Gossip Girl Exclusive: Josh Schwartz and Brittany Snow on Lily
Gossip Girl flashes back to the 80s tonight as we learn more about Lily's wild and woolly past. We talked to series mastermind Josh Schwartz about casting Brittany Snow as Lily, plus adding a couple of Veronica Mars alums (Krysten Ritter and Ryan Hansen), as well as that obscure band Snowed Out playing an Adam Ant cover. Plus, he talks about the sort of music he'd love to do on the show, and teases a series crossover we'd LOVE to see!
April 21, 2009
Gossip Girl's Josh Schwartz on Rockville CA and Lily
We've got more from Josh Schwartz, the brains behind Gossip Girl, Lily and the new web series Rockville CA. Josh tells us how Rockville CA got its start, why he's interested in the music business, and what he hopes the web series will do for both the bands and for TV. Plus, he spills a bit of casting news about Lily -- find out which Veronica Mars alum will be making the jump from Rockville CA to the Gossip Girl spin-off!
Watch new episodes of Rockville CA at www.TheWB.com, and catch Gossip Girl on Monday nights!
September 10, 2007
The Sourcies Recap... and Jared Accepts a Sourcie!
Sniff! Summer's officially over -- the leaves are changing, school's back in session, and we can't wear white anymore without offending our elders. And with summer's close comes the official end of Sourcie season. But fear not. We have one last awesome wrap-up before we officially close the door on this summer's Sourcies. First -- the winner of last week's matchup!
It's no surprise which show won last week's Best Brother-to-Brother Argument. Over 25,000 of you voted, and once again, Supernatural handily defeated One Tree Hill with over ninety percent of the vote. Wow! It wasn't even close.
Check out Jason C.'s recap of who won what, including the show that took home the most awards by far (if you've been paying attention, you already know!). You won't want to miss this -- especially if you're a Supernatural fan. Jason C. made a very special Sourcie award presentation to none other than Jared Padalecki!
Be sure to check out the Sourcie wrap-up and Jared accepting his Sourcie:
August 24, 2007
Veronica Mars News: Rob Thomas And Kyle Gallner Get New Gigs
Former Veronica Mars head honcho Rob Thomas has been hopscotching his way across the TV landscape this summer. Fresh off his departure from the sitcom Miss/Guided, he's landed a gig as consulting producer for the ABC show Big Shots, the "Men: We're the new women" show starring a bunch of guys who really should be able to do better. (What? From what we've seen, Big Shots isn't our idea of a good time.)
Since Rob will be joining former Mars producers Danielle Stokdyk and Jennifer Gwartz on the show, maybe this time he'll stick around!
In other news, our favorite cuddly-then-psycho Veronica Mars alum, Kyle Gallner (Beaver Casablancas) will be showing up in a recurring role on FX's hard-nosed cop drama The Shield. He'll play a guy who fatally shoots an intruder, then suffers emotional consequences.
Should we worry that Kyle's characters tend to rack up quite the body count?
August 7, 2007
Veronica Mars: The Cast Continues to Move On
The cast of Veronica Mars continues to get work on other networks. The latest news has Julie Gonzalo, who played Parker, joining the cast of “Eli Stone,” a midseason show on ABC about a lawyer who starts getting visions, prompting him to wonder whether he’s a prophet. Julie will play a young associate in Eli’s law firm.
Julie’s the third Veronica Mars cast member to land a new show: Jason Dohring will appear in CBS’ (potentially troubled) “Moonlight” as a mischievous financial trader/vampire mentor, and Chris Lowell is rounding out the beefcake quotient on “Private Practice,” ABC’s (potentially troubled) Grey’s Anatomy spin-off. Good luck to them all.
We have to admit, we’re a bit bummed that Julie, Jason and Chris didn’t join the CW Repertory Company – the one that Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles and Michael Cassidy apparently joined that keeps them in CW shows. We wish these great actors had been able to find work on other CW series. We’ll miss seeing them on the network!
And what about the rest of the cast? We know we can catch Tina Majorino on Big Love, and Kristen Bell (yes, we know we can hear her in Gossip Girl, but that's not quite the same) and Enrico Colantoni have several movies in the works, but what about folks like Percy Daggs III (Wallace) and Francis Capra (Weevil)? We’re waiting for news on where we can see them next!
July 31, 2007
Veronica Mars: Dawn Has No Regrets
Veronica Mars fans, we’re sorry to tell you this, but CW pres Dawn Ostroff has moved on.
