NETWORK TV CANCELLATION BLOODBATH:
A whole lot of people in the TV world will probably suffer from friggatriskadekaphobia — the fear of Friday the 13th, we did a whole piece on it on the site — after the bloodbath of cancellations that rained down like singles at a strip club at the tail end of this week. Who didn't make the cut?
- Superhero-minded series No Ordinary Family starring Romany Malco as an assistant district attorney
- 80s remix V which had Morris Chestnut as a morally conflicted alien
- action series Human Target featuring Chi McBride as former cop Winston
- psycho-crime drama Lie To Me which had Mekhi Phifer as an FBI Agent
- invasion narrative The Event having its own Black president with Blair Underwood
That's a lot less geek-oriented entertainment on your network dials. The tail end of the week also saw news that David E. Kelley's new live action Wonder Woman pilot made NBC go "pass." We'll discuss that one more on May 29th when we interview Tracie Thoms, the actress who played Etta Candy on the pilot.
YOU'RE HIRED:
Somebody's still getting a check, though. Actor Charles S. Dutton — you remember him as garbage man Roc, right? He has joined the pilot for Powers, an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis' long running crime procedural set in a gritty world where super powers are publicly acknowledged. Dutton will play Captain Cross, a role originally portrayed as white. It's not just T'challa coming for all the white folks' jobs, y'all. Sarah Michelle Gellar's new series Ringer did get picked up by the CW after CBS passed on it, meaning that Mike Colter. The brother who played the CIA tactical leader from Salt? Yeah, he's gonna get a check too.
WILL SMITH ANNOYS NYC WITH HUMONGOUS, OSENTATIOUS TRAILER
M: Will Smith is in New York City filming Men In Black 3, and he's trying to let everybody know what "big Willie style" is about. How big? Try a $9000/month trailer called The Heat that's 1,150 square feet. There's a lounge, a movie room, office space for 30 people, a full-service kitchen, a master bedroom, an all-granite bathroom, marble floors, and matched-grain Italian cherrywood cabinetry. Martha Stewart all up in there! The former Fresh Prince also rented a five bedroom apartment nearby, and has a second trailer too!
Local residents in SoHo don't like it, saying it smells like a gas station and that having a 53 foot trailer all up in their space is killing business.
It got so crazy, Mayor Bloomberg got involved, telling the production that the monster trailer had to go, possibly to serve as living space for the entire country of Andorra.
[Source: Link]
FIFTEEN YEAR OLD IS ACCEPTED TO THIRTEEN MAJOR COLLEGES
Saheela Ibraheem is fifteen years old. She's the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Her father stayed up late supplementing her education with extra tutoring. In sixth grade they started skipping her ahead, and she's now been accepted to — brace yourselves — thirteen different colleges. Not safety schools either. California Institute of Technology, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Williams College, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington University in St. Louis all accepted her. Oh, and Harvard, which is where she's going. Yeah.
Oh, by the way, she's also a three sport athlete, played outfield for the school softball team, defender o the soccer team, did swimming relays and 50 meter races for the swim team, sings in the school choir, plays trombone in the band, and is president of the school's investment club.
There's three things to note about this story. First, there's no "tiger mom" stuff here, her parents told her to do what made her happy, and that just happened to be … uh, everything. Suck on that, Amy Chua.
Second, she chose to have everything. She has the focus of a geek, and wants to major in neurobiology and neuroscience. Brain science, dude. However, she's also a jock. She's doing the whole thing.
Third, and I believe I'm reading this right … she's already put in a bid to buy this website, to rename it Saheela-cated. I may be working for her next week.
[Source: Link]
SCIENCE INVENTS NANODIAMONDS
Do you know about aerogels? They're this kind of cool science stuff. Lowest density material you can make. Now they've taken this stuff and made nanodiamonds. I could tell you how they made it, but basically, they made moldable, flexible, transparent diamond gels. Imagine ultra strong glass. Medical applications for it, nanocomputing, space-craft construction … freakin' clear bullet proof diamond shirt! What rapper wouldn't buy that?
[Source: Link]
Finally, time to wish a happy 21st birthday to editor-in-chief Hannibal Tabu's youngest brother Chazz.