Week of April 11-17 (Season-to-date rankings in brackets) 1. (2) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS 2. (1) American Idol (Tuesday), Fox 3. (4) Desperate Housewives, ABC 4. (3) American Idol (Wednesday), Fox 5. (7) CSI: Miami, CBS 6. (5) Survivor: Palau, CBS 7. (9) Grey’s Anatomy, ABC 8. (29) House, Fox 9. (12) Two and a Half Men, NBC 10. (13) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC SOURCE: NIELSEN MEDIA.
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ECAP SPECIALS ON “LOST” AND “DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES” TO STREAM IN THEIR ENTIRETY ON ABC.COM
ABC.com will stream in their entirety recap specials on “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” originally produced for and broadcast on the ABC Television Network, it was announced today.
This will be the first time ABC.com will stream a primetime program in its entirety.
“Desperate Housewives: Sorting Out the Dirty Laundry” began streaming on ABC.com yesterday, April 26, and “Lost: The Journey” will be available on Thursday, April 28, following its ABC network broadcast tonight. The specials will remain live in ABC.com’s video player until May 22 and May 25, the season finales of the respective series.
In addition to the shows streaming in their entirety, ABC.com will also offer streams of each act so viewers can watch the stories of each individual character.
“Placing these two specials literally at the fingertips of internet users is a great ‘first’ for ABC.com, and an exciting way to introduce new viewers to two of the most talked about new series of the year while also feeding the appetite of current fans,” said Bruce Gersh, senior vice president, Business Development, ABC Entertainment Television Group.
With “Lost: The Journey,” ABC invites new and avid “Lost” viewers to take a fresh look at one of this season’s most talked about shows. The special promises to explore the series in a way that will bring new viewers up to date — but which current viewers will also find illuminating.
“Lost” stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Maggie Grace as Shannon, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Malcolm David Kelley as Walt, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Dominic Monaghan as Charlie, Terry O’Quinn as Locke, Harold Perrineau as Michael and Ian Somerhalder as Boone. “Lost” airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m., ET, on the ABC Television Network.
An all-new hour-long special, “Desperate Housewives: Sorting Out the Dirty Laundry” will bring new viewers up to speed on the biggest moments of the season while giving die-hard fans of the hit series fresh insight into the many mysteries of TV’s most famous street.
The hour recaps the stories-to-date of Susan Mayer, Lynette Scavo, Bree Van De Kamp and Gabrielle Solis, and looks back at the central mysteries that have kept viewers guessing: Why did Mary Alice kill herself? Who’s buried in the toy chest that Paul Young dug up from the bottom of his pool? And who is Mike Delfino, and what is his real agenda in moving to Wisteria Lane?
Desperate Housewives” stars Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo, Marcia Cross as Bree Van De Kamp, Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis, Nicollette Sheridan as Edie Britt, Steven Culp as Rex Van De Kamp, Ricardo Antonio Chavira as Carlos Solis, Mark Moses as Paul Young, Andrea Bowen as Julie Mayer, Jesse Metcalfe as John, Cody Kasch as Zach Young, Brenda Strong as Mary Alice Young and James Denton as Mike Delfino. The series, which has garnered both People’s Choice and Golden Globe Awards for best comedy series, airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network.
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The ladies on Wisteria Lane are friends on and off the set, Felicity Huffman, one of the lead actresses on the hit television show, Desperate Housewives, said on Sunday. “We’re all friends. We all get along. I love going to work,” said Huffman, who plays Lynette Scavo, on the show. There had been talk of tension among the cast, which reportedly boiled over at a group cover shoot for “Vanity Fair” when Marcia Cross stormed off the set. The incident was chronicled by the magazine’s writer Ned Zeman. “I have to tip my hat off to that writer (Zeman) because it’s a tempest in a teapot,” Huffman told Reuters.
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A swarm of locusts hit CBS on Sunday, but the insect invasion was no match for a clip-show recap episode of ABC’s Desperate Housewives. ABC easily won the night, as usual, with a solid performance from a special Sorting out the Dirty Laundry highlight reel episode of Housewives that lured in 23.7 million viewers and 10.0 rating/23 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. ABC also dominated at 8 p.m. hour with a fresh episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (16.7 million, 6.7/17) and at 10 p.m. with fledgling drama Grey’s Anatomy (18.2 million, 8.1/20). CBS had a good night with 8 p.m. drama Cold Case (16.5 million, 3.7/10) building significantly on its 60 Minutes lead-in (12.4 million, 2.5/8).