“I can honestly sit here and say I can not look back and have any regrets [about canceling it],” Ostroff said. “I feel that we gave Veronica Mars every chance and as many of you here know, there was no stronger champion of that show than me. We gave it a better time slot to follow up every single year that it was on the air. And eventually, we just had to say how much longer do we go on without the show really catching on?”
Ouch. Well, we can’t argue with the ratings. But we still wish more people had tuned in to what we think was one of the best shows on TV.
Are you still in mourning, or have you moved on from Veronica Mars?
July 17, 2007
CW Stars All Over Portrait Magazine's Top 30 Stars Under 30
Online teen mag Portrait magazine polled its readers to find out which stars under 30 deserved the most praise, and several CW stars made the list.
Alexis Bledel came in at number 20, and the magazine got her to speculate on what’s next for her after Gilmore Girls. “I write a lot, too, so I would like to write or direct in the future if I can,….I always thought that I would work behind the camera – it’s a more comfortable place for me to be, really.” Innnnteresting.
Smallville’s Allison Mack hit the list at number 10 – and Portrait pointed us to her travel log at www.allisonmack.com. Good stuff.
The cast of Veronica Mars was listed as The Critics’ Favorites at number 6 – if only the show had gotten the rating both critics and fans think it deserved. The magazine has a list of all the projects the cast is working on post-Veronica, so at least we’ll be able to see our favorites soon. We knew about Tina Majorino in Big Love, Chris Lowell’s turn on Private Practice, Kristen and Enrico’s upcoming movie roles, and Jason Dohring’s new part on Moonlight, but we hadn’t heard about Percy Daggs III’s role in “American Son,” or that Ryan Hansen would be appearing in “Sherman’s Way with Enrico, or that Julie Gonzalo was working on both Spanish-language and English films, along with producing another movie. Plus, Chris has a movie in the works and Tina is in the band The AM Project. Whew!
Finally, Portrait pays tribute to two of your favorite shows: One Tree Hill (number 3 on the list) and Supernatural (number 2). Check out the whole list!
July 6, 2007
Kristen Bell Earns Fashion Raves
Kristen Bell's style choices have ranged from wild, almost overwhelming prints and weirdly constructed gowns to the lovely look she sports at right (yes, we're fans of old-school red lips).
Though she's been ripped on in the past for her adventurous outfits, Kristen's been earning raves recently from the likes of the Go Fug Yourself gals and TVGuide.com. And we're thrilled! We always loved the way Kristen doesn't follow the obvious path to starlet style. She keeps us guessing. And yes, she's had a few misses... but who hasn't? It just proves she's human (unlike some celebs we're still not sure about...).
What do you guys think? Are you fans of Kristen's style? Or are you too busy mourning the end of Veronica Mars to care about her latest frocks?
July 3, 2007
Jason Dohring Moves on from Veronica Mars
Jason Dohring is moving from brooding bad boy to creature of the night. Zap2it.com reports that the former Logan Echolls has joined the cast of the vampire-detective-drama "Moonlight" as a young, mischievous hedge-fund trader who also happens to be a blood-sucking fiend.
Jason’s character, Josef, is also the ancient vampire mentor for lead character Alex O'Loughlin. In the original pilot, the character was played by Rade Serbedzija, a 60-year-old Croatian-born actor. Needless to say, things have been “reconceptualized” since the pilot, thanks mostly to new showrunner David Greenwalt, formerly of “Angel.”
Would you tune in to see Jason Dohring as a vampire, or were you more interested in the character of Logan than Jason as an actor? Do you think the transition from damaged Logan to undead Josef will be a big stretch for Jason? Tell us what you think in the comments!
June 15, 2007
Veronica Mars: Goodbye, TV; Hello, Movie or Comics?
We have to confess that some folks around CW Source Central were clinging to the hope of a last-minute reprieve for our tiny blonde hero – maybe the sugar rush from all those candy bars and marshmallows would make the network realize its mistake! Alas, we'll just have to take series creator Rob Thomas's word for it: "It's over for good as a television series."
Thomas does go out of his way to absolve CW president Dawn Ostroff from blame: "At the end of the day [CW president] Dawn Ostroff doesn't get to make the final call. Hers is an important voice in the room. But they're the little sister company of CBS. There was a pretty strong feeling that [CBS head] Les Moonves didn't want to do the show."
