News : Game Of Thrones Series High, New Shows and Casting News.

... This is your weekly reminder that Game of Thrones has hit a new series high. 5.5 million viewers this time, up from 5.3 million last week.

... Starz has announced a premiere month for its pirate epic "Black Sails": January 2014. The series follows Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and takes place 20 years before the events of Treasure Island. There are a lot of pirate shows coming out over the next year, but if you like your pirates with a side of boobs and gore, this will be the one for you.

... TNT has given a series order to "The Last Ship", a military thriller starring "Grey's Anatomy" vet Eric Dane. The series, based on the William Brinkley novel of the same name, follows the crew of a Navy destroyer that survives a global nucelar catastrophe. The 10-episode season season ships off in 2014.

.... NBC has cancelled "Deception", the Meagan Good starring series. After poor ratings and critical backlash, and subsequent mediocre episodes, this series isn't coming back.

... Awesome U.K. sitcom "The IT Crowd" is coming back for an episode, according to creator Graham Linehan. The plan is to air a final 40-minute special on Channel 4 in the U.K., with cast members Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, and Matt Berry all returning. If you haven't seen "The IT Crowd" (which failed as an American import starring Joel McHale), do it!

... NBC is milking this "The Office" sendoff for all it can (and why not?), expanding the May 16 series finale to an hour and 15 minutes. It will preceded by an hour-long Office retrospective and followed by a new episode of "Hannibal", which will run with limited commercial interruptions.

... We spent all of Season 2 wondering when FX's "The Americans" would kill Soviet double spy Nina and FBI secretary Martha, and now we're going to spend all of Season 2 wondering how the show will keep them alive. Actresses Annet Mahendru (Nina) and Alison Wright (Martha) have both been promoted to series regulars for the spy drama's second season.

... There's a standoff happening over at CBS's "Criminal Minds". The drama has not yet been renewed due to salary disagreements between cast members and the studio-and-network combo that's behind the series, ABC Studios and CBS. Final offers have gone out to Thomas Gibson, Joe Mantegna, Shemar Moore, Kirsten Vangsness, and A.J. Cook, but Vangsness and Cook have declined theirs, opting to stand together to bring attention to the fact that the female actors on the show are, in some cases, getting paid less than half of what their male counterparts are making. It's unclear whether the show would move on without Cook and Vangsness.