TAGGED AS: AMC, HBO Max, streaming, television, TV
Bob Odenkirk returns in top form in the Better Call Saul season 6 trailer as Jimmy McGill as he transitions to the Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad. AMC announces another chapter in The Walking Dead universe: Isle of the Dead stars Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. HBO Max has ordered to series The Batman feature film spin-off The Penguin, featuring Colin Farrell as villainous Oswald Cobblepot. Plus, trailers for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and more of biggest news in TV and streaming.
TOP STORY
Well, Better Call Saul fans, with every episode of the first five seasons of the Breaking Bad prequel series, who among us has not come to love Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), Jimmy McGill’s BFF-turned-wife, more and more? It also continued to occur to us that we never saw, nor heard mention, of Kim during Breaking Bad … does that mean, then, that Kim and Jimmy’s relationship ended before Breaking Bad began? Or, gulp, worse, that Kim Wexler herself doesn’t survive the events of Better Call Saul?
Sadly, this week’s release of the dark, tension-filled trailer for the sixth and final season of Better Call Saul does nothing to reassure us that Kim is alive and well and living anywhere near Albuquerque when all is said and done with Saul.
When last we left the ABQ crew, Nacho (Michael Mando) and Mike (Jonathan Banks) — two other fan-favorite characters – had concocted a scheme to rid the world of Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), the most charming, shrewdest of the Salamancas, at his estate in Mexico.
But while Nacho did his part to get Lalo in prime position to succumb to a whole squad of hit men, Lalo’s family and employees ended up as the victims of the hit men, and the hit men ended up as the victims of the wily Lalo, who survived, and now knows for certain that Nacho was responsible for the attack.
The always calm and collected Lalo finally lost his cool. And in the season 6 trailer, it’s clear Lalo is vengeance-minded. Nacho is sure to be on his list, as could everyone from Mike and Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) to Jimmy and Kim (remember Jimmy and Kim’s own run-in with Lalo after Jimmy’s desert misadventure in season 5).
And more problems for Kim and Jimmy are evident in the trailer: The duo ended last season with a plan for their future, when Kim decided she might break bad herself and set Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) up to take a fall that would leave her and Jimmy with a pile of cash. Kim wanted nothing more than to have the financial freedom to work for her pro bono clients, and she was willing to hang her former boss Howard out to dry to do it. But as Kim was thinking about do-gooding (ultimately), Jimmy was thinking about Saul-ing, becoming not just a criminal lawyer, but a “criminal lawyer.” While getting closer with his new clientele and cohorts, he was also getting closer to danger, and that is probably a hint about why he and Kim are hanging out at the nail salon and sleeping in cheesy motel rooms in the new trailer.
The good news is that we won’t have to wait too much longer for the final round of 13 episodes for season 6. The final run of Better Call Saul will premiere on April 18, and will unfold in two parts: the first seven episodes April-May 23, and the final six episodes July 11-August 15.
(Photo by Sam Jones (Lauren Cohan); all images courtesy AMC)
The Walking Dead spin-offs are piling up so quickly it’s almost like the original series isn’t ending at all. The latest sequel to be announced by AMC: Isle of the Dead, which will find enemies Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) “traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.”
The series is set to premiere on AMC and AMC+ in 2023, and will consist of six season 1 episodes, with TWD writer and co-executive producer Eli Jorme as the showrunner and EP of Isle of the Dead.
“Eli has created a chaotic, beautiful, grimy madhouse of the dead for Negan, Maggie, and fans of the show eager to discover an unseen and insane world of the TWD Universe,” said Scott Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead Universe.
“Lauren and Jeffrey have always been fantastic collaborators and now, we bring that collaboration to the next level with a series that will take these characters to their limits with the world — and each other. All of us are thrilled to take you on an all new, all different TWD epic for the ages.”
Previously announced TWD spin-offs that will follow the original series when it ends later this year include the Daryl and Carol spin-off starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride and anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is the much, much-anticipated six-episode limited series that revolves around Ewan McGregor’s “Ben” as he’s living somewhere in Tatooine and will cross paths with the likes of Hayden Christensen, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse. Kumail Nanjiani, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Indira Varma, and Rupert Friend. Premieres May 25 on Disney+.
