ABC Casts Kiefer Sutherland as President of the United States

ABC casts Kiefer Sutherland as President of the United States

The former 24 star is returning to primetime in Designated Survivor, a conspiracy thriller about a low-level presidential cabinet member who suddenly ascends to the presidency. Sutherland will play the designated survivor during a catastrophic attack that kills off everyone above him in the presidential line of succession during the State of the Union speech. ABC has given Designated Survivor a straight-to-series order.

Homeland made some minor changes in response to the Paris attacks

As showrunner Alex Gansa explains, “in the case of Paris, we did make a few minor adjustments to the Dec. 6 and Dec. 20 episodes. We did ADR, which means additional dialogue replacement, a line over Allison’s back in the Dec. 6 episode where she says, ‘Nobody wants to see another Paris.’ So occasionally we will adjust when we can. In the finale, there is one scene that was rewritten as a result of what happened in Paris.”

Jimmy Kimmel loses weight by starving himself on Mondays and Thursdays

Kimmel explains his diet in Men’s Journal: “My new thing — something I’ve been doing for a couple of years now, actually — is starving myself two days a week. People call it the 5:2 diet, but I’ve been doing it since before it had a name. On Monday and Thursday, I eat fewer than 500 calories a day, then I eat like a pig for the other five days. You “surprise” the body, keep it guessing.”

Why The Affair is the best and worst show on TV

Ruth Wilson and Maura Tierney make the Showtime series the best show on television, says Bruce Handy. What makes it the worst? Noah’s baffling literary success.

Dick Wolf and Chuck Lorre say TV has changed more in the past 6 months than in the past 6 years

As Wolf puts it, “Did anyone think that Amazon and Netflix would be the prestige studios?”

MTV picks up 3 comedies, including one starring comedian Nicole Byer

MTV has also ordered a comedy about weed dealers, plus the comedy Little Darlings about female college vigilantes.

Thanks to America’s Got Talent, Howard Stern’s radio show is booking “a higher caliber of guest”

The shock jock’s former NBC reality show “gave him a mainstream presence, and it legitimized him, and it showed who he truly was,” according to media analyst Bob Lefsetz, a Stern pal. That paved the way for publicists to allow their A-list clients on his show.

Hannibal‘s Aaron Abrams joins Blindspot

He’ll recur as an Assistant U.S. Attorney who romances Agent Zapata.

American Idol alum Ayla Brown will sing the national anthem at Tuesday’s Republican debate

The Season 5 Idol alum is the daughter of former Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.