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Peter Krause, one of those actors who should be a much bigger star than he is, signed Friday to star in the new ABC pilot Dirty Sexy Money. The NYU graduate (sort of represent) will play an idealistic lawyer who inherits more than an old record collection from his dead father – the job of attorney to a powerful and “ethically flexible” family. I’m not so sure about this concept, but Krause was so good on Six Feet Under and Sports Night that he’s someone I will watch in pretty much anything – including this “creatively flexible” show.
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CHUD favorite and music man Craig Bierko joined the FOX network as the lead in The Rules of Starting Over. The Bierko (that is what you guys call him, right?) plays a newly single man among a group of recently divorced friends. Rules (not to be confused with the crappy David Spade comedy currently on television) also stars Office cutie Rashida “Better for Jim than Pam” Jones. I guess we all know how that particular storyline ends.
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A couple of weeks ago, THUD reported that Kelsey “Frasier” Grammer and Patricia “Plaything of The Religious Right” Heaton were considering starring in the multicamera comedy Action News. Both stars signed today – and Action News will be making its home on FOX this fall. Unlike most pilots, the deal for this one came with a thirteen-episode commitment. Action News, which revolves around a reunited anchor team at a local tv station (here’s a spoiler: they fight with each other a lot), comes from Frasier showrunner Christopher “Not A Doctor” Lloyd and Greg The Bunny executive producer Steven Levitan.
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Masterpiece Theatre, the long-running series that brought House of Cards, I, Claudius, Jeeves and Wooster, and The Jewel and the Crown to American shores, is moving into television for the Hot Topic crowd. A 2006 BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (as opposed to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula) airs Sunday night at 9 on most PBS affiliates and is rated TV-MA (which means violence, and possibly nudity). The program stars David “Poirot” Suchet as Abraham Van Helsing and Rafe Spall (Shaun of the Dead) as Jonathan Harker. Reviews have been mixed – the New York Times loved it, the out-of-touch David “Prince’s Halftime Show was INAPPROPRIATE” Bianculli of the New York Daily News hated it. Still, it’s kind of sad how excited I am for this. As always with PBS, check your local listings.
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Harold Perrineau will be screaming “CHRIIIIIIISSSST!” instead of “WAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLT!” in CBS’s pilot Demons. The show, from Joan of Arcadia creator Barbara Hall, focuses on an ex-Catholic priest and psychologist who performs exorcisms. That role, however, is not Perrineau’s – the former Lost star is the black best friend and confessor. I thought Joan of Arcadia was a pretty decent series that acknowledged the existence of a higher power and allowed its main character to ruminate on faith. I hope that Hall can do the same for the nature of evil with this show.
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New NBC Universal Chief Executive Officer Jeff Zucker proved, once again, that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about when he lashed out at YouTube – on his first day of work. Zucker said of the copyrighted materials that frequently appear on the video sharing site, “YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to [like porn and hate speech]…They have the capability. The question is whether they have the will.”
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Here’s the thing: You can still find porn (of the softcore variety) and hate speech (the comments section) on YouTube if you know how to look. Threatening legal action (like Viacom did) is within these companies rights, but they should be aware that the people who really want to illegally upload stuff are going to find ways to hide within the thousands of videos on YouTube. Case in point: When the Studio 60 upfront promo leaked to YouTube last summer, even after the original was pulled for violation, you could still find the video if you knew to search for “BW” and “AS” (for Bradley Whitford and Aaron Sorkin) rather than “Studio 60.” Going through and removing any video that matches certain keywords won’t work either – the most recent Viacom sweep led to many users’ personal videos being pulled and accounts shut being shut down because one or two keywords matched. I think that you’re just gonna see more and more of that kind of encoding as the media conglomerates start putting pressure on YouTube. Zucker’s comments reveal him as someone who has little to no understanding of the site and the community surrounding it. Why is this guy the new CEO of NBC again?