Read More: Everything We Know About Obi-Wan Kenobi, Disney+’s Upcoming Star Wars Series
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• Bridgerton Season 2 follows Lord Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest Bridgerton sibling and Viscount, as he sets out to find a suitable wife. Driven by his duty to uphold the family name, Anthony’s search for a debutante who meets his impossible standards seems ill-fated until Kate (Simone Ashley) and her younger sister Edwina (Charithra Chandran) Sharma arrive from India. When Anthony begins to court Edwina, Kate discovers the true nature of his intentions — a true love match is not high on his priority list — and decides to do everything in her power to stop the union. But in doing so, Kate and Anthony’s verbal sparring matches only bring them closer together, complicating matters on both sides. Premieres March 25. (Netflix)
• Degrassi: The Next Generation, all 14 seasons, hit HBO Max, making for one killer bingewatch for the Canadian teen classic that introduced us to, among other things, Drake, the early years. Premieres March 25. (HBO Max)
• Angelyne is the limited series about fame, identity, survival, billboards, Corvettes, lingerie, men, women, women teasing men, men obsessed with women, West Hollywood, crystals, UFOs, and most importantly of all, the self-proclaimed Rorschach test in pink, glow-in-the-dark queen of the universe, Angelyne. Stars Emmy Rossum. Premieres May 19. (Peacock)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest Trek spin-off, this one starring Anson Mount as USS Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike in a prequel to the original Trek series. Also stars Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck. Premieres May 5. (Paramount+)
• The Oscars promo trailer finds co-hosts Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes hoping they can do a better job as hosts than the hosts of the last three Oscar hosts, and happily realizing why that’s a sure bet. Airs March 25. (ABC)
• Clive Davis: Most Iconic Performances is the new music and interview series that will feature performances from Tina Turner, the Notorious B.I.G., Aretha Franklin, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Sean “Diddy” Combs, H.E.R., Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, and Rod Stewart. Premieres March 23. (Paramount+)
• The Hardy Boys season 2 picks up six months after the events of season 1, when a Bridgeport classmate mysteriously disappears, Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot) drop their new normal routine to get back to detective work, but when they discover the mystical relic they destroyed last year is still in play, it becomes clear their simple missing person case is actually part of something far more sinister. Premieres April 6. (Hulu)
• Is It Cake? is the series in which skilled cake artists may present creations of delicious cake … or they may have concocted equally delicious foods that look like cheeseburgers, spaghetti, and not-so-edible bowling balls. Saturday Night Live star Mikey Day hosts the competition in which bakers compete to fool judges and win $50,000. Premieres March 18. (Netflix)
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(Photo by courtesy of AMC)
The Better Call Saul gang will wrap up their six-season run on AMC by the end of the summer, but Saul (and Breaking Bad) star Giancarlo Esposito is sticking around the network for his next gig. The actor, who’s earned multiple Emmy nomination for his AMC series work, will star in The Driver, a one-hour drama about a taxi driver (Esposito) whose life is turned upside down after he agrees to chauffer a New Orleans-based Zimbabwean gangster who is notorious for exploiting undocumented immigrants at the U.S. southern ports.
Emmy-winning Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andre Braugher will join the cast of The Good Fight for season 6 at Paramount+, playing Ri’Chard Lane, a showman lawyer and rainmaker who is forced on Liz (Audra McDonald) as a new name partner. Ri’Chard is a wild mix of brilliance, geniality, religion, and joyful hedonism. In short, he’s a handful.
This Is Us star Milo Ventimiglia has signed on for his follow-up role to the NBC drama that will soon air its series finale: he’ll star in and executive produce The Company You Keep, an ABC drama pilot about a conman (Ventimiglia) who falls in love with an undercover CIA officer and unknowingly complicates both their lives when their professional worlds collide. (THR)
On the heels of her NBC limited series The Thing About Pam, Renee Zellweger is returning to TV in Avenger Field, another limited series, this time at Peacock. The drama is in development, and will tell the story of women who created a secret all-female U.S. Air Force program (WASPs – Women Airforce Service Pilots) for the purpose of battling Adolf Hitler from home. Zellweger will play WASP leader Jackie Cohran, who steered the group of women who fought “the system, skeptics, and even sabotage to bring everyone home safely.” (Variety)
Black-ish star Marcus Scribner will join the season 5 cast of Grown-ish, where his Andre Johnson Jr. will join his on-screen sister Zoey, played by Yara Shahidi.
