TV Talk with Rob Owen category, Page 51

Game show “Supermarket Sweep” has been a TV staple with versions popping up in the 1960s, 1990s, early 2000s and now again in 2020 as ABC resurrects the franchise at 8 p.m. Sunday with new host Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”). The ‘90s version of the show gained cachet with...

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: How does Hallmark Channel make about 40 new Christmas movies during a pandemic? Were some movies made prior to March 2020? - Elaine via email...

Two local teens will be featured in a recurring Disney Channel segment, “Kudos and Kudon’ts,” for their creation of the Pittsburgh organization Black, Young & Educated. Disney Channel’s Ariel Martin and Trevor Tordjman (“Zombies 2”) chat with B.Y.E. co-founders Nicholas Anglin and Treasure Palmer in the two-minute segment, which also...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Western Pennsylvania native Stephanie D’Abruzzo has operated puppets on Broadway (“Avenue Q”) and in children’s programming (“Sesame Street”) and she’s appeared in prime time (“Scrubs”). She can trace a theme in her latest project, educational...

Actress Victoria Pedretti’s acting career took off just a few months after she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama in 2017 when she was cast in a supporting role in Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House.” Form there she landed a major role in season two of Netflix’s...

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: A few years back there was a home improvement TV show that featured a Pittsburgh woman. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the show name, her...

In the latest retransmission dispute impacting local viewers, Verzion’s FiOS TV dropped AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh. A Verizon spokesman said its agreement to carry AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh expired Sept. 30. Verizon released a statement saying, “AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh has demanded a significant increase to an already high rate so fans can...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. ^ Based on the National Book Award-winning novel by James McBride, Showtime’s adaptation of “The Good Lord Bird” (9 p.m. Sunday) proves to be as entertaining as it is tonally messy. But it’s acceptably messy...

It was a mini-Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama reunion for Matt Bomer (CMU class of 2000) and Green Tree native Zachary Quinto (CMU class of 1999) in the Netflix movie “The Boys in the Band,” directed by Joe Mantello and executive produced by Ryan Murphy (“Ratched”). A remake of...

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: Can you please clear something up for me: On Discovery Channel is the “Alaskan Bush People” for real or are they just actors who are...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. ^ Here’s something that is likely to happen more often as the entertainment business looks into the future and sees that it’s digital: There’s a show premiering this week on AMC+, a streaming service you...

Back for its fourth season, the important good news is this iteration of “Fargo” (9-11 p.m. Sunday, FX) is significantly better than the disappointing third season, though probably not as good as the near-perfect second season. Sunday’s two-episode premiere spends a lot of time grounding the show in backstory that’s...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: I just saw the first promo for “The Great British Bake Off” “coming soon” to ITV in the U.K. Will Netflix be picking up the next...

The remotely-produced 72nd annual Emmy Awards promised to be an unusual, revised-for-the-pandemic affair and it miraculously came together with almost no technical glitches and enough novelty to freshen and loosen up the staid format. Pop TV’s “Schitt’s Creek” had an unprecedented early winning streak, taking home more top awards in...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. A spin-off of the “Bad Boys” movie franchise, police drama “L.A.’s Finest” (8 p.m. Monday, Fox) originally premiered on Spectrum Originals in May 2019. But since Spectrum Originals is only available to subscribers to Spectrum...

It’s a round-about way that “Manhunt: Deadly Games” came to film in Pittsburgh. The show’s first season, Discovery Channel’s “Manhunt: Unabomber,” was set to shoot in Western Pennsylvania in 2016 but initially couldn’t find a male lead. Once producers lined up a cast, there were no more Pennsylvania film tax...

Actress Sarah Paulson starred in writer/producer Ryan Murphy’s “The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and multiple seasons of “American Horror Story,” proving to be his MVP, a streak she extends in Murphy’s “Ratched,” streaming Friday on Netflix. A prequel to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” – both...

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: I would like to know if “Hometown High Q” will be returning this fall on KDKA-TV. -Jean, Oakland Rob: KDKA is continuing the show, according...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Legendary Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw is not “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and he doesn’t know if “Chrisley Knows Best,” but beginning this week he’s the star of “The Bradshaw Bunch” (9 p.m. Thursday, E!),...

While broadcast networks slowly roll out new and returning series, cable and especially streaming aren’t missing a beat, with highlights this fall that include: “Wilmore” (Friday, Peacock): Comedian and writer Larry Wilmore, whose “Nightly Show” was rudely dropped by Comedy Central in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign, returns...

It’s a fall TV season unlike any other. With TV shows slowly gearing up for production, many returning series won’t air until late this fall or early 2021. In most years TV shows resume production in July. This year, just a few started back in August, with others gearing up...

Like zombies from “The Walking Dead,” the fall TV season will stagger to a start, particularly on broadcasters ABC, CBS and NBC, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Fox and The CW set pandemic-proof schedules in May, largely by holding back spring and summer programs. But in June, the Big Three...

So far the pandemic doesn’t seem to have slowed the PBS production pipeline with a wealth of “Masterpiece” dramas and the usual array of news, documentary and nature programming on tap. PBS’s venerable “Frontline” offers its every-four-years look at the presidential contenders in “The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden” (9...

The 10-episode first season of Showtime’s “American Rust,” which was scheduled to begin filming in Western Pennsylvania in March but got delayed by the pandemic-forced global entertainment production shutdown, has been pushed to 2021. On a teleconference with reporters to promote his role as former FBI director James Comey in...

Director Kenny Ortega brings the pop-rock infectious energy of his “High School Musical” to the music-powered Netflix original series “Julie and the Phantoms.” Now streaming, “Julie and the Phantoms” is a smaller show – smaller cast, fewer sets – but it’s bursting with good vibes and music that’s sure to...