‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ Actor Jim Parrack on Judd and Grace’s Big New-Parent Twist

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “In Perpetuity,” Friday’s episode of “Severance” on Apple TV Plus.“Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me and only in me shall their stain live on.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterFox’s animation house Bento Box Entertainment has signed a development deal with former TruTV executives Chris Linn and Marissa Ronca, and their consulting firm Contrast Media.Under the pact, Linn and Ronca will work closely with Bento Box’s development department, advising on creative strategy, packaging and development of animated projects for Fox Entertainment and ad-supported streaming service Tubi, as well as third-party platforms.Additionally, the WarnerMedia alums — Linn the former president of TruTV and Ronca the cable network’s former executive vice president and head of original programming and development — “will offer support” regarding Bento Box’s NFT studio, Blockchain Creative Labs. “Chris and Marissa are fantastic executives whose work we’ve admired for quite some time,” Scott Greenberg, co-founder and CEO of Bento Box Entertainment, said.

Even with the 2022 Winter Olympics in the bag, NBC continues to dominate primetime.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Red vs. Blue,” Monday’s episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”Lisa Edelstein is exiting “9-1-1: Lone Star” after playing Gwyneth Morgan, the wife of Rob Lowe’s Chief Owen Strand and the mother of Ronen Rubinstein’s T.K. Strand, for two seasons on the Fox drama, Variety has learned exclusively.Edelstein’s departure was hinted at in the final moments of Monday’s episode of “Lone Star,” when T.K.

9-1-1 Lone Star's Rob Lowe inspired President Joe Biden's press secretary to return to politics.MORE: 9-1-1 Lone Star's Natacha Karam talks season three's 'personal drama'Jen Psaki appeared on the actor's podcast Literally! and shared that she binge watched his award-winning drama The West Wing in 2011 after she first left politics for public relations.WATCH: The West Wing: Josh Lyman visits Sam SeabornShe had previously been the deputy press secretary for President Barack Obama before he promoted her in 2009 to deputy communications director, the job Rob's character Sam Seaborn held for the first four years on the show.On the podcast she revealed that the show, created by Aaron Sorkin, "inspired so many people that I know to come here and be a part of this town and work in government."MORE: Rob Lowe delivers heartbreaking family news as famous friends reach out MORE: Everything you need to know about 9-1-1: Lone Star actor Rob Lowe's family "I don't know what prompted me to watch it but I binged the entire thing," she added of the decision to watch the show four years after it ended."In a crazy way, it really brought me back to politics.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Global (formerly known as ViacomCBS) expects to direct-to-consumer content spending to increase to more than $6 billion in 2024, the company revealed Tuesday during its Q4 earnings and streaming investor day presentation.This is a jump from its previous guidance, which was that Paramount expected streaming content spend to exceed $5 billion 2024, including $4 billion of expenses associated with its DTC services. In 2021, Paramount spend $2.2 billion on direct-to-consumer content.Additionally, Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra said that the company formerly known as ViacomCBS is increasing its DTC revenue goal to over $9 billion for 2024.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Yellowstone” prequel “1883” has been renewed for Season 2 at Paramount Plus, and the ViacomCBS-owned streaming service has ordered another Taylor Sheridan-created origin-story show following the Dutton Family called “1932.” Yes, you guessed it — the show will follow a new generation of Duttons “during the time of western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.”“1883″ stars Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Billy Bob Thornton, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Marc Rissmann, Audie Rick, Eric Nelsen and James Landry Hébert.The show follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of western expansion and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus will begin integrating Showtime content this summer, launching an in-app upgrade that includes access to the pay TV channel’s programming, ViacomCBS announced during its Tuesday investor event.“So let’s talk about how we’re helping subscribers access even more of our amazing streaming services, right there in the Paramount Plus app,” Tom Ryan, president and chief executive officer of streaming at ViacomCBS, said during the virtual presentation, which covered the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 results and forward-looking goals for this year. “Our existing bundle, of Paramount Plus and Showtime, has performed very well out of the gate.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime topped a combined 56 million subscribers by the end of last year, ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings presentation and investor event. That’s up 9.4 million from where it was in the previous quarter.At the end of Q3 of 2021, Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) and Showtime OTT added 4.3 million global subscribers, raising their combined total to nearly 47 million.For comparison, HBO and HBO Max ended 2021 with 73.8 million global subscribers, Disney Plus closed the year with nearly 130 million worldwide, and Netflix reached 221.8 million total in Q4.ViacomCBS said last February it expects to reach 65-75 million global subscribers between Paramount Plus and Showtime by 2024.

