Television
Amy Schumer to Produce Comedy Central Show Starring Rachel Feinstein
BBC to Adapt J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike Mystery Series for Television
J.K. Rowling’s post-Hogwarts mystery series is coming to television. Well, to British television, anyway. The BBC will adapt Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm — the two...
Trailer Watch: Hannah Grows Up (Just a Little Bit) in New Spot for ‘Girls’ Season 4
Trailer Watch: Angela Bassett Directs Yaya DaCosta in Whitney Houston Biopic for Lifetime
I’ll say this for Lifetime: The cable network may draw little in the way of “prestige” attention, but it’s at least making mainstream, widely available movies about women of color like...
Krysten Ritter to Play Superheroine Jessica Jones in Netflix Series
If you’re still mourning the end of Don’t Trust the B — — , here’s some good news: Krysten Ritter is returning to television. According to Deadline, Ritter has been cast as Jessica...
Tina Fey’s ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Greenlit for Two Seasons at Netflix
30 Rock will no longer be Tina Fey’s TV home. After writing and starring in SNL and 30 Rock for a combined 15 years at NBC, Fey has jumped ship (at least temporarily) to Netflix. Her next series,...
Natalie Dormer to Star in BBC2 Period Drama About Real-Life Adultery Court Case
Before The Scarlet Letter imprinted Hester Prynne with an indelible “A,” there was 18th-century noblewoman Lady Seymour Worsley, who caused a scandal — and inspired a court...
Misty Copeland to Star in Reality Show on Oxygen
Misty Copeland is bringing her talent to the masses. Usually seen at work only in rarefied halls like the American Ballet Theatre, Copeland has been increasing her visibility off the stage in...
Is ‘State of Affairs’ Katherine Heigl’s Big Comeback?
How Not to Do Gender or Racial Diversity: A Lesson from David Letterman
When David Letterman retires next year after 22 years on the air, one of the legacies he’ll leave behind is his contribution to the maintenance of late-night TV as one of the last bastions of...
Trailer Watch: ‘Girls’ Season 4: “Taking the Next Step in a Series of Random Steps”
The Season 3 finale of Girls marked the biggest shakeup in the show’s history: Hannah (Lena Dunham) is off to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Adam (Adam Driver) is about to make his Broadway debut,...
ABC to Air Modern-Day ‘Little Women’ Miniseries Starring Natascha McElhone
Twenty years after the big-screen adaptation starring Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women will be translated for the screen again, this...
‘The Mindy Project’ Finds Its Footing (By Occasionally Slipping)
EXCLUSIVE: ShortsHD Celebrates Women Filmmakers with ‘100 Films By Her’ Month
ShortsHD, a high-definition cable network dedicated to short movies, will celebrate women directors this month with a 100 Films By Her special. Programming will consist of works from established and...
Sharon Stone to Star as Vice President in TNT’s Political-Conspiracy Miniseries ‘Agent X’
The latest movie star to sign up for a limited small-screen engagement is Sharon Stone, who’ll play the Vice President of the United States in the political thriller Agent X on TNT. Stone will...
Kyra Sedgwick to Headline HBO Comedy About Ex-Nun
After starring in seven seasons of The Closer, Kyra Sedgwick will trade her badge for a wimple — then her wimple for a shot at an ordinary life. The Emmy-winning actress will star as an...
Watch: Jill Soloway Delivers Keynote About Nearly Quitting Hollywood and Her 5-Year Plan for ‘Transparent’
Elizabeth Banks to Produce and Direct Comedic Take on ‘The X-Files’ for ABC
After helming Pitch Perfect 2 as her directorial debut, Elizabeth Banks will go behind the camera once more, this time for the small screen. Banks will executive produce and direct the ABC comedy...
‘The Affair’ Rewrites the Femme Fatale Script
Mild spoilers below for the first two episodes of The Affair. Is Showtime’s The Affair more about her side than his? Co-creator Sarah Treem (with In Treatment colleague Hagai Levi; like the show,...
Trailer Watch: Valerie Cherish Attempts Another ‘Comeback’ in Season 2
Television has changed a great deal since The Comeback was last on the air a decade ago, but it’s a fair guess that showbiz narcissism hasn’t. Perhaps that’s why Lisa Kudrow’s mockumentary...
Jenny Bicks to Adapt ‘Marley & Me’ for TV
Marley & Me, the 2008 dramedy about the death of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston’s beloved labrador retriever, is the latest film to be adapted for TV. Jenny Bicks, best known as a writer on...
Learning from ‘Transparent’ and ‘OITNB’: There’s No Single Right Way to Do Diversity
We often talk about the need for diversity in Hollywood, but we rarely talk about how to do it. This leaves us with the clumsy approach in practice today, as writer Beejoli Shah discovered last...
Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2
Top of the Lake was one of the most notable breakthroughs in television of the last five years, a masterwork of tone, suspense, and cinematography that upended the routinely sexist murder-mystery...
Monica Potter to Star in NBC Sitcom Produced by Ellen DeGeneres
Parenthood star Monica Potter, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal as Kristina Braverman, will headline a new sitcom on NBC when the critically acclaimed family drama goes off the...
4 Ways Shonda Rhimes Is Changing the Conversation About Herself
As TV’s most successful female showrunner — and TV’s most successful black showrunner — there are a lot of questions Shonda Rhimes is sick of being asked. Sometimes well-intended,...