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Mehcad Brooks is set to join the cast of ABC’s hit dramedy Desperate Housewives as a potential regular. On Touchstone TV’s Desperate Housewives, Brooks will play the son of Alfre Woodard’s character. The two will move into a house on Wisteria Lane. Brooks will make his debut on the show in the final two episodes of the season and will return next season as a recurring with an option to become a regular. Brooks recently wrapped the Walt Disney Co. feature Glory Road for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The actor, whose credits also include a four-episode arc on Fox’s Boston Public.
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Having you been in Pretender fan fiction withdrawal? Yes, it may be hard with FanFiction.net and other sites putting up stories but don’t you miss all the fan fiction from The Pretender Fan Fiction Archive? Me too. I have great news…
There is a site up and running called “Missing Pieces”. They are currently (I’m helping) tracking down all the authors on the site to get permission to upload all their stories. A daunting task but so far pretty successful despite some trouble with old email address… want to help?
Do you know any of the authors from the old Pretender Fan Fiction Archive or maybe you are one? Email Mknzy
If you have stories to post, head over to the website. There is also a Yahoo Group by the same name.
Missing Pieces Site
Missing Pieces Yahoo Group
Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives had a celebrity-laden crowd purring when she helped open a new lounge featuring the famous Pussycat Dolls at Caesars Palace hotel-casino. Eva said she had always been desperate to be a pussycat…
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Latest news, now that Grey’s Anatomy will continue to air Sundays at 10, April 24 is not a rerun either now! The DH special will air then. It is called: “Desperate Housewives: Sorting Out The Dirty Laundry.” It’ll air 9pm, in the regular DH slot. Then the final 4 episodes of the season will air May 1, 8, 15 and 22. Season finale could be 2 hours, ABC still doesn’t know the duration on that.
ABC has ordered second seasons of Desperate Housewives, Lost and Boston Legal, while lining up a fifth season of Alias. Desperate Housewives and Lost were two of the most buzz-worthy pilots of the last development season and became out-of-the-box hits for ABC.
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Andrea Bowman, who plays Julie on Desperate Housewives will step in for an episode next week, while Elisabeth Hasselback is away on maternity leave. Check your local listings for more information.
They may appear sultry and ready for summer on the May cover of Vanity Fair, but according to the magazine, the stars of ABC’s Desperate Housewives were actually steaming angry. Vanity Fair’s cover proclaims: “You wouldn’t believe what it took just to get this photo!”
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Catch Ricardo Antonio Chavira (Carlos Solis) on [bGeroge Lopez[/b] on Tuesday, May 3 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on ABC in the episode George’s Extreme Makeover: Holmes Edition.
ABC looks like it has another drama hit on its hands. “Grey’s Anatomy” held up extremely well in its second outing Sunday behind another highly rated installment of Desperate Housewives. Grey’s Anatomy pulled in an impressive 18.2 million viewers and 7.9 rating/19 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, coming out of 24.4 million viewers and 10.7/24 for “Housewives” in the 9 p.m. hour, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. “Anatomy” crushed the competition from a repeat of NBC’s Crossing Jordan (9.5 million, 2.7/7) and the final hour of CBS telecast of the 2002 Denzel Washington starrer John Q, which averaged 7.6 million viewers and 2.2/5 in adults 18-49.- Reuters/The Hollywood Reporter
Melinda McGraw, who starred on CBS’ Center of the Universe, has been cast in a recurring role on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. Details about her role on the show have and for how many episodes she was contracted are not available.- Variety
Today, the latinamerican forum All Series announced their first All Series Awards Nominations and Desperate Housewives got sixteen nominations, the biggest nominee this year, including Best Comedy Series, Best Actress in a Comedy Series, Best Actor In a Comedy Series, among others. The nominations were selected by a group of members of the forum. The winners will be announced on April 19. To vote, click on the link above (you’ll have to be registered).
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Crossing Jordan was among other NBC show to be given another season this week. ER, Las Vegas, West Wing, and Joey were also picked up. There is no word if Michael T. Weiss will make another guest appearance.
The Pretender Lives On by David Martindale
Fans of the series can now indulge on DVD
As Michael T. Weiss sees it, he pretends for a living. “The great part about being an actor is that one day you portray a lawyer and the next project you’re a doctor,” he says. “In one movie, you play a hero; in the next, you’re the bad guy. It’s liberating. It’s always interesting. It’s a lot of fun.” It’s also fitting that Weiss, given his fondness for an actor’s “who am I today?” existence, is now perhaps best known for his four seasons on television as Jarod, the title character of The Pretender.
