Late-night talk show hosts came down big on the side of free speech Wednesday night, after shootings in Paris left 12 people dead at the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. “I know very few people go into comedy as an act of courage… mainly because it shouldn’t have to be that,” Stewart said during his monologue of The Daily Show. “Those guys at Hebdo… were killed for their cartoons.” Conan O’Brien also opened his show with remarks about the shooting. “There was a terrible tragedy in France today; 12 people were killed because a satirical newspaper made jokes that some group found offensive,” O’Brien said, adding “[this] really hits home for anyone who, day in and day out, mocks political, social and religious figures.” Also on Wednesday evening, Bill Maher appeared as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live, calling for a complete condemnation of the attacks, and comedian Louis C.K. showed his support for Charlie Hebdo by wearing a hand-written t-shirt with the magazine’s name on it during his act last night at Madison Square Garden.
This week, Rotten Tomatoes announced its Golden Tomato Awards, honoring the best films and television series of 2014 according to professional critics. In the TV categories, The CW’s Jane the Virgin won the GTA for Best New Series and Best Comedy. “This is incredible and I’m thrilled! Thanks to the critics for saying nice things, and to Rotten Tomatoes,” Jane creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman said in a statement. NBC’s Hannibal also won two GTAs — one for Best Returning Series and one for Best Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy series. “As Hannibal is, at its heart, a cooking show, it is a g-dash-d damned delight to be honored with the Golden Tomato, as rarefied a fruit as the Cannibal himself,” writer and executive producer Bryan Fuller said. Also taking home the Tomato were FX’s Fargo for Best TV Movie/Miniseries and CBS’s The Good Wife for Best Drama. See all the 2014 winners here.
We’ve got chills; they’re multiplyin’. In his first TV role since Welcome Back Kotter which ended in 1979, John Travolta will star as defense attorney Robert Shapiro in the upcoming FX miniseries American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. Travolta, who is also serving as a producer for the show, will join Simpson’s legal “dream team” alongside David Schwimmer, who was cast as Robert Kardashian. Sarah Paulson, who stars on FX’s anthology series American Horror Story, will play prosecutor Marcia Clark. Based on the book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin, the miniseries will portray the sensational and chaotic murder trial from the perspective of the lawyers involved. Welcome back, Vinnie Barbarino.
Fans of last year’s Cosmos need to make sure they have NatGeo by this April, which is when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will host his own TV show, Star Talk. “Cosmos allowed us to share the awesome power of the universe with a global audience in ways that we never thought possible,” Tyson said. “To be able to continue to spread wonder and excitement through Star Talk, which is a true passion project for me, is beyond exciting.” Tyson’s NatGeo program will follow a similar format to his popular podcast by the same name, including conversations with scientists, comedians, and celebrities — plus Tyson plans on giving Bill Nye a platform for a one-minute rant on each episode. Star Talk will tape with a studio audience at New York’s Museum of Natural History in the Hayden Planetarium and premiere alongside the NatGeo special, Hubble’s Cosmic Journey.
For the first time in IMAX history, a TV show will take to the massive screen. Two episodes of Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s sweeping fantasy epic, will have a one-week run on 150 IMAX screens, starting Jan. 23. Packaged together as a movie, the exhibition will feature the last two episodes of season four — “The Watchers on the Wall” and “The Children” — which means that fans will get to see the cinematic scenes at Castle Black on a 50-foot screen remastered to suit IMAX’s specifications. The stunt will also feature a new trailer for season five, which was created exclusively for IMAX. “We couldn’t think of a series more fitting than Game of Thrones to be the first presented in IMAX,” said Greg Foster of IMAX Corp. “The scope and production quality of the show is quite remarkable, which will be highlighted even further.”
