News Briefs : HBO orders Leftovers to series

... It's not HBO, it's leftovers. Well, it will be The Leftovers. The cable network has ordered to series the latest project from Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, the slightly supernatural drama The Leftovers. Based on the book by Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers follows what happens after the biblical Rapture takes all the righteous people away and leaves the Earth populated with everyone who didn't get called up to heaven. Specifically, the series will center on a group of people who must survive without their more devout loved ones. Liv Tyler, Justin Theroux, Christopher Eccleston, Amy Brenneman, Emily Meade, Michael Gaston, and Chris Zylka are all in the cast, and HBO has asked for 10 episodes.

... Former Awkward. showrunner and creator Lauren Iungerich has received a put pilot commitment for Bitch off the Ol' Block, a comedy about a woman who is reunited with her teenage daughter. The daughter turns out to be a smart-assed version of the mother and moves in with the mother and her roommates, who all raise her. Another twist on the family member moving in at an inopportune time!

... Enlightened creator and star Mike White has a new project cookin' at NBC. The show is about a young 16-year-old chef prodigy who works in a kitchen with his temperamental idol! NBC has given White's project a put pilot commitment.

... Hot on the heels of Magic Mike and the general idea that hunky half-naked men lure eyeballs, Fox has made a put pilot commitment to The Whole Shebang, a new comedy from producer Jennifer Garner and writer Jason Micallef (Butter). So how do gyrating washboards in banana hammocks fit in? A newly single soccer mom inherits a male strip club and discovers a supportive yet dysfunctional surrogate family within.

... Syfy has acquired the Canadian werewolf series Bitten for broadcast. The series stars Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, V) as Elena Michaels, the lone werewolf in existence. Elena ditches her pack and moves to a new city, but what do you know? A bunch of dead bodies pop up and next thing she knows, she's back working with her old gang of werepeople. Syfy will air all 13 episodes of the first season. Bitten was originally broadcast on Canada's Entertainment One.

CASTING NEWS

... The Walking Dead will add Christian Serratos to play the character Rosita Espinosa, who appeared in the comics, for Season 4. The casting announcement says she'll recur in Season 4 with the option to become a regular in Season 5, so I like her chances to survive!

... ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland has found its voice for the Caterpillar. Veteran punk rocker Iggy Pop of The Stooges will speak for the drug-huffing butterfly worm. Other voices in the cast include John Lithgow for the White Rabbit and Keith David for the Cheshire Cat. Iggy takes over the job from fellow musician Roger Daltry, who lent his voice to the Caterpillar when Once Upon a Time used the character. [EW]

... Billie Piper and Helen McCrory have been cast in Showtime's Penny Dreadful. The eight-episode horror series follows several characters from literature, including Dr. Frankenstein and Dorian Grey, as they sit on the fringes of society in old London. Piper (Secret Diary of a Call Girl) will play an Irish immigrant trying to escape her past, and McRory (Harry Potter) will be a "spiritualist." Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, and Eva Green are also involved in the show. Look for Penny Dreadful in 2014.

... Everybody Loves Raymond brother Brad Garrett will drop by CBS's The Crazy Ones for a couple episodes. The exact details of his role aren't yet known, but his character Lewis will be part of the ad firm that Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar's characters work for.

... LeVar Burton will be back on Community this season. Look out, Troy.

News Brief: Awkward Loses Its Showrunner, Shows to be at Comic–Con and New Casting News

... MTV's Awkward showrunner and creator Lauren Iungerich is departing after the currently on-hiatus third season wraps up. MTV is likely ordering a fourth season, dependent on who they find to replace Iungerich. But Iungerich's very funny and talented voice was all over the series, and the loss of her will be, like, totally obvs.

... FX is developing a TV version of the book Mohicans, which served as the source material for the film The Last of the Mohicans. The idea would be to make it a miniseries that follows the development of America as seen through the eyes of the characters from the books.

... The CW is developing an adaptation of the Venezuelan telenovela Jane the Virgin, and you have to listen to this awesome description. Jane, a respectable, religious goody-goody, gets accidentally artificially inseminated through a series of hilarious circumstances!
... Simon Cowell is launching Afghanistan's Got Talent.

... History Channel's The Bible miniseries has sold more than 1 million units of its Blu-ray and DVD editions.
... Captain Planet might become a movie. Let our powers combine.

CASTING NEWS

... Elementary's Sherlock Holmes has an older brother, and we'll all get to meet him in Season 2. Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man's the Lizard, Human Nature) will play Mycroft Holmes and I'm pretty convinced that he could actually be Jonny Lee Miller's real-life brother. Mycroft will appear in the premiere episode, where the two brothers will confront their recent falling-out after Sherlock heads to London.

... In today's The Leftovers news, the show has added The Secret Circle's Chris Zylka. In the Damon Lindelof drama about those left behind after the Rapture, Zylka will play a college dropout who settles under the wing of a guru.

