Watching Showtime

Hey there Showtime Fans! I had a special treat in my in-box today - a sneak peek at the poster for the new season of Weeds!

This season Nancy will get herself in deeper with her drug lord boyfriend, ship her younger son and brother-in-law off to her sister - who might just decide to make a reappearance, and at the same time she’ll also deal with the unexpected surprise of her third child!

The new season will air on June 8th, with the premiere of Nurse Jackie following right after. So be sure to get ready to set your DVR - no one wants to miss this great new season!

(side note - sorry I’ve been so absent the last few - I got married at the end of last month, and it’s taken much longer than I thought to drag myself out of the present piles and unpacking!)

Looks like Jeffrey Dean Morgan has a lot more on his plate! From playing The Comedian in The Watchmen to starring as dead men in several shows (ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and of course on Weeds), now Jeffrey Dean Morgan finds out he’s a dad!

Ex-girlfriend Sherrie Rose, a producer and actor, has recently announced her four year old son is Jeffery’s. Morgan only learned of the child’s existence a few weeks ago, but has already met him, beginning to build a relationship.

Us Magazine reported the discovery, and has a source quoted as saying Morgan is “shocked and surprised, but he wants to be in the child’s life.”

After several years of dating costar Mary Louise Parker and wanting to have children, it’s so great that he finally gets to truly be a dad! Congrats Jeffrey!

Weeds comes back to us on June 8, and the spoilers are already hitting the internet. The biggest one to drop so far? We may not know the identity of Nancy’s baby’s daddy after all!

The third season left us assuming the drug king Esteban was the father, but now there’s rumors it could end up being Andy, Nancy’s dead husband’s brother.

When Justin Kirk was asked if he thought the baby was his, he said, “I don’t think it is my baby. I asked about that. I’d like to think my semen was so powerful that even though we didn’t have sex, it somehow leapt across the house. I don’t really know how reproduction works, but something like that.”

While he doesn’t think he’s the father, he does hope there will be some time given to Andy’s unrequited love for Nancy.

We’ll all have to wait until June to know for sure, however!

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In between her Broadway turn as Hedda Gabler and heading back to start filming a new season of Weeds (hopefully that’ll start soon!), Mary Louise Parker took time out from her busy schedule and two kids to talk to Esquire. Tops on her list? Ten types of music no man should have in their collection!

Some of the suggestions were hilarious - any recording of Carousel, any recording artist whose name is a Greek or Latin etymology (i.e. - Styx or Yanni). And some - some were just so right on the mark I laughed out loud. Those include soundtracks or singles by Olivia Newton John or John Travolta, any of the volumes from Lilith Fair, and anything released between 1984 and 1988 by a man wearing a unitard, except for Boy George.

Who can’t love her!

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Stars tend to go all out on the red carpet, hiring stylists to make sure their look is put together and as perfect as it can be. But the gals over at Mom Logic have taken it upon themselves (many times over, I might add) to take those looks and show you how you can get them for less. In this case, it’s Mary-Louise Parker’s red carpet look at a screening in NYC. And it looks like for under $100 you can look just as silvery and sparkly as she does! Nice to know this type of fashion is accessible to the rest of us!

Now if they can just show me how to get all those great looks on The L Word for less, I’d be one happy camper. Unfortunately, I think those designer duds will be off-limits to me for quite some time.

Romany Malco, who we all lust after when he plays Conrad on Weeds, shares the screen with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey in Baby Mama. In this video, he talks about the comedic geniuses and his time filming the movie with them.

The Weeds cast and crew have officially started filming the fourth season, and they’re on a tight schedule this time. The season is set to air on Monday June 16, paired not with Californication as it was last year, but instead with the British import Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. Fans of the two shows aired back to back will be a bit disappointed, but bringing the Botwin clan back to our televisions is a good thing any way we can get it!

There’s also a cast update being leaked on E! Online. Apparently Albert Brooks has signed on to appear in at least 4 episodes as Len, the father of Judah and Andy Botwin. And it sounds like the addition of a father-in-law isn’t the only surprise the fourth season has to offer. Showtime’s press release had this to say:

“Nancy & Co. relocate to the fictional beach town of Ren Mar on the San Diego/Mexico border to set up shop with a new front biz that’s…pregnant with possibilities.”
Good Lord, Nancy’s pregnant with Conrad’s baby! Here’s hoping that means Conrad stays on the show! Either way, I cannot wait to tune in … just two months to go!

Looks like we have some bad news on the Weeds front … Mary-Louise Parker and fiance Jeffrey Dean Morgan have split after two years together. They were only engaged for a short time after their on-again, off-again relationship of two years seemed to take a turn for the better, but the pair have supposedly mutually called it quits. They met while working on Weeds together (he plays her dead husband, and so is only seen in flashbacks and home movies), so I wonder how much their breakups and makeups coincided with the filming of the series.

Incidentally, the fourth season is set to premiere on June 16, and with Shane having started seeing visions of his dead dad, I wonder how much Morgan will be on this season. Here’s hoping Parker’s two kids are doing okay with the breakup, and that these two private actors will bounce back quickly.

With all that’s been popping up surrounding Showtime in the past few days, here’s a run-down of all the events you’ll want to know about.

