Friday, December 19, 2025
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UPDATE CBS Cancels “NCIS: Hawai’i” After Three Seasons: Did LL Cool J Cost Too Much? Was It the Female Lead?

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CBS has cancelled “NCIS: Hawai’i”? Was it the apostrophe? Was it LL Cool J’s salary? Did focus groups not like Vanessa Lachey as a female leader of the NCIS?

Alas, it’s gone, leaving just regular “NCIS” and the one based in Sydney, Australia, both of which are coming back. Last year “NCIS Los Angeles” ended its run after the New Orleans branch shut down, too.

This is what I wrote earlier: t all comes down to money. CBS added LLCool J, who was the co-star of “NCIS: LA” to the Hawaii show this season for a few episodes. But “Hawai’i” already has stars in Jason Antoon and Vanessa Lachey. Would paying CBS’s favorite rapping actor tip over the budget? May be!

CBS just renewed “The Equalizer” with Queen Latifah after a long negotiation. These shows are all hits, given the declining number of viewers overall on TV. The Tiffany network has already cancelled the popular “So Help Me, Todd.” Considering the whole “NCIS” universe, you’d think they’d want “Hawai’i” back, too, just for the extra apostrophe.

Me? I’m waiting for “NCIS Hartford.”

“Parks and Rec,” “Severance” Star Adam Scott Will Direct First Feature, with Sterling K. Brown, Zazie Beetz

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You know Adam Scott from “Parks and Recreation,” “Severance,” and dozens of other smart movies and TV shows.

Now he’s going to direct his first feature. “Double Booked” will be a thriller starring Sterling K. Brown, Zazie Beetz, and Alexandra D’Addario.

Protagonist Pictures is taking it to Cannes to the market, my favorite place. That’s where they’ll raise money and find international distribution. The market has zero charm. It’s located under the casino near the marina and has Soviet touches in the architecture. Once you’re inside, the convention atmosphere is broken up by people from all over the world selling movies you or may not see in the future. It’s a lot of fun!

Storyline:

“Double Booked” follows a successful self-help writer (Scott) and his heavily pregnant wife (Beetz) who organize a weekend away at a secluded lodge, only to encounter another couple (Brown and Daddario) at their cabin when they arrive. With a blizzard moving in they are forced to spend the night together, and what seems like an innocent system error turns into a chilling battle of deceit with deadly consequences.

Good luck to them all, and enjoy the Marche! It’s a kick!

Box Office: “Challengers” Gets the Ball Just Over the Net with Zendaya’s Plot-Challenged Sexy Tennis Mis-Match

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“Challengers” proved a little challenging last night at the box office.

The Zendaya tennis menage a trois made $1.9 million last night in previews, including earlier screenings. It’s good but not great and points to maybe an ambivalent audience response.

This rom-dram co-stars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist best guy friends who are maybe a little gay-ish. They fall in love with Zendaya on the tennis court. There’s a lot of sex, sex, sex. I thought the young demo audience would rush to see it.

“Challengers” should be promoted for the sex and the young people, and to Zendaya’s audience. The stars have done a ton of press. There may have been a New York premiere.

Look for a $14 million opening weekend unless word of mouth is great and “Challengers” takes off like a soaring tennis ball over the weekend. One reason it might not — and I saw this on Twitter reports over night — the time line of the film is very hard to follow. Every other scene has a card that reads “Ten Years Earlier,” “Fifteen Years Earlier,” “Three Days from Now.” It’s worse than “Lost’!

American Idol: Samantha Diaz aka Just Sam Returns to Show Sunday Four Years After Winning

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Samantha Diaz is returning to “American Idol” this Sunday.

Diaz, aka Just Sam, won the content four years ago, in 2020. She arrived there as New York subway performer, or busker.

After she won, her career did not take off. Diaz returned to the subway platform, where she’s been ever since.

Her 2020 win coincided with the beginning of COVID. She admitted in a later interview “no one wanted to work in a studio.”

“Back in 2021, I was super embarrassed to be going back to the trains. I didn’t want people to know that I legit needed the money & I didn’t want people to know that it wasn’t optional,” Diaz wrote, in a since-deleted post. “I was disappointed in myself for allowing myself to fall so low after winning Idol, but then I had to take it easy on me and remember that I started my journey with Idol at 20 years old. Not even knowing anything about Hollywood or the music industry.”

