Kiefer Sutherland in, Kiefer Sutherland out. Canadian talent headlining American shows are breaking about even as the 2013-14 schedules are announced this week in New York.
Sutherland’s Touch didn’t touch enough viewers to stick around for a third season on Fox, but the network did announce that Sutherland is inked to reprise his role as Jack Bauer on a new season of 24. Plans to do a 24 feature film were scrapped, apparently, when executive producer Howard Gordon concluded a two-hour movie just didn’t fit 24‘s real time format. Instead, the series will return with a 12-hour run to start the spring/summer of 2014.
Michael J. Fox is a big TV star many thought was done making a weekly series after easing out of Spin City 15 years ago. Recent stints on Rescue Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Wife have proved Fox is up to the task, especially if the show is shot in New York. That’s where The Michael J. Fox Show will be based. The NBC sitcom stars Fox as a news anchor forced to step back from TV when diagnosed with Parkinson’s but, with the kids grown up and bored sitting at home, he ventures back before the cameras.
Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) will headline the ABC drama Killer Woman. The Alberta native will play a Texas Ranger. Modern Family’s Sophia Vergara is among the producers.
B.C. native Brendan Fehr (Roswell) returns in the mid-season NBC hospital drama The Night Shift.
Losing jobs are Matthew Perry, whose Go On was turned off at NBC. Elisha Cuthbert saw Happy Endings fade out of sight at ABC. Sarah Chalke did not get to keep on Living with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life.
Most U.S. shows shot in Canada survived the cut, including Nikita and Beauty and the Beast shot in Toronto and Arrow and Supernatural shot in Vancouver. Cult was no surprise as a B.C. casualty. The fate of NBC/Global’s Hannibal, a Mississauga, Ont. production left off fall schedules, still hangs in the balance, with hopes for a possible mid-season pick up.