Jarod was a man of exceptional intelligence, so brilliant he could master any profession virtually overnight. Having escaped from a lifetime of captivity at the ominous Centre (which now had pursuers forever on his heels), each episode featured Jarod in a new line of work, from surgeon to test pilot, using his gift to help others and to right wrongs. The series was a cult favorite during its original run (1996-2000); now it lives on in reruns and on DVD (thanks to the March 22 release of a season-one set).
“When the producers were pursuing me pretty intensely to do this,” Weiss recalls, “I didn’t particularly want to do television again — because I had done it for a while and I had kind of gotten away from it. But it intrigued me that the character was so multifaceted and that basically he gets to play a different character every week. It kind of struck me as the best of both worlds: a complex character to flesh out over an extended period, but at the same time the character gets to play other characters, so I’d get lots of variety.”
And lots of devoted fans. Although The Pretender was never a ratings-topping hit on NBC, its cadre of fans are still fiercely loyal. “I like to think of it as the little show that could,” Weiss says. “It’s an odd phenomena, our little show. It’s amazing how many people come up and say it’s their favorite show. I’ll always be proud of that.”
The same goes for his former costar, Andrea Parker, who says the below-the-radar success of The Pretender “fills me with pride, gratitude and elation.” It’s worth noting, though, that not as many hard-core fans as you might expect recognize her as Miss Parker, Jarod’s chain-smoking adversary from the Centre. “People don’t recognize me,” she says, “because I don’t look or behave like Miss Parker in any way. People don’t recognize me with teeth.” Which is to say that people don’t recognize Andrea Parker with a smile.
In fact, during my interview with Parker, she made a most unusual request: She insisted on being misquoted. “Don’t tell anybody I’m nice,” she told me. “Tell them what they want to hear. Make something up. Say I’m vicious. Say I’m cruel. They don’t want to hear that I’m just some nice actress from California. They want something good and juicy.” Maybe she’s right, but she won’t get her wish. Consider the illusion shattered. Miss Parker (the character) might have been the nastiest vamp on television, but Ms. Parker (the actress) is warm and funny. “And I’m a lot more relaxed. I don’t have that armor of makeup and I would like to think that my personality is a little softer.”
Yet Parker always adored playing Miss Parker, a character she knew she had to play the moment she spotted her own last name in the script. She loved the role because “I’d get to be the villain AND the heroine. How unreal is that?”
Another former Pretender costar, James Denton (he was billed himself as Jamie Denton at the time), has only good things to say about the series and his experiences working as the evil Mr. Lyle. Until Desperate Housewives became such a huge hit this season, Denton’s recurring Pretender role was his biggest claim to fame. “I was this bad guy who had his thumb cut off by the Japanese Yakuza. I was bringing over Japanese mail-order brides and killing them. And then it’s implied that I might actually be eating them. It got crazier and crazier. It was very tongue in cheek. It was a great role and people seemed to respond to that guy really well.”
Well, most people. “I’ve had people get off of elevators that I was on,” Denton says. “Seriously! The woman told me, ‘I know you’re an actor, but I can’t be in the elevator with you,’ and she got off. That, to me, was very funny. And I felt like I must have been doing my job well. If Mr. Lyle was creepy enough to keep her off an elevator, I was doing my job.”
Remember, people. They’re actors. They’re just pretending.
So Monday I was at home sick and I didn’t change the channel when Oprah came on. Not that I would or wouldn’t have. I just laid there sick and watched. Of course, then I saw an ad saying the men of Desperate Housewives were going to be on Thursday and she was going to trick them or something like that… I was happy I stayed on Oprah. (Jamie was blushing a bit.) Look for it! If it isn’t this week I’ll let everyone know.
Yep, I bought it! Actually, I purchased it a month and a half ago through Amazon and it came out yesterday and I got it today! I was stunned, overjoyed and giddy. I can’t wait to take it home and break into it. I am going to Amazon for the next seasons and they better come out!
Sunday April 3rd, CTV will air a 90 minute episode starting @ 7:00 PM. This will be followed by The Juno Awards which in turn will start @ 8:30 PM, in all time zones for both shows.
TV Guide Canada for the week of March 26 – April 1 has an interview with Brenda Strong (the late Mary-Alice) and her thought/opinions on her character and the show. This issue is available on newstands today.