Two days ago, Diaz — who has a phenomenal voice and deserves a real music career — posted this message to Instagram:

Broadway: Fleetwood Mac’s 70s Soap Opera is Now a Play Whether They Like it Or Not

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I don’t know what the surviving members of Fleetwood Mac have made of “Stereophonic.”

The play about a mid 70s rock band taking three years to record their masterpiece has opened at the St. James Theater to raves. I saw it last night. This was the place to be: Hugh Jackman was sitting next to me. Lucas Hedges was in front of me. Carla Gugino was in the audience.

“Stereophonic” with music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler opened at Playwrights Horizons last fall and immediately sold out. The play is by David Adjmi and is directed by Daniel Aukin. No matter how you slice it this a three hour, four act play with music about Fleetwood Mac recording “Rumours” back in 1976. The five members of the band were sleeping and fighting with each other. This is not about Led Zeppelin or an imagined group. It’s dead on Mac. And cheese.

The trick they’ve pulled off is bringing together a group of actors with no musical background who have formed a real band. Also, Butler’s songs are legit faux Fleetwood down to the harmonies and rhythms. It works.

Chris Stack is Simon, the drummer. aka Mick Fleetwood. Then there are two couples — Sarah Pidgeon as Stevie Nicks, Tom Pecinka as Lindsey Buckingham, Juliana Canfield as Christine McVie, and Will Brill (who you’ll recognized as Midge’s brother from “Mrs. Maisel”) as John McVie. They have character names, but they don’t matter.

The band — which has no name — is being babysat by two humorous audio engineers played by Eli Gelb and Andrew R. Butler.

“Stereophonic” — especially in the first act — is overlong and repetitive. But what it gets right is the setting — a recording studio — and the boredom of fiddling around to get an album right. The finished album is the product of composing, collaborating, and fighting to get it all right. In the case of “Rumours,” this was hard since the McVies’ marriage was splitting apart, Buckingham and Nicks were romantically over, and Fleetwood was stirring the pot. How they made any records at all remains a mystery that Aukin is trying to solve.

Sometimes there are moment of great clarity. There are also a lot of tears as the women, especially, are realizing their importance to the group but are having trouble asserting power. Sometimes “Stereophonic” seems like DA Pennebaker directing a cinema verite “Spinal Tap.”

The producers are using quotes from Talking Heads’ David Byrne to promote the show. He would understand about a band making great records despite fighting internally all the time. The “Stereophonic” band represents every group in a way, even the Beatles (and there are a couple of lines taken right from “Let it Be” when George Harrison becomes fed up with Paul McCartney).

The charm here is the performers, who turn out to be very talented (even as they told the NY Times, it’s accidental). Their English accents are spot on. Their singing and playing is good enough that it sounds tight. Aukin makes good use of pre-recorded material so that he gives the cast the appearance of being together all the time.

“Stereophonic” will have a good run. It’s officially a play with music, not a musical, for Tony Awards consideration. It’s playing at the St. James, previously home to a real rock band — Green Day — and their musical, “American Idiot.” But don’t expect to see Nicks, Buckingham, Fleetwood, or John McVie on the aisle. They know this story by heart.

“Law & Order: Organized Crime” Moves to Peacock as Dick Wolf Potentially Loses An Hour of Prime Time

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Dick Wolf has lost an hour of prime time TV.

NBC Universal is moving “Law & Order Organized Crime” from the network to streaming on Peacock. The ratings deprived crime show has never caught on at 10pm despite massive efforts to cross it over with “SVU.”

Now Wolf loses his three hour block on NBC on Thursdays, while still keeping his three hours on CBS with “FBI” shows and Wednesdays on NBC with “Chicago” variants.

Do you remember how this all started? Wolf was supposed to deliver a different “Law & Order” show to NBC but it didn’t work out. Thinking it was happening, NBC killed “Manifest,” a popular show, so that Wolf could take the evening with “Law & Order” and “SVU.”

It turned out Wolf’s team had never developed the show they promised. “Manifest” moved to Netflix because fans were furious that it had been cancelled mid-cliff hanger.