... TLC's Who Do You Think You Are?, which is being revived by TLC after cancellation by NBC, has announced the celebs who will let Lisa Kudrow poke around their families' pasts and talk about them on TV (minus the "your great granddad was a Nazi sympathizer" part). Here they are: Christina Applegate, Kelly Clarkson, Cindy Crawford, Zooey Deschanel, Chelsea Handler, Chris O'Donnell, Jim Parsons, and Trisha Yearwood. Who Do You Think You Are? debuts July 23 on TLC.

... 1980s dreamboat Andrew McCarthy will guest-star on CBS's summer drama Unforgettable. He'll play a rich dude who enlists Carrie's help to get his kidnapped young daughter back.

... First Andrew McCarthy, now Sendhil Ramamurthy!?!?!? A day after casting the Pretty in Pink star, CBS's summer series Unforgettable has booked Ramamurthy (Heroes) for a guest role. In the second season's second episode, he'll play a criminal who's employed by a mystery man.

... Last Resort's Scott Speedman will star in Ryan Murphy's HBO pilot Open. The drama is described as an exploration of modern sexuality. Speedman will play a hunky sports executive, and chances are very high that you will get to watch him have sex. Let's see if he's learned anything since Felicity!

... Maggie Gyllenhaal will star in Sundance Channel's 2014 miniseries The Honourable Woman. She'll play a lady who inherits her dad's arms-smuggling business but uses its resources to install data cable networks between Israel and the West Bank and then earns a position in the U.K.'s House of Parliament.

COMIC-CON
... The X-Files will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a panel at this year's Comic-Con. Series creator Chris Carter and writers David Amann, Vince Gilligan (who now has his own nifty show), Howard Gordon, Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, John Shiban, and Jim Wong will be on hand for the Thursday, July 18 panel. Gillian Anderson has also confirmed an appearance, but there's been no word from David Duchovny. He's got to show up, right?

... CBS Television Studios has announced the shows its bringing to Comic-Con: Under the Dome, Intelligence, Star-Crossed, and Beauty and the Beast.

... Falling Skies will be at Comic-Con, too.

RELATIONSHIPS NEWS
... Pretty Little Liars' Lucy Hale and Revolution's Graham Rogers (Danny!) are dating!
... Justified's (and The Following's, I guess) Natalie Zea got engaged! Congratulations to Zea.

REQUIRED READING
... James Gandolfini's funeral was held this week in New York. The procession, including a eulogy from The Sopranos creator David Chase, was surreal and truly touching.

News Brief: New Series Debuting and Casting news

 
Since most of all the new pilots have been accepted or discarded last month, there have been little/slow new information to provide. Aso we have Some news which came out last week and New Series premiered last week worth checking out.

.... "Graceland”, about agents from different law agencies living together in a house. Created by Jeff Eastin, who created ”White Collar” for USA network as well.
Graceland is the name of an impeccably decorated beachfront home where the FBI, the DEA, and U.S. Customs house a handful of their best agents, Real World-style, so that they can work together to catch the bad guys. Starring Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me) and Aaron Tveit's (Les Miserables).They're joined by Vanessa Ferlito (24, CSI: New York), Brandon Jay McLaren (Falling Skies, The Killing), Manny Montana (Chicago Code), and Serinda Swan (Breakout Kings).

.... "In The Flesh”– this show puts a unique twist on the zombie genre by bringing the undead back from the undead, so to speak.
In the world where "In the Flesh" takes place, the dead rose from their graves, ate human brains, got better, were rehabilitated through treatment and counseling, and then rejoined society, where they now live—with the help makeup and colored contact lenses—as if they'd simply had a bad case of the chicken pox (the show refers to their condition as "Partially Deceased Syndrome"—PDS). But at the same time, untreated zombies roam freely and cause serious problems. Sounds pretty cool, right?

CATELYN STARK NEWS
... ”Game of Thrones' Michelle Fairley, who had quite a bit to do in last week's epic episode, has booked a recurring role on the upcoming third season of ”Suits". She'll play a British oil entrepreneur who hires Harvey to defend her against a lawsuit. Look for her debut in the Season 3 premiere on July 16.
... Justin Theroux ("Parks and Recreation", the movie Wanderlust) landed what may be the cushiest new acting gig of next year, taking the lead in HBO's pilot ”The Leftovers". The show comes from Lost's Damon Lindelof and follows those who remain behind after the Rapture takes the virtuous away..

... "Defiance" will welcome guest-star Brian J. Smith (Stargate Universe) as astronaut Gordon McLintock. The character was put into an induced coma after a space station accident in 2013, and will have his mind blown when he wakes up to see that Earth has changed, Oh, and all the aliens and stuff. 

BUSINESS TIME
... NBC's ”Revolution" ended its first season last night with a slight ratings uptick, racking up a 2.0 in the adult demo. It finishes as the second-best rated new series after Fox's "The Following".

... MTV's "Teen Wolf" returned for Season 3 last week, and brought back a whole lot more viewers. The premiere was the series' most-watched episode to date, averaging 2.4 million viewers.