The long-in-development unscripted show “The Will” finally has a premiere date on CBS, as does a competition to find a new lifestyle guru now that Martha Stewart’s in prison.
Both “The Will,” from “Bachelor” producer Mike Fleiss, and “Wickedly Perfect,” as the domestic-diva show is called, will premiere the first week of January. “Perfect” gets the plum “Survivor” spot at 8 p.m. ET Thursdays starting Jan. 6, while “The Will” will air at 8 p.m. Saturdays — a spot once intended for “The Amazing Race” — beginning Jan. 8.
Over the course of 10 episodes, “Wickedly Perfect” will follow 12 contestants who think they have the goods to become “the country’s new authority on at-home living.” Hosted by former “Good Morning America” anchor Joan Lunden, the show will offer put the contestants through a series of tests related to cooking, decorating and entertaining.
Chef/Food Network star Bobby Flay, stylist David Evangelista (“The Rosie O’Donnell Show”) and “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell will serve as judges. The winner will get a book deal with Atria Books (like CBS, a unit of Viacom), several appearances on CBS’s “Early Show” and a development deal for a lifestyle TV show.
The show will push the 10th edition of “Survivor” back to March.
In “The Will,” a “wealthy patriarch” will have potential heirs — family and friends included — compete for a portion of his estate (presumably because watching probate battles from beyond the grave is less satisfying). The 10 would-be heirs will compete in mental and physical challenges to determine who gets to walk away with the inheritance.
The show has kicked around in various stages of development for more than two years. ABC originally announced “The Will” for fall 2002 but never went forward. CBS announced in February that it had begun casting.
Tom Brokaw’s final broadcast as anchor of the “NBC Nightly News” was a big one, drawing the newscast’s largest audience in several years.
About 15.4 million people watched Brokaw’s last night Wednesday (Dec. 1), according to preliminary Nielsen estimates (final numbers won’t be out until next week). That’s almost as many viewers as ABC (9.16 million) and CBS (7.25 million) drew combined with their Wednesday evening newscasts.
It was also the most-watched regular broadcast of the NBC newscast since January 1997 and on par with NBC’s prime-time election night coverage in November. “Nightly News” typically averages about 11 million viewers.
Brokaw, 64, left the “Nightly News” after 21 years as its anchor. After thanking viewers and his NBC News colleagues at the end of his final broadcast, Brokaw offered a nod to the “Greatest Generation” — the World War II generation that he’s profiled in several best-selling books.
“They weren’t perfect. No generation is but this one left a large and vital legacy of common effort to find common ground here and abroad on which to solve our most vexing problems,” Brokaw said. “They did not give up their personal beliefs and greatest passions, but they never stopped learning from each other. And, most of all, they did not give up on the idea that we’re all in this together.
“We still are, and it is in that spirit that I say thanks for all that I have learned from you. That’s been my richest reward.
“That’s ‘Nightly News’ for this Wednesday night. I’m Tom Brokaw; you’ll see Brian Williams here tomorrow night; and I’ll see you along the way.”
Williams, named as Brokaw’s replacement late last year, took over the anchor chair on Thursday. Brokaw isn’t completely retiring; he’ll continue to produce documentaries for NBC News.
Mimi Rogers has joined the cast of a comedy pilot at FOX, while Peter Facinelli has left the drama “The Inside,” which is undergoing extensive revisions.
Rogers will co-star with Bret Harrison (“Grounded for Life”) in a comedy pilot from writers Will Gluck and Pam Brady, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Harrison plays a recent college graduate who’s the first of his friends to get a job; Rogers will play a vice president at his company.
The actress recently appeared in the independent films “The Door in the Floor” and “Seeing Other People” and has signed on to a CBS movie called “Stone Cold,” opposite Tom Selleck. Her other credits include the first “Austin Powers” movie, a recurring part on “The X-Files,” “Lost in Space” and “The Geena Davis Show.”
Facinelli, meanwhile, has asked for and been given his release from “The Inside,” which FOX had originally scheduled for January but has now pushed back.
Glenn and Todd Kessler, who created the show about a young cop (Rachel Nichols) who goes undercover in a high school, exited the show in September. “Angel” and “Wonderfalls” writer-producer Tim Minear was brought on as showrunner and has made significant changes to the pilot script, the HR says.
Facinelli (“Fastlane,” “Can’t Hardly Wait”) was to have played Nichols’s boss. Recasting is underway.
Credit: Zap2It
