Six months have passed since Matthew’s death when Downton Abbey returns tonight for a new season, and while Lady Mary — and much of the house — are still mourning the loss, life must also go on. And for some characters, 1922 and beyond will prove to be tough.
For details, click through our handy guide below where we tease the action you’ll see in season 4.
UPSTAIRS
Mary
Robert and Cora
Edith
Cousin Rose
Tom Branson
DOWNSTAIRS
Bates and Anna
Daisy
Alfred
Carson
Thomas
NBC has released the first promo for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which will debut Feb. 17. It highlights the passing of the baton throughout the years (yes, even Conan). Watch it below.
Seth Meyers takes over Fallon’s desk at Late Night on Feb. 24. READ FULL STORY
Justified fans have plenty of reasons to look forward to season 5 (which begins Jan. 7 at 10 p.m. ET on FX). Top on the list: Fan favorite Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) is back and we’ll be meeting his Florida swamp cousins — led by Darryl Crowe Jr. (Michael Rapaport), this year’s Big Bad. “It’s that sense that they’re carrion birds,” executive producer Graham Yost says. “They come in, they’re invasive, they’re hard to get rid of. We meet essentially all of them in the first episode, then they start coming up to Kentucky and settle on the wire one at a time. You just know that it’s bad news.”
Raylan (Timothy Olyphant), who we’ll learn has put Darryl away before, is called to Florida in the premiere to help locate and vanquish the Crowes’ latest moneymaker. Darryl’s next move after hearing his cousin Dewey has come into money? Harlan, where he’ll learn Dewey is now the proud owner of Audrey’s, having bought it from Boyd (Walton Goggins).
Rapaport was offered the role of the smart gator farmer/hustler contingent on him being able to do a Southern accent. He sent producers a clip of a tiny indie film he’d done (2004′s America Brown) and a fresh voice memo he’d recorded on his phone of a made-up monologue. He worked with a dialect coach and channeled his deep reality TV addiction: “Reality shows are a good resource for actors because there’s a lot of great accents,” explains the fan of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, Love & Hip Hop New York, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Shahs of Sunset. “Now I have an excuse: Moonshiners, those guys got thick, thick accents, so much that they sometimes have subtitles, and then there’s another one with snakes [National Geographic Channel's Snake Salvation].” READ FULL STORY
The wait for Josh Holloway’s return to television is nearly over. Until then, check out the shiny new main sequence for the show, which centers on Holloway, who plays a high-tech intelligence operative named Gabriel.
Marg Helgenberger, who plays the director of the government cyber-security agency that was built to support Gabriel and his missions, provides the voice-over for the opening, which you’re seeing first here on EW.com.
Check them out below. The show premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. following NCIS before moving to its regular spot on Mondays at 10 p.m. on Jan. 13. READ FULL STORY
Teen Wolf fans, prepare to sink your teeth into Tyler Posey.
The winter premiere of TV’s craziest, wildest, bloodiest high school drama is at hand, and EW chatted with the Teen Wolf himself to find out what’s in store for the second half of the show’s third season. Posey promises an unforgettable installment of the devilishly dark thriller—and if the totally crackers first episode is any indication, then we’re in for one hell of a ride in 2014. (This season will also mark the premiere of Wolf Watch, a post-mortem interview show that will feature guest spots by cast members and celeb superfans.)
READ FULL STORY
The time has come for Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) to face down her last day in office as a City Councilwoman. How will she cope with letting go? Will she let go? What future moves is she plotting with Ben (Adam Scott)? And because we’re still in question mode, we ask: How will Ann (Rashida Jones) and Chris (Rob Lowe) react when they discover the sex of their soon-to-be-born child? And is Jerry Garry Larry (Jim O’Heir) headed for another identity crisis? Answers to these questions are contained inside the 100th episode of Parks and Recreation, which airs Jan. 9 at 8:30 p.m. on NBC. A peek at one or two of those answers is contained in the video below, so stop all tex-mexting at once and check out this clip from the milestone installment. READ FULL STORY
Yes, a lot of us are dealing with snow today, but here’s a reminder it could always be worse. In Klondike, Discovery’s first scripted miniseries (premiering Jan. 20 at 9 p.m. ET), prospective gold miners Bill Haskell (Game of Thrones‘ Richard Madden) and Byron Epstein (Kick-Ass 2‘s Augustus Prew) cross a treacherous mountain pass on their way to even more dangerous Dawson City to stake their claim.
In the exclusive clip below, the actors were actually hiking up Fortress Mountain, outside Calgary, Canada, at a location accessible only by snowmobile. The cast and crew spent four days filming the trek — along with an avalanche, courtesy of hand-set explosives that had been lowered by helicopter, and its aftermath — at a height of roughly 10,000 feet.
You’ll want to max out your screen’s brightness. It’s a dark scene, which adds to the feeling of impending doom.
Would you settle for five seasons and a movie? Returning right after the New Year holiday, NBC’s Community suffered a drop in the ratings Thursday night.
Community had 3.7 million viewers for its 8 p.m. season premiere and then 3 million viewers for its special second episode at 8:30 p.m. Among adults 18-49, Community had a 1.3 rating and then a 1.2, down 32 percent from last year. This is an all-time low for a Community premiere. Community also didn’t help The Michael J. Fox Show or Sean Saves the World, with both returning to a series low (see chart below). Check our extensive Q&A with Community creator Dan Harmon.
Community‘s big rival, CBS’ The Big Bang Theory (18.9 million, 5.3) didn’t see any holiday impact, however, returning up a few notches from its last episode to rule the night. The rest of CBS’ comedy lineup also posted gains, as well as Elementary.
While ABC had two premieres. There was the return of The Taste (4.7 million, 1.2), down 43 percent from its Tuesday night series premiere last year. Then there was new 10 p.m. eight-episode miniseries The Assets (3.8 million, 0.7), based upon the real-life Aldrich Ames spy case. Clearly, it’s no Scandal. READ FULL STORY
The Bachelor returns Jan. 5, but the drama of Juan Pablo’s journey for love starts now with the release of the season’s supertease. Watch our exclusive first look below. It’s all smiles, sunsets, and shirtlessness — for the first 70 seconds. Then the switch you’ve been waiting for happens: It’s tears, tequila (“Give me three shots of Patrón, and I’ll be topless”), and one of the women sitting on the floor of a bathroom wishing Juan Pablo were dead.
If the cryptic voiceovers are to be believed, Juan Pablo is “doing nothing like anything that has ever been done” and “no one has ever dealt with this before.” But as he says, “I’d definitely rather end up with nobody than [have] my daughter not be proud of her dad.” He even walks out of a confessional. READ FULL STORY
Poor Merc. Season 2 of the Matt LeBlanc comedy Episodes on Showtime left smarmy network exec Merc Lapidus (John Pankow) high and dry… er, wet actually, after being dumped by his mistress Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins) and left out in the rain. Not to mention he’s been fired. And his wife left him and is sleeping with Matt LeBlanc. Needless to say, Merc’s seen better days.
“I’m kind of on the outside looking in,” Pankow says in the featurette below of Merc’s place in the show as we head into season 3, which premieres on Showtime on Jan. 12. Merc’s gone from office high life to you’ll-never -work-in-this-town-again territory – even his assistant equates the empty office to a horror movie: ”It’s like the movie The Vanishing… Someone vanishes.”
But is there a chance for him and Carol to reunite this season? Get up to date with Merc, Carol, Matt, and the rest of the gang in the featurette below:
