Kelsey Grammer Extends Term as 'Boss'; Bunnies Bumped by Parents
Today in film and television: Starz doesn't need the public to tell it how good Boss is, the Parents Television Council kicks The Playboy Club while it's down, and Showtime is backing a new documentary about Suge Knight.
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When HBO announced back in April it was bringing back Game of Thrones for a second season less than 48 hours after the series premiered, we predicted the network's next move would be to renew a show before it even aired. This was intended to be a joke, but Starz has taken our unintentional advice and renewed Kelsey Grammer's Chicago politics-meets-King Lear drama Boss for a second season, even though the show's first episode doesn't air until October 21. They also increased the episode order from eight to ten. We can't really argue with the decision, since it would take a graphing calculator to add up the number of times we've watched the show's electrifying trailer. [Hit Fix]
The Parents Television Council is taking credit for the fact seven sponsors of last week's premiere of The Playboy Club on NBC--including Kraft, Lenovo, UPS, Sprint, Subway, P.F. Chang's China Bistro and Campbell's Soup--didn't run ads during the show's second episode Monday night. The PTC's been hammering NBC on everything about the show, from the cast's nudity clauses to the alleged glamorization of bygone softcore pornography. In the latest release, the organization couldn't resist gloating about the show's disappearing audience, which shrank from a not-so-hot 5 million viewers for the premiere to 3.8 million on Monday, noting along with being offensive and "degrading," the show is also "a profoundly bad business decision." [The Hollywood Reporter]
When Showtime renegotiated the terms of its streaming video deal with Netflix in March, it pulled episodes of current original shows like Californication and Dexter and The Borgias off the service in an effort to protect the value of its original content. In the case of The Borgias, Netflix has responded by buying a different, European-financed drama about the family of 15th century papal powerbrokers from Oz creator Tom Fontana, which is just called Borgia. The $30 million first season, financed by a hodgepodge of European cable companies, is currently airing on Sky Italia and will be up on Netflix next month. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Also on the Showtime beat: the network will produce and air a documentary by Training Day director Antoine Fuqua about the life of Death Row Records founder Suge Knight. Knight's cooperating with the production and his new music company Black Kapital is going to produce the soundtrack. [The Los Angeles Times]