Modern Family star Ariel Winter has replaced Demi Lovato in the NBC comedy pilot Hungry, about a group of friends who belong to a food-issues group.
Another Modern Family alum, Sarah Hyland, and The Good Place’s Jameela Jamil, are joining the cast of Peacock’s Pitch Perfect series that takes place several years after the Pitch Perfect movies.
Nick Offerman is joining William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti in the cast of Peacock’s comedy thriller The Resort. The official description of the series: a multi-generational, coming-of-age love story disguised as a fast-paced mystery about the disappointment of time. An anniversary trip puts a marriage to the test when the couple finds themselves embroiled in one of the Mayan Riviera’s most bizarre unsolved mysteries that took place fifteen years prior.
Rufus Sewell (Man in the High Castle) will play the husband of Keri Russell’s diplomat character who finds herself in the midst of an international crisis when she takes a new job in the Netflix political thriller The Diplomat. (TVLine)
Kevin Can F*** Himself and Mozart in the Jungle actor Raymond Lee will star in NBC’s Quantum Leap sequel series, playing Dr. Ben Seong, a physicist working on a time travel project. The series, set 30 years after the original 1989-93 series that starred Scott Bakula, will also star Ghostbusters actor Ernie Hudson as Herbert “Magic” Williams, a Vietnam veteran who’s leading the time travel project. (Variety)
(Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Batman not only made a splash on the big screen, but the number one movie in America also already claimed a spot in the streaming universe: HBO Max has ordered to series The Penguin, a spin-off of The Batman featuring Colin Farrell’s scene-stealing performance as the villainous Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. The Penguin. Farrell, along with The Batman movie director Matt Reeves, will produce the series that will take a deeper dive into the Penguin character.
Read More: Everything We Know About HBO Max’s The Batman Spin-Offs
Disney+ has greenlit The Muppets Mayhem, a comedy series starring The Muppets on a music-filled journey as, at long last, The Electric Mayhem Band records its first ever album. Lilly Singh (A Little Late with Lilly Singh) will play the (human) lead role of Nora, the junior A&R executive tasked with managing and wrangling the mayhem that is The Electric Mayhem Band.
Amazon has ordered two seasons of an animated comedy series from Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award–winning Ramy actor, director, and comedian Ramy Youssef, who will, through his Cairo Cowboy banner, create and produce content that, along with the animated series, will exclusively stream on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. The animated comedy series will explore “the experiences of a Muslim-American family that must learn how to code-switch as they navigate the early 2000s: A time of fear, war, and the rapid expansion of the boy-band industrial complex.”
Hulu has given a series order to Career Opportunities in Murder and Mayhem, an hour-long drama series about “the world’s once greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth, and his protégée” who are looking to solve a murder on board an ocean liner full of wealthy and powerful people who all have something to hide. The series stars Mandy Patinkin, Violett Beane, Lauren Patten, Rahul Kohli, Angela Zhou, Hugo Diego Garcia, and Pardis Saremi.
Shonda Rhimes has set her follow-up to her hit Netflix original series Inventing Anna: The Residence, a mystery ordered straight to series. The drama will be inspired by author Kate Anderson’s book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House to unfold a murder mystery story that THR.com classifies as a “screwball whodunit.” Rhimes had another big reveal this week: she’s a Barbie doll.
The Expanse creators Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins are in talks with Amazon and Sony to make a live-action series based on the PlayStation game God of War. (Deadline)
More on the gaming industry: Norman Lear and his producing partner Brent Miller are teaming to create Gamergate, a scripted, fictional series about the 2014 “Gamergate” online harassment campaign against Brianna Wu, a journalist, computer programmer, and game developer. Wu created the series with J. Brad Wilke. (Deadline)
ESPN will premiere “Fifty/50,” a month-long series of short-form and long-form documentaries directed by women to celebrate the milestone in June of the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational institution that receives federal funding, and has been instrumental in ensuring female athletes of all ages have athletic opportunities. (Variety)
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