We kind of wish we could hear something from the suits behind this decision – Why the big "Is it dead? Could it come back?" drama if the decision was already made? We can't help but agree with this comment Thomas made to Blogcritics Magazine: "In a way, a clean 'they're cancelled' would have been less painful. I mean, less painful for me and less painful for the fans, I think."
Thomas' interview with BlogCritics is actually sort of heartbreaking. Consider this: "Sometimes I do believe that 'critical darling, commercial flop' will be on my tombstone. I feel really confident that I can consistently do good television. I have yet to know whether I can write hit television." Aw….
To cheer Rob Thomas (and ourselves) up, we're going to focus on the positive. For example, while Veronica and Co. won't be back to the CW, they may live on in other media. According to Zap2it, Thomas told the folks at the Banff World Television Festival that yes, he is considering shopping around a Veronica Mars screenplay. Even more intriguing to some of our geek-flag-flying members is this news: "I had a meeting with DC Comics last Monday and they want to do [Season 4] as a comic series."
Continue reading "Veronica Mars: Goodbye, TV; Hello, Movie or Comics?" »
June 11, 2007
Veronica Mars: Could Sugar Save the Show?
So, you might have heard about how a group of fans resurrected a show on CBS by inundating the network with peanuts. Veronica Mars fans sure did – they're hoping a similar campaign to flood CW Central with Mars Bars and marshmallows will convince the network to pick up the show again despite its reputed death sentence.
We completely understood why people would send Mars Bars, but we were momentarily confused about the marshmallows. BlogCritics Magazine reminded us of a line from the pilot: "Veronica Mars, she's a marshmallow." Mystery solved.
The online retailer that sells Mars Bars imported from England got so many orders in so short a time that it is now offering free shipping to CW headquarters. The store's blog reveals that it's sending 1250 pound pallet of Mars Bars and at least 438 pounds of marshmallows to the building – we hope everyone there has a sweet tooth (and possibly an insulin pump).
It sounds like Kristen Bell could use some good news: When the Associated Press asked her what she would miss most about Veronica, she quickly replied, "Other than everything?"
"It feels sort of like graduating high school. You really only recognize how special it was once it's gone away," Bell told The Associated Press in a recent phone interview. "And of course everyone graduates from different jobs then they move on, but I don't know I'll find as special a show ever again," the 26-year-old actress said. "I think I'm only truly realizing that now."
Plus, Detroit native Bell is in mourning over how her hometown hockey team, the Red Wings, lost to the Anaheim Ducks in the conference
finals: According to mlive.com, "Bell says people told her: 'It's just a team..' 'No, it's the heart of the city!' Bell would reply. 'It's a religion!'"
UPDATE: Ausiello's reporting that the show is "officially dead" -- he talked with creator Rob Thomas about the show's slow demise. But the Mars Bars are still on the way, and The CW hasn't made an official statement yet (that we've heard)... so maybe they'll have a last-minute change of heart, spurred by these sugary shipments. We'll keep you posted.
In the meantime -- were any of you involved in this massive Mars Bar campaign?
June 8, 2007
Wedding Bells for Alona Tal
Alona Tal, a frequent CW player (Meg Manning on Veronica Mars, Jo Harvelle on Supernatural) wed actor Marcos Ferraez on June 5 in Israel. Check out pics of the wedding on her website.
Congratulations, Alona!
May 24, 2007
Rumorville: What's Next for Veronica Mars Cast?
We’ve got a couple of conflicting rumors from two TV gossip mavens. Make of them what you will.
First up, TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello says series creator Rob Thomas is pondering a Veronica Mars movie. Poing!
"I'm not entirely sure how/when VM would've ended, but I wouldn't discount my taking a stab at a feature script. But I'm not sure if I could sell a movie based on a little-watched TV series."
Um, Rob? You could. You really, really could. Trust us on this – you’ve got plenty of people who would pay money to see what happened to Veronica, Logan, Keith and the rest of the Neptune crowd.
The other rumor comes from E!Online’s Kristin, who reports that Thomas is shooting a new project (on spec) at his house with Enrico Colantoni (Keith) and Paula Marshall playing spouses. “As far as I know, Colantoni is not playing anything Mars-related, so it appears Thomas may be moving on,” Kristin reports.
While we’ll take any excuse to watch Enrico on television, we have to admit, we prefer Ausiello’s rumor more. Viva La Mars!
May 23, 2007
Veronica Mars: Noir and Downbeat 'Til The End
Aw, man! What a way for Veronica Mars to end. We get that creator Rob Thomas was working under the assumption that this was a season, not series, finale, (and the network promoted it as such), but seriously, would it kill you to give us just a little closure? Even though the mysteries of the week were solved, everything else about our favorite characters’ lives was very much up in the air. What did you think of the finale?
