TV Talk with Rob Owen category, Page 48
TV Talk: Stacy Smith to retire from KDKA-TV
Another veteran KDKA-TV news anchor will depart the station with the May 30 retirement of Stacy Smith. Unlike the recent news about Paul Martino’s retirement, this departure was more expected and had been in the works for some time. Smith departs after 38 years at KDKA and 50 years in...
TV Talk: Bethel Park’s Joe Serafini stars in ‘High School Musical’ Disney+ seriesVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. When the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” debuted in late 2019, Bethel Park native Joe Serafini had a recurring guest role in the show while still studying musical theater at the...
TV Talk: CMU grad, ‘Hamilton’ star sings lead in comedy from ’30 Rock’ writersVideo
Carnegie Mellon University musical theater grad Renee Elise Goldsberry, who played Angelica Schuyler in Broadway’s “Hamilton,” stars in the new Tina Fey-produced comedy series “Girls5eva,” now streaming all episodes on Peacock, included as part of a Comcast Xfinity subscription. The show follows members of a ‘90s girl group who attempt...
TV Q&A: Which shows are ‘on the bubble’ for renewal?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Recently you wrote about several CBS shows that have been renewed, but there was no mention of “SEAL Team.” Do you know the renewal status...
Jason Momoa’s filmed-in-Pittsburgh movie gets streaming debut date
The Jason Momoa-starring “Sweet Girl,” which filmed in Pittsburgh in late 2019, got a release date from Netflix this week: Aug. 20. Momoa stars as Ray Cooper, who vows to bring justice to those responsible for the death of his wife while protecting his daughter (Isabela Merced). The film, directed...
TV Talk: Paul Martino leaving KDKA-TV
Paul Martino, a veteran KDKA-TV reporter/anchor, will retire from the station July 1. Martino has been with the station since 1984 and until recently anchored weekend evening newscasts. He was replaced in that role by younger reporters and reassigned to weekday general assignment reporting. KDKA-TV news director Kathy Hostetter did...
TV Talk: Billy Porter plans to cast ‘authentic Pittsburgh people’ in his directorial debut
Pittsburgh native Billy Porter, a 1987 graduate of Pittsburgh CAPA and Taylor Allderdice High Schools and a 1991 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s drama program, has stayed busy during the past year’s pandemic, filming the final season of “Pose” — with its parallels to covid-19 — and readying his feature...
TV Talk: ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ spin-off ‘Donkey Hodie’ debuts on PBSVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Even after the director says, “Cut!,” sometimes puppeteers stay in character. “I said all my lines right!” said Donkey Hodie, as performed and voiced by former Point Park University student Haley Jenkins. And she said...
TV Talk: Billy Porter’s ‘What If?’ to film in PittsburghVideo
Pittsburgh native and TV’s “Pose” star Billy Porter will bring his feature film directorial debut home, shooting the movie “What If?” in Western Pennsylvania this summer. Porter confirmed the filming during an interview on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday while promoting the final season of FX’s “Pose,” which kicks off...
TV Q&A: Why don’t laid off TV news anchors get rehired?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Just reading your articles about the new reporters at KDKA, and I’ve been wondering for a while now with all the new reporters coming to...
TV Talk: Worst Oscars ever?
It’s tough to remember Oscars ceremonies from one year to the next, but the 2021 Academy Awards telecast may stand the test of time for all the wrong reasons. It was bad. Really bad. Producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh decided to eschew so many of the regular...
TV Talk: Natrona Heights woman appears on ‘Let’s Make a Deal’
Sharon Cushey of Natrona Heights appeared on the April 23 edition of CBS’s “Let’s Make a Deal,” winning $800 and a designer purse valued at $1,700, but it was an eight-month journey from when she applied. During the pandemic, “Let’s Make a Deal” has welcomed a mix of an in-studio...
TV Talk: ‘Good Doctor’ star Paige Spara auditioned from her family’s bathroom in Washington, Pa.
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. On ABC’s “The Good Doctor” (10 p.m. Monday, WTAE-TV), Washington, Pa., native Paige Spara stars as Lea, girlfriend of Shaun (Freddie Highmore, “Bates Motel”), the show’s title character. Spara has played Lea since midway through...
TV Talk: Western Pa. ‘Worst Cooks’ contestant returns for all-star editionVideo
If you’re invited to be on an all-star edition of Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America” (9 p.m. Sunday), does that make you among the best of the worst or the worst of the worst? “Definitely the worst of the worst,” says “Worst Cooks” contestant Sadie Manda, a Canonsburg native...
TV Talk: ‘A League of Their Own’ series will film in Pittsburgh
A streaming series based on the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” about the first female professional baseball league, will film in Western Pennsylvania. Stars attached to the series include Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”), D’Arcy Carden (“The Good Place”) and Chante Adams (“Bad Hair”). Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn...
TV Q&A: Who’s the new meteorologist on WTAE-TV?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Cam Tran left WTAE-TV weekend morning weather reporting a couple weeks ago for a station in Florida. Will she be replaced or will Regina Miller,...
TV Talk: PBS’s ‘Philly D.A.’ docu-series follows progressive Pa. prosecutor
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Even before the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, attempts at criminal justice reform were beginning to take root, including in Philadelphia with the 2017 election of civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as...
TV Talk: Another Pa. accent showcased in HBO’s ‘Mare of Easttown’Video
Director Craig Zobel isn’t from Pennsylvania – he grew up in Atlanta – but for the past few years his work has taken him to both ends of the commonwealth, first for 2018’s shot-in-Pittsburgh “One Dollar” and more recently for filmed-around-Philly HBO limited series “Mare of Easttown” (9 p.m. Sunday,...
TV Q&A: What’s going on with KDKA weekend evening anchors?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Where has Paul Martino been? He’s no longer anchoring the weekend evening news on KDKA-TV. For at least the last three weekends they have been...
TV Talk: ‘This is Us’ goes to ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’
Two disparate Pittsburgh pop culture touchstones crossed paths on Tuesday night’s episode of partially Pittsburgh-set “This is Us.” In scenes set in Pittsburgh in the early 1980s, Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) took kindergarten-age sons Randall and Kevin to a taping of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” at WQED-TV’s studios. The episode, written...
TV Q&A: Where has WTAE’s Mike Clark been?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: It seems like three or more weeks that Mike Clark hasn’t been on WTAE-TV’s evening news. Andrew Stockey keeps saying he’s in for him, but something seems...
TV Talk: North Hills teen appears in Amazon thriller ‘Them’
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Sometimes being the tag-along kid sister works out. For Sophie Guest, a 15-year-old sophomore in the Avonworth school district, tagging along landed her a small part in the 2012 filmed-in-Pittsburgh movie “Jack Reacher.” Now she...
TV Talk: ‘Deadliest Catch’ returns; ‘The Nevers’ debuts on HBOVideo
Westmoreland City native Wild Bill Wichrowski is back on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” for a covid-impacted season of crab fishing. Due to the pandemic, the state of Alaska didn’t do its annual crab survey, leaving crab fisherman to guess the best spots to fish when the season began last fall....
TV Q&A: Will WPXI add a noon co-anchor?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Four months after Peggy Finnegan’s retirement and with the pandemic still ongoing, will WPXI-TV fill the co-anchor position on the noon news with Gordon Loesch?...
TV Talk: ‘Atlantic Crossing’ debuts on PBS; ‘Kung Fu’ comes to The CWVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Every now and then TV networks wind up premiering a lot of new shows all in the same week. This is one of those weeks. ‘Atlantic Crossing’ A rare non-British period costume drama on PBS’s...
