Friday, November 13, 2015

Around the Tubes: 11/13/15



I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on FX(X) Winter Premieres, The Spymasters, Live from Lincoln Center, The Art of More, The Carol Burnett Show, Disneynature marathon, First You Dream − The Music of Kander and Ebb, Quiet Riot: Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back, and Rebel Geeks.


- FX Networks has set the premiere dates for new and returning series on FX and FXX this winter, including the new comedy series Baskets (Thursday, January 21 at 10:00) starring Zach Galifianakis and the new limited series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson (Tuesday, February 2 at 10:00), it was announced this week by Chuck Saftler, President of Program Strategy and COO, FX Networks. FXX will also welcome back It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Wednesday, January 6 at 10:00), the longest-running series in FX history, for Season 11, and Man Seeking Woman ((Wednesday, January 6 at 10:30) for Season 2. The Peabody Award-winning drama The Americans will return with its fourth season in March on FX.

- For the first time in history, all 12 living directors of the CIA will be interviewed in The Spymasters – CIA in the Crosshairs, a two-hour documentary premiering Saturday, November 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME across all platforms. Narrated by Emmy® and Tony® winner Mandy Patinkin (Homeland), the film offers a remarkable inside look into the spy agency’s controversial conduct in the war on terror – marked by the use of brutal interrogation techniques, secret prisons and lethal drone warfare. Written by Chris Whipple (The President’s Gatekeepers), The Spymasters is directed by Jules and Gédéon Naudet (the Emmy, Peabody® and DuPont® award-winning 9/11) in a joint SHOWTIME and CBS News production. Executive producers are Jules and Gédéon Naudet, Chris Whipple, Susan Zirinsky and David Hume Kennerly.

- The PBS Arts Fall Festival continues with Live from Lincoln Center – “Act One” on Friday, November 13, airing from 9:00 p.m. – 11:30 p.m. ET (check local listings). Few have captured the magic of the theatre better than Moss Hart, a poor kid from the Bronx who went on to become a lion of Broadway. The writer of classic comedies with George S. Kaufman including “You Can’t Take it With You” and “The Man Who Came To Dinner,” and the director of the original production of “My Fair Lady,” Moss’s memoir (“Act One”) has captivated theater lovers for over 50 years. In this Tony Award-nominated Best Play from Lincoln Center Theater, James Lapine has fittingly re-imagined this memoir for the stage, creating a world as vivid and transformative as the stage itself. “Act One” features a first-rate cast led by Tony Shalhoub, Andrea Martin and Santino Fontana.

- Sony’s Crackle officially has entered the original drama field with its first hourlong series, The Art Of More, starring Dennis Quaid. Christian Cooke (Magic City) has been cast as the co-lead opposite Quaid in the project, which has received a 10-episode straight-to-series order from the digital network. Kate Bosworth (Still Alice) co-stars.


- Time Life, creator and direct marketer of unique music and home entertainment products, today announces the launch of The Carol Burnett Show Official YouTube Channel. Burnett's beloved series officially comes to streaming video consumers as the Carol-approved, complete home for The Carol Burnett Show on YouTube. The channel will launch with more than twenty full-length sketches featuring the whole gang - Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence, and Lyle Waggoner - in "Tudball & Wiggins," "The Family," "Carol and Sis" and "The Oldest Man," with hilarious crack-up moments throughout. Additionally, fans will be treated to celebrity interviews and more at youtube.com/carolburnettshowofficial. Each week throughout the holiday season, Time Life will offer the gift of laughter with new full-length sketches and custom content posted on Carol's #FavoritesFridays.

- Nat Geo WILD’s Thanksgiving celebration is an epic lineup of animal adventures that will keep the whole family glued to the couch for 10 days straight. Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 26, kicks things off at 1/12c with a best of Disneynature daylong marathon, featuring heartwarming and inspiring films. Big Cat Week follows as the anchor event, featuring Cougars Undercover, a groundbreaking special that reveals the private life of a secret predator, premiering Friday, Nov. 27, at 9:00. The week also features three straight nights of Safari Live, beaming the wilds of Africa directly into your living room in real time, premiering Friday, Nov. 27, at 11:00. Wild Yellowstone, an award-winning two-hour spectacle, rounds out the WILD holiday with an innovative special that pushes the boundaries of wildlife filmmaking, offering audiences some of the park’s most spectacular views and intimate wildlife stories ever captured on film, premiering Sunday, Dec. 6, at 9:00.

- The PBS Arts Fall Festival continues with PBS’ First You Dream − The Music of Kander and Ebb, which airs Friday, November 20, 2015, at 9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings). The one-hour special, based on the musical revue conceived by stage director Eric Schaeffer and music director David Loud, features some of the greatest and best-known Broadway songs ever written. First You Dream features a stellar cast of Broadway veterans singing the duo’s songs, including Norm Lewis (Phantom of the Opera, Porgy & Bess, Les Miserables), Heidi Blickenstaff (The Little Mermaid, The Addams Family, Something Rotten), Kate Baldwin (Finian’s Rainbow, Big Fish, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Julia Murney (Crimes of the Heart, First Lady Suite, Evita), Matthew Scott (Sondheim on Sondheim, Jersey Boys, A Catered Affair) and James Clow (Peter Pan, Wonderful Town, Company, She Loves Me)

- Following its screening at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Quiet Riot: Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back, the year’s funniest heartbreaking rock documentary about the seminal heavy-metal band Quiet Riot, releases on DVD on Thursday, November 19 and contains over an hour of bonus features. The first 500 pre-orders of the award-winning documentary will receive an autographed copy signed by Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and director Regina Russell. The film is also available via streaming, video-on-demand with an hour of bonus features, deleted scenes and extended interviews. For more information, and to see the trailer, visit www.QuietRiotMovie.com.

- Al Jazeera’s new seven-part documentary series Rebel Geeks, premiering 16th November at 2230GMT profiles those techies who are turning away from the corporate mainstream and using their skills to question surveillance, empower activists, and challenge existing power structures. With services like email and social media, Amazon and Apple Pay, health, diet and even sleep-tracking, technology is pushing ever deeper into modern lives. This is good, say Silicon Valley tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook, for the more technology is embraced the more efficiency and personal empowerment it can deliver.

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