TV Bits: ‘Percy Jackson’, ‘Betty’, ‘Scary Stories For Young Foxes’, ‘That Damn Michael Che’, ‘The Kominsky Method’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ and More

In this edition of TV Bits:

Michael Rapaport is starring in a TV series about shoe designer and entrepreneur Steve Madden.
Disney is currently looking for their Percy Jackson lead.
Noah Centineo gets his own Netflix series.
Watch a trailer for Betty season 2.
Lena Heady will produce and star in Scary Stories For Young Foxes.
Check out a trailer for That Damn Michael Che.
And also a trailer for The Kominsky Method season 3.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel adds more cast members.
Netflix has canceled The Duchess.
The Conners will return for season 4.
Grace Gummer joins the Let the Right One In TV series.
Lucifer season 5 part 2 has a trailer.
Emily in Paris season 2 is now in production.
IMDb TV orders new original shows.
Law and Order is getting yet another spin-off.

Deadline is reporting that Michael Rapaport, an actor I don’t think I’ve seen in anything in a very long time, will star in a TV series about the “rise, fall and subsequent rise of famous shoe designer and entrepreneur Steve Madden.” Madden “took his company, which makes ?his eponymous shoe brand, from the fledgling startup he founded thirty years ago with a mere $1,100 to a global juggernaut,” but also ended up with a “criminal conviction and a prison sentence after his financial affairs got entangled with the brokerage house Stratton Oakmont, co-founded by Madden’s childhood friend Danny Porush.” Part of this story was actually covered in the Martin Scorsese movie The Wolf of Wall Street. The series will adapt Madden’s book The Cobbler: How I Disrupted An Industry, Fell From Grace & Came Back Stronger Than Ever, but I’m guessing they’ll change the name since everyone associates The Cobbler with that terrible Adam Sandler movie.

Percy Jackson, one of those YA series that I know next to nothing about, is getting another adaptation courtesy of a Disney+ series. And Rick Riordan, who wrote the book series, says Disney is currently in the midst of looking for their lead. “We are looking for the best person who can embody the character we all know and love from the books,” he wrote (via Deadline). “As with all casting choices, we will be following Disney’s company policy, which says: We are committed to diverse, inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers, without regard to disability, gender, race and ethnicity, age, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis prohibited by law.” In the books, Percy Jackson is an eighteen-year-old Greek demigod, the son of Poseidon and Sally Jackson.

Deadline is reporting that Noah Centineo, of To All The Boys… fame, is set to star in a CIA series at Netflix. The show finds Centineo as “a fledgling lawyer at the CIA who becomes enmeshed in dangerous international power politics when a former asset threatens to expose the nature of her long-term relationship with the agency, unless they exonerate her of a serious crime.” The series has received an eight-episode order and comes from The Rookie creator Alexi Hawley who will serve as showrunner.

HBO’s Betty is returning for a second season in June, and you can watch the trailer above. In the series, “As Kirt (Nina Moran), Janay (Dede Lovelace), Honeybear (Moonbear), Camille (Rachelle Vinberg), and Indigo (Ajani Russell) cross the threshold to womanhood, they unite to protect and empower their skate community, fearlessly mining the nuances of their identities and embracing their differences along the way. Independent, strong-willed, and discerning, these women are brought together by skateboarding – but their bond goes far beyond the sport.” The show was inspired by the film Skate Kitchen.

Scary Stories For Young Foxes, which is not the fourth book in the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark franchise despite its name, is becoming an animated series. The book by Christian McKay Heidicker is a “coming-of-age tale of two young foxes, born of different families, whose youthful misfortunes bring them together. The eight interconnected stories explore the power of scary tales, why we tell them and how we react to them.” Lena Headey will produce the show through her Boat Rocker Studios, and she’ll also voice one of the characters, per Deadline.

HBO Max has a new comedy series with Saturday Night Live‘s Michael Che. Called That Damn Michael Che, it’s described as a “groundbreaking new comedy series where each episode illustrates what it feels like to experience everyday situations including racial profiling, unemployment, falling in love, and more, from Michael’s perspective.” Cecily Strong, Heidi Gardner, Colin Quinn, Ellen Cleghorne, and Colin Jost all appear on the show, along with guest stars Omari Hardwick, Geoffrey Owens, Godfrey, Billy Porter and Method Man. You can stream all six episodes of That Damn Michael Che May 6 on HBO Max.

The Kominsky Method is a series that continues to seem fake. I know it’s a real show, of course – but I don’t know a single person who has ever watched it. It’s almost like the show is some sort of mafia front for criminal activity or something. Anyway, the show is returning for its third and final season, and you can watch the trailer above, and then watch the season when it arrives on May 28. But be honest: you’re not going to watch it. No one is. It doesn’t exist.