Still, we have to give credit to the show – they stayed relentlessly noir and downbeat until the end. No sudden happy endings for this crowd. We have to respect them for sticking to the ethos of the show, even while we’re looking for the antidepressants.
So, two hours, two mysteries, multiple heartbreaks. Mystery number one: Someone is peddling fake IDs and the kids caught using them finger Weevil. It’s a hard charge to shake – he’s got access to the machine that makes them, he’s an ex-con, and he’s pissed off at the college for dragging their feet on a workman’s comp claim. Luckily, Veronica manages to track down the group of rich-kid friends who did it – and gets their confession on tape. What would you expect from a group of kids arrogant enough to think no one would notice their student ID said “Sylvia Plath” or “Leonardo Fibonacci”? Idiots. The thing is, now Weevil has the machine they were using, and he looks like he means to use it.
Speaking of tapes… oh, the trauma of the next mystery. Somehow, a video of Veronica and Piz fooling around…naked… gets sent around campus. Turns out the sex tape got made because the campus secret society – The Castle – was considering Wallace for membership. They bugged his room, followed him around, generally were creepy as all hell. Wallace agreed to try to find out who the members were so Veronica could get her revenge. He got taken to a mysterious facility, where he was told to strip and reveal all his secrets to a video camera. If he lied, someone got tortured with a shock collar. Unfortunately, Wallace lied about the camera pen he was carrying for Veronica, and he got kicked out. He did figure out the identity of one of the other pledges, and Veronica was able to tail him to a Castle induction party – at the home of Jake Kane.
Veronica managed to steal Kane’s hard drive, which contained a list of all members of the Castle since its founding, as well as recordings of their big bad secrets. She figures one of those secrets will be her tormenter, Gory Sorokin, revealing he released the tape of her. But he’s got bigger things to confess – he’s from a family that sounds like it treated The Godfather Trilogy like cheery home movies. Yipe. Veronica returns the hard drive to Jake, but tells him if he presses charges for theft, she’ll spill all the secrets it contained.
Continue reading "Veronica Mars: Noir and Downbeat 'Til The End" »
May 21, 2007
How Will We Miss Veronica Mars? Let Us Count The Ways...
Veronica Mars comes to an end tomorrow night, and yes, we’re in mourning. Yeah, technically, the network has until June 15 to give Veronica a last-minute reprieve, but by all accounts, our show is dead. We get why it wasn’t renewed – the ratings just weren’t there – but we have to admit, we’ll miss Veronica and the rest of our friends in Neptune something fierce.
How will we miss the show? Let us count the ways:
The actors: Kristen Bell. Jason Dohring. Percy Daggs III. Francis Capra. Tina Majorino. Enrico Colantoni. Michael Muhney. The show gave us an excuse to spend an hour a week with these and other great performers. Whether reintroducing an established actor, like Colantoni, giving an ingénue room to prove herself, like Bell, or introducing a relative unknown to a wider audience, like Dohring, Veronica Mars excelled at bringing great actors and getting great performances out of the people on the screen.
The characters: Veronica was a near-perfect character, which does not in any way mean she was a near-perfect person. On the contrary – she was all kinds of flawed, and that made us love her all the more. And Logan – we admit, the tortured-rich-boy schtick usually makes us yawn, but somehow the way Logan was written and the way Dohring portrayed him grabbed our heart. Even the supporting players – Mac, Weevil, Wallace, Dick – were always well-drawn and real – we could imagine them starring in their own shows just off camera.
Father-daughter dynamics: Keith and Veronica had one of the most realistic, moving parent-child relationship on TV. These two respected each other, loved each other fiercely, but still were real enough to let each other down. Think of Keith’s disappointment at discovering Veronica had manufactured fake IDs, or Veronica’s heartbreak at realizing her dad was having an affair with a married woman. These people were real, which meant they messed up sometimes. But they always loved each other, and that shone through.
Continue reading "How Will We Miss Veronica Mars? Let Us Count The Ways..." »
May 16, 2007
Veronica's Got Future Plans, But Does The Show Have a Future?
While we wait (and wait… and wait… and wait…) to hear the show’s fate, we can at least take comfort in a darn good episode that combined mysterious goings-on, political intrigue and relationship drama in a neat little package. Plus, the episode took some time to publicize a cause dear to the actors’ hearts, which just adds to the satisfaction.