• Mary Louise Parker gave an interview, albeit begrudgingly, to the New York Times on March 3, in which she talks everything from her love life to directing to the media and paparazzi role in Hollywood. Definite must-read for Weeds fans.
• Speaking of Weeds, they’ll officially start shooting the fourth season in April, which is good news for fans of the show. It looks like they’re on schedule for it’s fall release to the network, just as it was last year. Those in the New York area can see MLP for the next few weeks on the stage in “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”.
• Ebony profiled Rose Rollins on their website last month, which somehow slipped past my radar. In it she talks on-screen hookups as well as off, her eight years as a struggling actor before hitting it big with The L Word, and much more. Did you know she was in Mission Impossible 3, which ties her to Showtime actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers? I’m going to have to watch that movie again, now!
• For those who love Dexter, it sounds like we’ll have more than three seasons of the show after all. Based on a trilogy of books, author Jeff Lindsay has revealed he’s working on a fourth novel to add to the collection!
• Californication fans can now rejoice … the first season is being released on DVD on June 17. While that’s still a few months away, with the release I’m sure we’ll be treated to some great extras. Jill over at Showtime Fan has listed out her picks for extras, so check them out.
• DVD releases seem to be big for June and Showtime. The third season of Weeds releases on June 3! Extras will include commentary tracks and featurettes including all the Good Morning Agrestic talk show episodes.

(this is a guest post, thanks to Eliza of Tom Cruise Watch)

Isn’t it a wonder how one actor gets parts or knows celebrities and then how they are relate to one another. Lets take a look back into Kevin Bacon’s past and see how he ties himself to a few of the top Showtime Celebrities at the moment.

So let’s play the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. For those that aren’t sure how the game is played, let’s look over at Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was in “A Few Good Men” with Kevin Bacon, which would mean he’d have a Bacon number of one. However, Nicole Kidman played in “Eyes Wide Shut” with Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise played in “A Few Good Men” with Kevin, which would make her a Bacon 2.

Let the game begin!

Elizbeth Perkins
1. Elizabeth Perkins actually acted in “He Said, She Said,” back in 1991 with Kevin.

Mary Louise Parker

1. Mary Louise Parker played in “The Client” with Tommy Lee Jones.

2. Tommy Lee Jones played “U.S. Marshals” Robert Downey Jr.

3. Robert Downey Jr. played in “Heart and Souls” with Kyra Sedgwick

4. Kyra Sedgwick played in “Lemon Chase” with Kevin Bacon.

Hunter Parish

1. Hunter Parrish was in “Freedom Writers” with Hilary Swank or Patrick Dempsey

2. Hilary Swank was in “The Reaping” with AnnaSophia Robb

3. AnnaSophia Robb was in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with Johnny Depp

4. Johnny Depp was in “Benny & Joon” with Oliver Platt

5. Oliver Platt was in “Flatliners” with Kevin Bacon.

That was just three of Weeds Characters that we can tie to Kevin Bacon. Can you try it? Here are a few more you may want to tie him with: Kevin Nealon, Justin Kirk, Alexander Gould, etc. I’d love to see your tries in the comments. As you may have noticed, it is easy to tie even the youngest actor/actresses with the older actors in Hollywood, you just have to keep on going back a bit.

Do you have an idea for a guest post? Just send me an e-mail with your ideas, as I’m always up for different voices!

Showtime viewers have been pretty lucky these last three months with the writer’s strike. Shows are filmed far enough in advance that as long as the strike ends in the next two months or so, there won’t be a single blip in the programming schedule. And with it sounding like the negotiations might be just about over, we can all celebrate. How do I know this? The Hollywood Reporter wrote an article highlighting filming schedules for just about every major network, and Showtime was included.

The Tudors has already wrapped filming, Brotherhood, Dexter and Californication don’t begin filming until at least June, and Weeds has that free pass from Lionsgate to film on schedule, so those five shows are fine. The L Word won’t film it’s sixth season (if there’s going to be one) until the fall, so they’re pretty well safe also.

Most networks aren’t so lucky, and regular filming schedules will be off-set for quite some time. This means many regular network shows will be off-schedule for  months. Another good reason to have Showtime!

In what is either incredibly brilliant negotiating or some sort of sneaky, underhanded dealing (I honestly can’t decide), it looks like Weeds will not be affected by the writer’s strike. The show tends to film in late spring/early summer for it’s fall premiere, and I had started to get worried that the writer’s strike would end up affecting it.

However, Lionsgate (the prodution company responsible for Weeds) is about to sign on the dotted line with the WGA (along with the Weinstien Company, interestingly), allowing for indie films and tv shows to be written and produced on schedule.

I think. There’s not a whole lot of knowledge (rumor or othewise) as to what the agreement actually says, but once it’s penned, Weeds will be exempt from the writer’s strike. And the deal will be replaced by any deal the writers finally reach with the AMPTP (Allicance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).

Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant! Here’s hoping Dexter can get on board with this!

Page Six is reporting Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter may be dating! On-screen the pair play Dexter and Deborah Morgan, so they spend tons of time together. And Hall filed for divorce from his wife just under a year ago, so it’s nice to see him back to dating. But his sister?!? I know it shouldn’t creep me out, but it sort of does. Just a little bit.

This isn’t the first time Showtime actors have taken an on-screen pairing and turned it into an off-screen romance. Weeds co-stars Mary Louise Parker and her on-screen deceased husband Jeffery Dean Morgan were paired up for some time, although they’ve since gone their separate ways.

Dexter, Dexter Morgan, Deb Morgan, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Weeds, Mary Louise Parker, Jeffery Dean Morgan

Not that we all here at Watching Showtime aren’t already believers in the power of a good Showtime television show. But … if we needed any further proof that the rest of the world is starting to sit up and take notice of what’s happening here on our little channel, the annual “Top Ten” List from The Underrated should give you some indication. Of his top ten television shows of the year, three were from Showtime. Three.

Here’s the full list for those of you who are interested, along with what was said about the three Showtime shows listed.

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Check out how beautiful Mary Louise Parker looks at the “Out 100″ Party in Los Angeles!