Deadline says that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 4 has added Reid Scott and Gideon Glick in recurring roles. Who are they playing? We don’t know yet, sorry. The Amazon series, which follows a housewife who becomes a stand-up comedian in the 1950s, is currently in production in New York.

The Duchess, a series I confess I’ve never even heard of, has been canceled by Netflix after one season. The series followed “A fashionably disruptive single mother navigates life, love, and the question of whether or not to have another child with her nemesis: her ex, the father of her daughter.” Series creator Katherine Ryan said (via Coming Soon): “[Netflix] didn’t want to make any more, not enough people watched it. I think something like 10 million people watched it in 28 days and that wasn’t enough. But also, I’m not terribly sad about it. I feel like it’s a whole lot of work, a whole lot of time to make a sitcom. I was so grateful to able to make it, but I think it speaks for itself. I kind of like the way it ended.”

It’s actually pretty amazing that there was a revival of Rosanne that killed off the Rosanne character (due to the real Rosanne’s offensive tweets), and then managed to keep on going for multiple seasons. But that’s what happened, and The Conners, as the show was rebranded, is now officially returning for season 4. The lead actors are all expected to return, and Deadline adds the plan is to have a 20-episode season.

The Let the Right One In TV series, based on the John Ajvide Lindqvist novel that’s been adapted into a movie twice, has added Grace Gummer to its cast. Gummer joins Demián Bichir and Anika Noni Rose in the vampire TV series, which follows (per Collider) “the lives of Mark (Bichir) and his 12-year-old daughter Eleanor. 10 years earlier, Eleanor was turned into a vampire, and her father keeps her locked away for her safety and the safety of others. A homicide detective and single mother Naomi (Rose) moves in next door with a son the same age. Bullied by his peers, Isiah and Eleanor quickly become friends as they bond over their outcast status.” Gummer will play “Claire, the heiress of a pharmaceutical company who rejects the family business in order to pursue more noble disease research. Her life is forever changed when her estranged, dying father reveals a terrible secret.” The series is headed to Showtime, although there’s no premiere date just yet.

In the second half of Lucifer season 5, “God himself comes to Earth. Secrets will be revealed, heroic sacrifices will be made, and the world will never be the same.” The series has had quite a ride, starting on Fox before going to Netflix. It’s also already been renewed for a sixth and final season, so you’ll have that to look forward to if you’re a fan. The second half of season 5 hits Netflix on May 28.

Emily in Paris, a series everyone claimed to hate and then watched anyway, is currently in production on its second season. Netflix announced this news along with the tidbit that the show was their most popular comedy of 2020. So maybe stop hate watching this show if you genuinely don’t like it, kids. The series stars Lily Collins and is about Chicago marketing executive Emily Cooper, who is “hired to provide an American perspective at a marketing firm in Paris.”

IMDb TV is trying to make a name for themselves, and they’ve just ordered a slew of original shows, per Deadline. Mike Schur, creator of The Good Place, is teaming with writer Shea Serrano for “Primo, a coming-of-age story about a Mexican-American teenager balancing cultural norms, college aspirations, societal expectations and the hectic home life of being raised by his single mom and five uncles.” Then there’s Melina Kanakaredes‘ Greek Candy, “a single-camera comedy, from Sony Pictures Television, tells the story of mom, dad, their three teenage daughters, four very Greek immigrant grandparents, and one very non-Greek “adopted” son and what it means to live the American dream in 2021.” Nkechi Okoro Carroll is writing The Fed, “which follows both the personal and career drama surrounding a group of young finance hopefuls as they begin an elite fellowship with the Federal Reserve, the nation’s most powerful financial institution. These young financial geniuses are destined for greatness — provided they don’t screw it all up with secrets, lies, sex, and politics.” Blessed and Highly Favored is an “unconventional workplace following Christine Kimbrough, a prodigal daughter who returns to Dallas as a rookie pastor and is tasked with keeping her family’s church alive in the face of rival megachurches, money problems and the presence of her predecessor and toughest critic—her father, Robert.” And finally there’s The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, PA, which “follows an Indian family and the tumultuous yet humorous events of the two years since they arrived in Pittsburgh. Told as a comedic mystery for the audience to unravel, viewers discover what pushed them to the brink, leading to their present immigration woes.”

Looks like it’s time for yet another Law & Order spin-off. This one, per Variety, is called Law & Order: For the Defense, and “will take a look inside a criminal defense firm. The series will put the lawyers under the microscope, along with the criminal justice system with every week delivering the promise of a contemporary morality tale.” Dun dun.

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