Veronica deals with the case of a former child soldier from Uganda, his missing father, and a potentially James-Frey-type situation. Turns out the book is true – Apollo, the author, just wanted to weed out the money-grubbers. He’s reunited with his dad, and all is well – plus, the not-for-profit group Invisible Children, which Ryan Hansen (Dick Casablancas) is heavily involved in, gets some attention and a PSA at the end of the episode.
Meanwhile, burglaries have spiked in Neptune’s tony ’06 neighborhoods – highly convenient for Vinnie Van Lowe’s sheriff campaign. It looks like he’s working with the notorious Fitzpatrick clan – they’re coordinating the robberies on places with security systems that Vinnie consulted on. They want Keith out – unless he tells them where the money Kendall (remember her?) stole went. Keith won’t budge, and things look bad for the campaign. However, Vinnie’s political ad (and Keith’s comments on it) is pretty darn funny.
Veronica aced her PI exam (but her score was two points below Keith’s, and he’s fine with gloating about that), plus she got the FBI internship. Wheee! Piz is a little bummed – we think he might have turned down his dream internship with Pitchfork Media, indie music’s go-to site, in favor of a gig at a top-40 radio station in California. We can’t feel too bad for him – first, we think it’s stupid to weigh opportunities based on how close it’ll keep you to your crush, and second, we kind of think Pitchfork might have been messing with him because he said the internship was in New York and we’re pretty sure Pitchfork is in Chicago. Poor Piz – he just can’t win. What'd you think of everyone's summer plans?
Continue reading "Veronica's Got Future Plans, But Does The Show Have a Future?" »
May 14, 2007
Post Your Questions for Enrico Colantoni!
Calling all Enrico Colantoni fans: we'll be interviewing him soon! Yay!
And what a time to get to interview him. With the future of Veronica Mars -- and Keith's character -- in question, we really want to know what's on his mind.
As always, we want your questions, so post them in the comments section. Then check back here in a few days for the video interview!
May 9, 2007
Veronica Mars: Fantastic Episode... If You Ignore The Plot Holes
There was so much to love about this episode, but we can't help but be distracted by one minor thing – you know, the fact that Veronica could have solved the case in approximately 2.5 seconds if she'd just bothered to actually examine the evidence when she first walked into the room. Come on, writers – that's the sort of rookie mistake our Veronica would never make. What are you doing to us?
Oh, well – we suppose we can write it off as Veronica being distracted by the Piz/Logan situation, not to mention the fact that Desmond was being such an ass. And if Veronica had solved the case immediately, we would have been deprived of the joy of watching Paul Rudd act out as a dissipated indie rock god, which made our night. We'll give you a pass on this one, writers – but don't do it again.
And Desmond was such an ass – but we can almost see why, if he's been reduced to basically performing karaoke on stage, singing along to a tape. (Insert your own Britney Spears joke here.) We didn't think we'd be at all interested in his redemption, but damned if Paul Rudd didn't pull it off and make us care. By the final concert scene, we were cheering and squealing along with the crowd. What'd you think of Desmond?
But enough tough love – on to the stuff we liked.
Continue reading "Veronica Mars: Fantastic Episode... If You Ignore The Plot Holes" »
KTLA to Rebroadcast 5/8 Episodes of Gilmore/Veronica This Saturday
KTLA fans, you've been heard. We just received word that KTLA will rebroadcast last night's episodes of Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars this Saturday, May 12. For those that didn't hear, KTLA interrupted the episodes with live coverage of a major Los Angeles fire.
Here's the schedule:
Saturday, May 12
8 PM: Gilmore Girls
9 PM: Veronica Mars
We're relieved -- we wouldn't want you to have to wait until after the Gilmore finale to see Rory's graduation! Now you'll have your chance on Saturday. Get more info from KTLA!
May 8, 2007
Veronica Mars: Don't Say Sayonara Just Yet
Veronica Mars fans, we have some good news for you: TVGuide.com reports that your favorite show might return after all!
Why? Sources point to the end of Gilmore Girls as one reason. Also, a renewal is contingent on some revisions. Creator Rob Thomas has shot a new trailer featuring Ms. Mars as an FBI agent. A title change and some cast shuffling may also take place.
It sounds to us they might as well stick Kristen Bell in a new show altogether... Would you welcome back your favorite show for a fourth season, even if it meant that almost everything you loved about the show might change drastically?
UPDATE: More 'Mars' Looking Likely