TV News Wrap-Up: George Clooney Producing ‘Buck Rogers,’ WWE to Peacock, ‘The Blacklist’ Renewed

The renewal spree continues with a surprise among the list. We’ve also got interesting streaming moves and big-name castings.

Let’s get in the ring for this week’s TV news.

George Clooney Developing ‘Buck Rogers’ Series

• George Clooney is headed back to TV with the cult favorite Buck Rogers.
• According to The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov are in talks to executive produce a possible limited series based on the hero.
• Brian K. Vaughn is writing the project, which could also be a film and anime, depending on how the series does.
• Buck Rogers was created in 1928, and follows a coal miner who is put in “suspended animation” for almost 500 years. He wakes up in 2419, immediately finding himself fighting new wars in the future.
• Right now Clooney is only attached as an executive producer, not as a star.

WWE Network Moves to Peacock

• WWE and Peacock announced that beginning in March, WWE Network will end operations and move to the streaming platform.
• WWE.com reports the deal gives Peacock exclusive U.S. rights to the wrestling company’s content and library, including live pay per views and weekly shows.
• WWE Network officially launches on Peacock March 18. The first pay per view on Peacock will be Fastlane, airing Sunday, March 21.
• Options for current WWE Network subscribers will be announced closer to the launch date.

Alan Cumming to Guest Star on ‘Prodigal Son’

• Alan Cumming is set to appear in two episodes of Prodigal Son Season 2.
• TV Line reports that Cumming will play “Simon Hoxley, a cocky Europol agent and one of the world’s most celebrated criminal profilers, who’s also known as The Mind Sleuth. With Nicholas Endicott’s body recently showing up in Estonia, Simon travels to New York to solve Endicott’s murder.”
• This is bad news for Malcolm Bright, who dismembered Endicott after lying to his sister and saying he, not she, killed Endicott.
• Cumming’s casting comes on the heels of Catherine Zeta-Jones joining Season 2 in the series regular role of Dr. Vivian Capshaw.
• Prodigal Son airs Tuesday at 9/8c on FOX.

Dylan McDermott Joins ‘Law and Order: Organized Crime’

• Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler has found his new co-star in the form of TV vet Dylan McDermott.
• Variety reports, McDermott has joined Law and Order: Organized Crime as a series regular, though character details are being kept secret.
• Law and Order: Organized Crime follows “Stabler’s return to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.”
• Social media posts by Meloni and Mariska Hargitay have indicated that Elliot may return to Law and Order: SVU before Organized Crime debuts.

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Sets Return Date, Announces New Cast Members

• AMC has finally given Fear the Walking Dead fans something to look forward to, as the network has announced the second half of Season 6 will return Sunday, April 11 at 9/8c.
• TV Line also reports that John Glover, Nick Stahl, and Keith Carradine will join the show during these episodes.
• AMC’s official description for Season 6B reads: “The second half of Season 6 reveals the impact of what living under Virginia’s control has done to each person in this group, who once saw themselves as a family. New alliances will be formed, relationships will be destroyed, and loyalties forever changed. When everyone is forced to take sides,” AMC continued. “They discover the meaning of ‘The End Is the Beginning.’”

‘The Sandman’ Adds Gwendoline Christie

• Netflix’s The Sandman series announced several major castings, including Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer.
• TV Line reports, Christie will be joined by Tom Sturridge as the lead character Dream, Lord of the Dreaming, and Charles Dance as Roderick Burgess, “charlatan, blackmailer, and magician.”
• Created by Neil Gaiman, “The Sandman” graphic novels feature Dream as he tries to right the wrongs of his long life.
• “For the last 33 years, The Sandman characters have breathed and walked around and talked in my head. I’m unbelievably happy that now, finally, they get to step out of my head and into reality,” Gaiman said in a statement. “I can’t wait until the people out there get to see what we’ve been seeing as Dream and the rest of them take flesh, and the flesh belongs to some of the finest actors out there. This is astonishing, and I’m so grateful to the actors and to all of The Sandman collaborators…for making the wildest of all my dreams into reality.”

Renewals and Cancellations

• Deadline reports, The Blacklist has been renewed for Season 9 by NBC.
• Freeform renewed The Bold Type for a fifth and final season, consisting of six episodes.
• Variety reports, I Can See Your Voice gets Season 2 renewal from FOX. Ken Jeong, Cheryl Hines, and Adrienne Bailon-Houghton will return.
• According to Variety, On My Block renewed for a fourth and final season by Netflix.
• TV Line reports, Canada’s CBC canceled Trickster following the reveal that co-creator/director Michelle Latimer, who has claimed to be Indigenous for 20 years, is not actually Indigenous.
• Trickster airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW in the U.S. The Season 1 finale is currently scheduled to air Tuesday, Feb. 16.

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