Kate Gosselin is heading into half-empty-nest turf
.Her twins are going to college; two of her sextuplets are living with her ex-husband. She’s just four teen-agers away from rattling around an empty house.
What’s next?“We’ve been nudging her to date for years,” said Mandy Gosselin, 18, one of the twins.
So that will be another TV show; “Kate Plus Date” has a six-episode summer run. Read more…
Mohammed Hossain is your almost-typical working guy.
He says he drives his cab 14 hours a day, seven days a week for less than $25,000 a year. And that’s if you don’t count his loan payments. In a three-years stretch, he was supposed to pay $717,500.
“I know so many drivers, they kill themselves,” Hossain (shown here) says in the June 9 episode of “The Weekly,” the compelling cable series focusing on New York Times reporters. “But I love my family.”
That leaves the broader questions: Why would a guy below the poverty line borrow a fortune? And who would loan it to him? Read more…
For the next couple months, it seems, our TV sets will be space-crazy.
And it won’t end there. The National Geographic Channel has just announced a “The Right Stuff” series that will begin next year.
Most of this is keyed to July 20, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. ABC already featured that in its “1969” series …. PBS has declared this its “Summer of Space” … and cable channels are piling on. Read more…
There’s a special quality to Ruth Westheimer.
You could call it puckish or pixie-like or impish. She prefers “joie de vivre” and “zest for life.”
By any name, it’s impressive. Here is a tiny (4-foot-7) woman with a genial face and a quick wit. As milestones approach – a documentary Saturday on Hulu, three days before she tuns 91 – she seems downright joyous, whether giving sex advice or just having fun.
“I tell everybody not to retire, but to rewire,” Westheimer said. “And I’ve been very fortunate that I’m very healthy. I skied until a few years ago.” Read more…
By now, Julianna Margulies should be an expert on medicine and on the law.
She spent six years as a nurse on “ER,” seven as a lawyer on “The Good Wife.” Now the “Hot Zone” mini-series (shown here) has her as the real-life doctor who fought to stop Ebola from spreading into the U.S.
Surely, those “ER” years helped her master the vocabulary. Or not. “It didn’t, sadly, help at all,” Margulies said, “because I don’t have a medical brain.” Read more…
There’s a time (a brief one) when seasons merge.
Baseball meets basketball and hockey; leftovers from the departed TV season overlap with the summer.
All of that is right now. Cable usually rules the summer, but even the five old-line networks are busy. Read more…
In the newspaper world, there are opposite extremes.
There’s the quick whirl of breaking news. Deadlines loom, editors wait, expectations build. And there’s the way the New York Times and some others approach a detailed piece.
Viewers will see that when “The Weekly” debuts June 2 on FX.
“To spend six, nine, 12 months on (a story) is something that The Times has always done,” said Caitlin Dickerson, whose immigration report is scheduled for June 16. Read more…
Megan Hilty has built an impressive life from second-hand parts.
“Most of my career (is) basically stuff that other people have already made ridiculously famous,” said Hilty, who has a special Friday (May 24) on PBS.
That started as Kristen Chenoweth’s stand-by in “Wicked,” on Broadway. “It was terrifying …. My Broadway debut, I had two-hours’ notice. It was opposite Idina Menzel, shortly after she won her Tony. And I’d never done the show with people before.” Read more…
Like many small-town kids, Justin Moore’s friends talked about moving to somewhere bigger.
That could be … well, almost anywhere. Back then, Poyen, Ark., had 272 people; it later soared to 290.
“I was the one, out of all my buddies, who didn’t want to leave,” Moore recalled. “I’m the one who did it – and the only one who didn’t want to.”
Not to worry: Moore, 35, is now back in Poyen, with his wife and four kids, running the ranch he worked as a kid. But he often travels to much bigger places to do country music – including PBS’ Memorial Day eve concert, Sunday in Washington, D.C. Read more…
This isn’t what you’d expect – George Clooney and “Catch-22” as key pieces for a mega-corporation.
But that’s how things unfolded. Consider:
— On Tuesday (May 14), the deal was announced: Disney, which owns ABC, gets full control of the Hulu streaming service; in 2024, it could buy the portion owned by Comcast (NBC’s owner) for $27.5 billion. That follows a trend, with Disney buying its way (Pixar, Marvel, “Star Wars”) to the top.
— And just three days later (today, May 17), Hulu launched one of its biggest shows, Clooney’s “Catch-22” mini-series. Read more…
