TV Talk at TCA: PBS previews ‘Moonflower Murders’; filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘Deliverance’ trailer released

PASADENA, Calif. — This fall “Masterpiece Mystery!” debuts “Moonflower Murders” (9 p.m. Sept. 15-Oct. 20, WQED-TV), a follow-up to 2022’s “Magpie Murders.”

Book editor Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville, “The Crown”) is living in Crete with long-time boyfriend Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis) but a murder at a British hotel eight years earlier comes back to haunt her. One of the authors she worked with, the late Alan Conway (Conleth Hill), wrote a novel that used that real-world murder as its plot. One of the book’s readers who works at the real hotel has disappeared.

In addition to following the present-day disappearance investigation, “Moonflower Murders” also follows the events of and characters in Conway’s 1950s-set novel as detective Atticus Pünd (Tim McMullan, “Patrick Melrose”) and his assistant Madeline Cain (Pippa Bennett-Warner, “Gangs of London”) investigate the murder of movie star Melissa James (Rosalie Craig) in the same hotel where the real-life murder and disappearance occurred.

In several instances, one actor plays two roles: one in the present, one in the period-set novel’s story.

“When we come to the casting, I’m thinking of the modern person who might be a publisher or something in that world, followed by their 1950s equivalent as written in the books,” said series creator/writer Anthony Horowitz during PBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association summer 2024 press tour. “We get the same character, the same actor, walking down the flights of stairs in the 1950s and come out of the door in the 21st century in their modern clothes and modern personae but they’re the same (actor). That’s the joy of it, and it’s one of the reasons we managed to get such a great cast, because there aren’t many programs that give people that opportunity.”

PBS News at RNC

“PBS News Hour” co-anchor Geoff Bennett said the chaos of the news cycle over the past few weeks has been “like drinking out of a firehose everyday.”

Co-anchor Amna Nawaz said although some plans going into PBS’s coverage of the Republican National Convention this week (8-11 p.m. through Thursday, WQED-TV) “went out the window” following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler County, it won’t change PBS’s overall approach.

“The questions and the way that we frame the interviews are influenced by the news,” Bennett said. “One of the questions is how does this assassination attempt change the approach of this convention? The former President had said that he wanted to focus on unity. Well, what does that look like this week and beyond?”

Nawaz cautioned PBS News will try not to get ahead of the story.

“A few days ago, I think the big story was clearly the future of the Democratic ticket, and, as you’ve seen, in the last 48 hours alone that story has really faded to the background,” she said. “We’re just trying to keep up with things as they come out. And every other hour there’s a piece of news. We now have the first indication of how long former president Trump would be able to stick to the message of unity and tamping down the political rhetoric. He’s already on Truth Social calling January 6th the hoax and decrying all the political investigations or the investigations against him as political. There’s a sense that things are shifting in real-time, and one of the worst mistakes we could make is trying to get ahead of where things are.”

In an effort to encourage civil discourse, PBS will air the panel special “Deadlock” (9 p.m. Sept. 20) which will feature figures from legal, political and cultural spheres contemplating ethical dilemmas in hypothetical scenarios.

“We came together to develop this program because somewhere along the line, Americans seem to have forgotten how to have a public dialog about challenging topics without it devolving into acrimony, shouting, without defaulting into a simple ‘yes’ vs. ‘no,’ right versus wrong framework,” said WGBH-TV vice president of national programs John Bredar. “But research shows that audiences are exhausted by the win-lose model. They want discussions that work toward common ground in finding real world solutions. Our project, offers an alternative to that.”

‘Jury Duty’ almost spoiled

Last year’s Amazon Freevee hit reality comedy “Jury Duty” almost ended as soon as it began.

Actor Mekki Leeper, who played the bespectacled young jury member on “Jury Duty” and co-stars in NBC’s “St. Denis Medical” this fall, said on the first day of filming “Jury Duty” almost fell apart when the show’s mark, Ronald Gladden, opened a book on set that had blank pages. That’s not unusual for a book on a TV show’s set but since this was supposed to seem to Gladden like a real courthouse, it made Leeper fear the show’s secret was blown.

“This is what’s so loveable about Ronald,” Leeper said at NBC’s party during the Television Critics Association summer 2024 press tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel. “He was like, ‘Huh, this book is totally blank inside, that’s weird,’ and put it back. It was like a heart attack went through the whole building, and he just thought it was a weird, blank book. They quickly replaced them with real books.”

Channel surfing

Netflix released the trailer for filmed-in-Pittsburgher exorcism thriller “The Deliverance,” in select theaters Aug. 16 and streaming Aug. 30.

In early 2025 PBS will debut the one-hour film “Chautauqua at 150: Wynton Marsalis’ All Rise,” telling the institution’s story through its patrons, partners and performers. … Remember that ‘90s-era TV psychic Miss Cleo from the Psychic Readers Network? She’s getting a Lifetime biopic, “Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall” (8 p.m. Aug. 10). … Syfy canceled “Reginald the Vampire” after two seasons. … In June time spent watching streaming rose to its highest level ever (40.3%) since Nielsen started tracking streaming viewership. … “Leonardo da Vinci,” a two-part, four-hour documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, will debut on PBS at 8 p.m. Nov. 18 and 19.