TV Bits: 'Happy!', 'Game Of Thrones', 'Therapy Dog', 'One Day At A Time', 'The Last O.G.', 'Twilight Zone', 'Watchmen', 'Treadstone'
In this edition of TV bits:
Syfy's demented series Happy! is adding another weird character – voiced by none other than "Weird Al" Yankovic. The parody song artist will voice an animated character named Smoking Man Baby, described (via TV Line) as "toxic masculinity in a diaper" and a "jealous, volatile baby blowhard with full tats and a cigarette always dangling from his mouth." Sounds like almost everyone on Twitter. The character will pop up in the second season of Happy!, debuting sometime this year.
According to THR, some super nerdy entomologist has "named three of his eight newest beetle discoveries after the dragons from the HBO series Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin book series A Song of Ice and Fire." Big damn nerd Professor Brett Ratcliffe named the new scarab beetle species drogoni, rhaegali and viserioni, which are "the Latinized versions of Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion" – the dragons that belong to by Daenerys Targaryen. The moral of this story: go out and discover new things, and then you can name them after your favorite IP. I'm personally hoping to discover a new planet, and name it Planet Den of Thieves.
Deadline reports that Fox has ordered an animated series called Therapy Dog, about "a dog named Honey who runs group therapy sessions to help neighborhood animals manage the neuroses brought on by their owners and each other." The series comes from writer-producer-actress Sharon Horgan, actress Clea DuVall, writer-producers Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan, and Aaron Kaplan's Kapital Entertainment. I'm a big fan of dogs (they're great!), but I prefer them to be real, not cartoons. Still, this has promise, and talented people backing it up.
The Netflix revival of One Day at a Time has earned rave reviews, and now it's coming back for a third season. The series, centered on a Cuban-American family, follows a "recently separated, former military mom (Justina Machado) navigating a new single life while raising her radical teenaged daughter and socially adept tween son, with the "help" of her old school Cuban-born mom (Rita Moreno) and a friends- without-benefits building manager named Schneider." The third season drops on Netflix February 8.
Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot continues to add exciting cast members. The latest: The Wrap reports DeWanda Wise and Jessica Williams will appear in an episode. They join a cast that already includes Steven Yeun, Greg Kinnear, John Cho, Allison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay, Sanaa Lathan, Adam Scott and Kumail Nanjiani. It's going to be incredibly exciting to see what Peele does with this show, and what far-out episodes these cast members will be popping up in. The Twilight Zone will debut on CBS All Access this year.
Hong Chau, who delivered a strong performance in the otherwise terrible Downsizing, and has had memorable roles in Inherent Vice and Homecoming, has joined the cast of HBO's Watchmen TV series, according to Deadline. Like most things associated with the new Watchmen show, Chau's role is being kept underwraps, but Deadline says Chau is playing a character named "Lady T., who is Vietnamese." The series isn't a straight adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic series, but rather a continuation, set several years after the events of the comic. Watchmen debuts this year.
Can we really call this show The Last O.G. if it has a second season?? Talk about false advertising! The series, which was co-created by Jordan Peele, returns to TBS on April 2. This time, "Tray (Tracy Morgan) goes all in on his dreams of becoming a chef and Shay (Tiffany Haddish) has an intriguing business venture of her own on the horizon." I've yet to catch the first season, but Morgan and Haddish are both talented and funny, ditto Peele, so this is probably worth checking out.
The Bourne legacy lives on with Treadstone, an upcoming USA Network spin-off set in the same world as the film franchise. Deadline reports the series has rounded out its cast: Omar Metwally, Tracy Ifeachor, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky and Emilia Schüle join previously announced cast members Jeremy Irvine and Brian J. Smith. The show "explores the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses behavior-modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins. The first season follows sleeper agents across the globe as they're mysteriously 'awakened' to resume their deadly missions." The Bourne series feels like a thing of the past – does anyone still get excited about it? And will a TV show without Bourne himself work? We'll find out when the series arrives this year.