog’, ‘One Day At A Time’, ‘The Last O.G.’, ‘Twilight Zone’, ‘Watchmen’, ‘Treadstone’
In this edition of TV bits:
Syfy’s demented seriesHappy!is adding another weird character – voiced by none other than"Weird Al" Yankovic. The parody song artist will voice an animated character named Smoking Man Baby, described (viaTV Line) as “toxic masculinity in a diaper” and a “jealous, volatile baby blowhard with full tats and a cigarette always dangling from his mouth.” Sounds like almost everyone on Twitter. The character will pop up in the second season ofHappy!, debuting sometime this year.
According toTHR, somesuper nerdyentomologist has “named three of his eight newest beetle discoveries after the dragons from the HBO seriesGame of Thronesand George R.R. Martin book seriesA Song of Ice and Fire.” Big damn nerd Professor Brett Ratcliffe named the new scarab beetle species drogoni, rhaegali and viserioni, which are “the Latinized versions of Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion” – the dragons that belong to by Daenerys Targaryen. The moral of this story: go out and discover new things, and then you can name them after your favorite IP. I’m personally hoping to discover a new planet, and name it Planet Den of Thieves.
Deadlinereports that Fox has ordered an animated series calledTherapy Dog, about “a dog named Honey who runs group therapy sessions to help neighborhood animals manage the neuroses brought on by their owners and each other.” The series comes from writer-producer-actressSharon Horgan, actressClea DuVall, writer-producersJennifer CrittendenandGabrielle Allan, andAaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. I’m a big fan of dogs (they’re great!), but I prefer them to be real, not cartoons. Still, this has promise, and talented people backing it up.
The Netflix revival ofOne Day at a Timehas earned rave reviews, and now it’s coming back for a third season. The series, centered on a Cuban-American family, follows a “recently separated, former military mom (Justina Machado) navigating a new single life while raising her radical teenaged daughter and socially adept tween son, with the “help” of her old school Cuban-born mom (Rita Moreno) and a friends- without-benefits building manager named Schneider.” The third season drops on NetflixFebruary 8.
Jordan Peele’sTwilight Zonereboot continues to add exciting cast members. The latest:The WrapreportsDeWanda WiseandJessica Williamswill appear in an episode. They join a cast that already includes Steven Yeun, Greg Kinnear, John Cho, Allison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay, Sanaa Lathan, Adam Scott and Kumail Nanjiani. It’s going to be incredibly exciting to see what Peele does with this show, and what far-out episodes these cast members will be popping up in.The Twilight Zonewill debut on CBS All Access this year.Hong Chau, who delivered a strong performance in the otherwise terribleDownsizing, and has had memorable roles inInherent ViceandHomecoming, has joined the cast of HBO’sWatchmenTV series, according toDeadline. Like most things associated with the newWatchmenshow, Chau’s role is being kept underwraps, but Deadline says Chau is playing a character named “Lady T., who is Vietnamese.” The series isn’t a straight adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic series, but rather a continuation, set several years after the events of the comic.Watchmendebuts this year.
Can we really call this showThe Last O.G.if it has a second season?? Talk about false advertising! The series, which was co-created by Jordan Peele, returns to TBS on April 2. This time, “Tray (Tracy Morgan) goes all in on his dreams of becoming a chef and Shay (Tiffany Haddish) has an intriguing business venture of her own on the horizon.” I’ve yet to catch the first season, but Morgan and Haddish are both talented and funny, ditto Peele, so this is probably worth checking out.
TheBournelegacy lives on withTreadstone, an upcoming USA Network spin-off set in the same world as the film franchise.Deadlinereports the series has rounded out its cast: Omar Metwally, Tracy Ifeachor, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky and Emilia Schüle join previously announced cast members Jeremy Irvine and Brian J. Smith. The show “explores the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses behavior-modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins. The first season follows sleeper agents across the globe as they’re mysteriously ‘awakened’ to resume their deadly missions.” TheBourneseries feels like a thing of the past – does anyone still get excited about it? And will a TV showwithoutBourne himself work? We’ll find out when the series arrives this year.
