TV Bits: 'And Just Like That...', 'Ultra City Smiths', 'Vampire Academy', 'Dangerous Liaisons', 'Dave', 'Love, Victor', 'White House Plumbers', 'Powerpuff Girls'

In this edition of TV Bits:

And Just Like That..., the Sex and the City reboot/sequel/whatever you want to call it, has a new cast member. Sara Ramírez will play "Che Diaz (they / them), a non-binary, queer, stand-up comedian that hosts a podcast on which Carrie Bradshaw is regularly featured. Che is a big presence with a big heart whose outrageous sense of humor and progressive, human overview of gender roles has made them and their podcast very popular." Ramírez joins the previously announced returning cast members Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis (original cast member Kim Cattrall is not coming back). In the new series, the characters "navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s. The ten-episode, half-hour series is scheduled to begin production in New York this summer.

AMC is making a "half-hour, stop-motion, animated baby doll series" called Ultra City Smiths, and some new voice casting has been announced. The new cast members are Kristen Bell as Donella Pecker, Dax Shepard as Congressman Chris Pecker, Alia Shawkat as Little Grace, Tim Meadows as Deputy Mayor Jeff Thumb, Terry O'Quinn as Captain Krieger, Debra Winger as Trish McSapphire, Luis Guzmán as Rodrigo Smalls, Julian Barratt as The Most Dangerous Man in the World, Sunita Mani as Detective Jaya Mukherjee, and Tom Waits as The Narrator.

The new cast members join the previously announced Jimmi Simpson, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, John C. Reilly, Bebe Neuwirth, Jason Mantzoukas, Damon Herriman, Melissa Villaseñor, Kurtwood Smith, Tim Heidecker, Chris Conrad, and Hana Mae Lee. Ultra City Smiths "unfolds via the stop-motion animation of baby dolls repurposed as a grown-up cast of characters. The series hinges on an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of fictional metropolis Ultra City's most famous magnate (Smith). Two intrepid detectives (Simpson and Randolph) follow the case, rallying to fight against their city's dangerous corruption, at a high cost to themselves and their families, all in pursuit of a gentler place to call home." I have no idea what to make of any of this, but that is one hell of a cast.

Time to polish up your fangs and enroll in Vampire Academy. Peacock just gave the show a straight-to-series 10-episode order. The series is "based on a series of young adult paranormal romance novels by international bestselling author Richelle Mead. In a world of privilege and glamour, two young women's friendship transcends their strikingly different classes as they prepare to complete their education and enter royal vampire society. This serialized and sexy drama combines the elegance of aristocratic romance and the supernatural thrills of the vampire genre." The show comes from Julie Plec, who is adapting with longtime collaborator Marguerite MacIntyre, who will also serve as executive producer and co-showrunner.

Dangerous Liaisons, the 1988 film that featured Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Uma Thurman, is becoming a Starz series, and per Variety, that show has found its two leads: Alice Englert and Nicholas Denton. The 1988 film was adapted from the 1985 play Les liaisons dangereuses, which was adapted from the 1782 French novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The 1999 movie Cruel Intentions was a modern-day remake of the same story. As for the Starz series, it will tell "the origin story of how the Marquise de Merteuil (Englert) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Denton) meet as passionate young lovers in Paris on the eve of revolution. Driven to right the wrongs of their past, we follow the couple as they rise from the slums of Paris and scale the heights of the French aristocracy, seducing and manipulating both the nobility and each other to survive."

say hello to his lil friend. @daveonfxx S2 drops 6/16 on fxx. #streamingday pic.twitter.com/UQfzF1fttb

— FX Networks (@FXNetworks) May 20, 2021

Dave, the FX series that I've been told is quite good, is returning on June 16. In season 2, "Dave knows he's destined for rap superstardom – but at what cost? With the pressure mounting as he records his debut album, he has to decide if he'll sacrifice friendships, love, and his own sense of self in order to make his dream come true. Simultaneously exasperating and inspiring to his friends, Dave vows to leave no stone unturned on his quest to become the next superstar."

Speaking of second seasons, the second season of Love, Victor now has a trailer, which you can watch above. Season 2 of the series, which is inspired by the movie Love, Simon, picks up with "a newly out of the closet Victor entering his junior year at Creekwood High. But being out brings with it new challenges, as Victor faces a family struggling with his revelation, a heartbroken ex-girlfriend in Mia, and the difficulties of being an openly gay star athlete – all while navigating the excitement of his relationship with Benji." Love, Victor season 2 hits Hulu on June 11.

Political scandal never looked so good.

A first look at Justin Theroux and Woody Harrelson in the upcoming limited series The White House Plumbers. pic.twitter.com/cy3GhBJ00j

— HBO (@HBO) May 21, 2021

Above you can see Justin Theroux and Woody Harrelson in character for the upcoming limited series The White House Plumbers. The five-part series is based in part on public records and the book Integrity by Egil 'Bud' Krogh and Matthew Krogh and "will tell the true story of how Nixon's own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, accidentally toppled the presidency they were trying to protect." Harrelson plays Hunt, while Theroux plays Liddy.

The live-action Powerpuff Girls TV series, which seems to just be called Powerpuff at this point, recently shot a pilot for the CW. But it looks like it didn't go so well. Per Variety, the pilot " is being overhauled and re-shot because the initial pilot was 'too campy' and not as rooted in reality as network execs would have liked." I'm not entirely sure a Powerpuff Girls show should be rooted in reality, but what do I know? I'm no network exec!

"In this case the pilot didn't work," CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said. "But because we see there's enough elements in there, we wanted to give it another shot. So that's why we didn't want to go forward with what we had. Tonally, it might've felt a little too campy. It didn't feel as rooted in reality as it might've felt. But again, you learn things when you test things out. And so in this case, we felt, let's take a step back and go back to the drawing board."