Then Wolf and co. came up with “Organized Crime.” The show never had a purpose other than to feature Chris Meloni as Elliot Stabler. At least five showrunners have come and gone since then. They’ve wasted Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn as Meloni’s mother. Dylan McDermott managed to escape and go to the “FBI” on CBS after his run on “OC” was a failure.

Now “OC” will get 10 streaming episodes that no one will watch. And Tuesdays at 10pm are up in the air unless Wolf can developed “Law & Order: Taylor Swift.”

Listen to Barbra Streisand’s Gorgeous New Song, “Love Will Survive,” Anthem Against Antisemitism

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Barbra Streisand has dropped a new single today/

“Love Will Survive” was written and recorded to combat antisemitism, and is from a TV movie called “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.” It’s co-written by Mariah Carey’s long time songwriter Walter Afanasieff.

PS Streisand’s voice sounds like buttah!

Shocker: Harvey Weinstein NY Conviction Overturned by Panel of Female Judges

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Harvey Weinstein’s conviction has been overturned by a panel of appellate judges, mostly female.

Judge Jenny Rivera wrote the 4-3 majority opinion, joined by Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and Appellate Division Justices Betsy Barros and Christine Clark, who stepped in for recused Judges Caitlin Halligan and Shirley Troutman.

Judges Michael Garcia, Madeline Singas and Anthony Cannataro dissented, with the latter two jurists writing separately.

They’ve ruled the NY court made a mistake allowing women who were not part of the trial to testify against Weinstein.

Rivera wrote that Weinstein had a right to only answer for the crimes charged.

“The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless,” Rivera wrote, while noting Weinstein’s absence of a prior criminal history. “The only evidence against defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined defendant’s right to testify. The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said on Thursday that the office vows to “do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.”

The news broke just after 9am. It’s unclear if Weinstein even knows yet. I’m told his attorney, Arthur Aidala, will have a press conference today at 1:30pm after he goes through all the information.

From the Associated Press:

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s 4-3 decision said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

The court’s majority said “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.”

In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.

Weinstein still has a 16 year sentence in Los Angeles from a separate trial. But the overturning of the 23 year sentence in New York is a major victory and a vindication, of sorts. His accusers are already voicing their unhappiness, but they can blame the judge and prosecutors in the case for rushing to make mistakes.

https://apnews.com/article/weinstein-metoo-appeal-ed29faeec862abf0c071e8bd3574c4a3

New Taylor Swift “Poets” Album on Track to Have 3rd Highest Debut Ever in First Week Sales with 2.8 Million Copies

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The poets are not so tortured.

Hitsdailydouble.com reports that Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” will finish its first week with record sales.

“Poets” is on track for 1.8 million albums and downloads including CDs and LPs. Another 600,000 is coming from streaming.

If you count “Poets” at 2.4 million, it will be third behind all time record holder Adele’s 25 album, and NSync’s “No Strings Attached.”

This Swiftian victory is achieved through offering multiple versions of the album in different configurations and colors, all “collectible” for her fans. There are also two different actual albums — the that was announced with 16, and an “Anthology” with 31 tracks.

Swift is definitely at the top of her popularity even though no one really knows what it means. She is certainly prolific, and a great marketer. But is she turning into the musical equivalent of late artist Thomas Kinkade or even “big eyes” painter Margaret Keane? That remains the question.

“Poets” has a lock on the pop charts until May 17th when Billie Eilish’s new album is released. There will be a couple of other releases between now and then, but it’s unlikely Swift can be dethroned.

Apart from “Poets,” by the way, Swift has sold the equivalent of 4.7 million albums just this year. About a million are hard sales, the rest from streaming.

KISS Front Man Gene Simmons Adds 1 Million Viewers to Sunday “American Idol” as Mentor

Stunt casting works!

Ratings deprived “American Idol” jumped by 1 million viewers in the Sunday night ratings.

The reason was the appearance of KISS front man Gene Simmons as a mentor to the top 14 finalists.

“Idol” has been anemic so far in numbers and needed a jolt. Simmons did the trick.

“Idol” has already announced that Jon Bon Jovi is coming soon, and we’ll see who else they round up. Are they paying these big rock stars? I would guess so, and quite a lot. Especially when they realize their impact on the ratings! Numbers rose 20% in total viewers to 5.1 million, and up 2% in the age demo.

Later on today we’ll see if that helped with Monday’s numbers, too.