The Mother of all Bad Guys: ‘Homeland’ Returns
[This essay contains some spoilers for the last episode of Homeland Season 3 and the first two episodes of Season 4.] I’ve never watched a character go from complicated to villainous in the public...
Scarlett Johansson to Star in Edith Wharton Miniseries
No one’s had a better career in the last year than Scarlett Johansson. She earned enthusiastic praise (and some Oscar consideration) for a vocal performance in Her, followed up with crowd-pleasing...
‘Bad Judge’ Review: I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This
I’m going to use the word bad a lot in this post, and I already feel bad about it. As must actress Kate Walsh, who took on a seemingly interesting lead role in Bad Judge, the new NBC comedy about...
All-Female Sports Talk Show to Debut Sept. 30
Just a few weeks after the Ray Rice video plainly illustrated that women’s issues (and a humane sense of right and wrong) are sorely lacking in both professional sports and its commentariat, the...
‘Key & Peele’s’ Lady Problem (And the Perils of Loving Comedy While Female)
Supergirl Coming to TV
Superheroes haven’t just taken over the multiplex, but the Huluplex too. Debuting this fall are Fox’s Gotham and NBC’s Constantine, which will join CW’s The Flash (in its first season) and...
Liz Heldens to Write New Show from Carol Mendelsohn
Few industries have been as utterly transformed in the past decade like those of journalism and the media. Former CSI showrunner Carol Mendelsohn is spinning that anxiety about the changing job...
Alessandra Stanley or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Marginalize Black Women
I thought about whether or not I wanted to dignify the verbal sludge that is Alessandra Stanley’s article about How To Get Away With Murder (and Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal) showrunner Shonda...
The Stagnation of Opportunities for Women on TV
From my latest Forbes post on how the progress for women writers and especially directors on the small screen has stalled: Women are stuck, and that is even more clearly illustrated in the data...
Guest Post: Why I Couldn’t Turn Down Starz’s Filmmaking Experiment ‘The Chair’
When I was offered the role of filmmaker/guinea pig on Chris Moore’s The Chair, a filmmaking experiment-turned-docu-series currently airing on Starz, it was a no brainer. The premise of The Chair...
‘Madam Secretary’ is Her Own Woman
When early news of the CBS series Madam Secretary came out, word was the title role was a fictionalized version of Hillary Clinton. (Meanwhile, NBC was said to be developing a Hillary-centric...
Lesley Arfin and Judd Apatow to Create Netflix Show for Gillian Jacobs
When Judd Apatow announced earlier this year that he was collaborating with Amy Schumer on a big-screen vehicle for the brassy Comedy Central star, we celebrated his mid-career shift into mentoring...
Women Created Only 20% of TV Shows Last Season
The current narrative in the media zeitgeist is that TV is so much better for women than film. Well, it might seem so on the surface, because you see more women on our TV screens, but when you drill...
Guest Post: ‘Srugim’ Brings Orthodox Jewish Women’s Feminist Struggles to the Small Screen
The Israeli series Srugim, which ran from 2008 to 2011, was a watershed moment for how women areportrayed on Israeli television. The show raised the bar particularly with its sympathetic depiction...
Angela Kinsey to Co-Write and Star in Female Buddy Comedy
The truly challenging thing after a breakup isn’t staying friends with your ex. It’s making friends with your ex’s new lover. But what if it wasn’t so hard? That’s the premise that Angela...
Caitlin Moran’s Autobiographical Sitcom Gets Season Order
Fans of Caitlin Moran, stories about sisters, economic diversity on TV, and humor in general now have cause to rejoice. Raised by Wolves, written by the author of the best-selling laugh-out-loud...
Viola Davis is Still Waiting to Be Seen
Despite doing work that’s won her two Tony Awards, two Academy Award nominations, two Screen Actor Guild Awards, a Golden Globe nod, and a spot on Time’s 100 Most Influential People list,...
Trailer Watch: Claire Danes is a “Soldier in a War” and a New Mom in ‘Homeland’ Season 4
When Homeland killed off Brody and fired Saul from the CIA in the third season’s finale, it pushed the restart button on the show. The new trailer for Season 4 hints at what’s next: Carrie is...
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Halle Berry’s Production Company Gets Pilot Deal
With two episodes left in the debut season of her CBS sci-fi mystery series Extant, Halle Berry has signaling that she is taking another step in making television her new medium. Berry’s...
Is Hillary Clinton Fall’s Biggest TV Star?
America has never been readier for a female president, which may be why there are two new shows about women politicos this fall. The NY Times argues that CBS’s Madam Secretary and NBC’s State...
‘Awkward’ Creator Lauren Iungerich Sells ‘Couch Detective’ to ABC
Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich has secured a put-pilot commitment from ABC for her new comedic murder-mystery series Couch Detective. Iungerich has teamed up with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on the...
Mary-Louise Parker to Play Writer Mary Karr in New Showtimes Series
Unlike its distant rival HBO, Showtime has struggled for years to capture prestige for its original programming. The other premium cable network recently accomplished just that with the...
Patricia Clarkson and Ruba Nadda to Reteam for HBO Drama
After winning two Emmys for her guest turn as Sarah O’Connor on HBO’s Six Feet Under, Patricia Clarkson is eyeing a return to the premium channel, this time in a starring role. Clarkson is in...
Fall’s Fab Female Showrunners
“What a wonderful time for women on television!” said Julianna Margulies during her Emmy acceptance speech for The Good Wife last week. The remark, while not untrue, was somewhat undermined by...
Emmys Rundown: The Good, the Bad, the Gender Disparity