One of the smartest (and certainly boldest) TV shows of the last few years was The Girlfriend Experience. With explicit themes related to prostitution, it was certainly not a show for everyone. The second season didn’t quite click for me, but I’ve been meaning to go back and revisit it. The star of the third season of this anthology series has just been announced and the show is onto a winner.
Julia Goldani Telles, best known for roles in Bunheads and The Affair, will star. The season will be written and directed by German director Anja Marquardt who made her feature debut with the drama She’s Out of Control (which was about a sexual surrogate).
Telles will play Iris, a young neuroscientist who begins to explore the transactional world of The Girlfriend Experience, only to find herself deep inside the Uncanny Valley with the relationships she creates. Set in the London tech scene, Iris quickly learns that her client sessions provide her with an edge in the tech world, and vice versa…until, that is, she begins to question whether her actions are driven by free will, or something else altogether.
Source: Deadline
With Disney+ launching in less than two months from now, delivering nervous times for any streamer with an investment in children/family content, it was interesting to head into the Disney streaming services HQ in New York by way of a profile piece at Variety. Keep in mind, this is a team responsible for more than just Disney+.
Along with New York, DSS runs video operations centers in Amsterdam and San Francisco, and eventually will open a facility serving Asia-Pacific. The global scope of Disney’s direct-to-consumer strategy and aggressive rollout plans presents another significant challenge for Paull. The company expects Disney Plus to be in all major markets by 2021, starting with Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand in November.
“We have taken the programming that we had, and instead of selling that to third parties we’ve held it,” he says. “So once you made that decision to really do this, we recognized we need to do it quickly.”
Source: Variety
Sorry fan of Grand Hotel. The show has been cancelled after just one season.
Written by Brian Tanen based on a Spanish format, Grand Hotel was set against the backdrop of a Miami Beach hotel, centering on the family who owns the business, the staff who run it and the explosive secrets they hide under the perfect exterior.
Source: Deadline
AMC has greenlit two new shows - 61st Street and Kevin Can F**k Himself. I was particularly interested in the description of Kevin Can F**k Himself. It isn’t a spin-off from Kevin Can Wait, but rather it is about: what happens when a stereotypical TV sitcom wife escapes her confines and forces the world to let her take the lead. The show is from Valerie Armstrong (Lodge 49).
Source: Multichannel News
Claws has been renewed for a fourth and final season.
Created by Eliot Laurence, “Claws” follows the lives and criminal acts of five women who all work at the same Florida nail salon. Its ensemble cast includes Nash, Carrie Preston, Judy Reyes, Karrueche Tran, Jenn Lyon, Dean Norris, Jack Kesy, Kevin Rankin, Jason Antoon, Harold Perrineau, and more. Throughout its first three seasons, it has become one of TNT’s flagship original series.
Such a flagship show that it is being given the boot.
Source: TV By The Numbers
I’m obsessed with Pluto TV, a US streaming service that delivers linear TV channels. It looks a lot like a traditional pay TV service, but it has a strong reliance on pop-up channels which makes it a lot of fun. Just announced for Pluto TV is a channel streaming nothing but Degrassi shows. There’s no OG Degrassi, but instead all of the Degrassi shows from Next Generation onward will stream.
Source: Variety
And finally…
We have a movie trailer for the new movie Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). I do wonder if this will renew interest in the early 00s TV show based on the Birds of Prey comics.