, titled «The ATX-Files,» Owen (Rob Lowe) and Judd (Jim Parrack) take Wyatt (guest star Jackson Pace), Judd's teenage son he only recently found out about, alien hunting. But their search takes a different turn when they find two dead bodies.In the exclusive sneak peek, Judd goes to Owen and breaks the news to him that he has a son. Owen's reaction is of stunned silence as he asks for clarification.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“9-1-1: Lone Star” has already featured guest appearances by two “Angel” alums, Julie Benz and Amy Acker, during the first few episodes of its currently airing third season. And if showrunner Tim Minear — who was a writer and executive producer on “Angel” and brought in Gina Torres, a vet of the WB series, as a lead on “Lone Star” at the start of Season 2 — is down for it, an actress from one of Minear’s other beloved series would love to make another reunion happen: “Firefly” star Morena Baccarin.“Oh, that would be fun! I haven’t seen those guys in forever,” Baccarin told Variety Friday, during an interview for her upcoming NBC drama “The Endgame.” “I love Tim.

Chris Willman Music WriterThe maxim “everything’s bigger in Texas” most definitely applies when it comes to having an outsized per capita concentration of brilliant songwriters. So, it’s almost surprising to realize that it took until 2005 for a Texas Heritage Songwriters Association to be formed, for the purpose of finally founding a Hall of Fame.One key figure in its origins was a beloved Texan not everyone realizes had a reputation as “a lover of the song, and a friend to songwriters”: University of Texas football coach Darrell K.

Figure skater Nathan Chen brought glory to the United States on the ice during Monday’s primetime coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics, shattering the world record in the men’s short program at the Beijing games. Nabbing 113.97 points, Chen brought in the highest short program score in figure skating history. Monday saw new highs for Chen and the winter sport, not for NBC’s fifth night of coverage, or at least in early numbers.

9-1-1: Lone Star actor Jim Parrack, who plays Judd, broke down the crucial turning point in the firefighter's life, how he moves forward now that he is the father to children and what's next. My first thoughts were, «Man, that's good writing,» mostly because of the timing. Everybody just saw us welcome our daughter into the world and now it's almost immediately time to throw a wrench into all that and come up with some new problems to figure out.Yeah. Judd's first thoughts are of Grace and Charlie.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDiscovery CEO David Zaslav just added another big item to his long to-do list in preparation for the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger: Find a strong replacement for CNN chief Jeff Zucker.Zucker shocked the industry by stepping down from WarnerMedia, where he was CNN president and chairman of news and sports for WarnerMedia, after an investigation into the conduct of now-fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo revealed that Zucker had not disclosed that he had a consensual romantic relationship with a colleague. The colleague who went unnamed in Zucker’s resignation memo to staff is Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer and a longtime Zucker lieutenant going back to their respective tenures at NBC.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime are two separate subscription services owned by the same company in a market that is already overcrowded with streaming and pay-TV competition. But that’s the way it’s going to stay for the two ViacomCBS brands — for now at least — as Paramount Plus president of original scripted series Nicole Clemens says the young streamer continues to carve out its identity as the home of “big blockbuster originals” versus Showtime’s slightly “more coastal” audience.“I think they’re complementary and I think there’s going to be some overlap in a Venn diagram,” Clemens told Variety Tuesday, following Paramount Plus’ day of presentations at the virtual Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“9-1-1” and spinoff “9-1-1: Lone Star” will be reunited on Fox’s Monday primetime lineup when the O.G. show comes back from hiatus in March. When the two are once again airing in the back-to-back 8 and 9 p.m.

After last week’s three-way tie with The Neighborhood and 9-1-1: Lone Star, ABC’s The Bachelor is back at the top of primetime.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus revealed Tuesday it is moving forward on developing TV series remakes of classic ’80s movies “Urban Cowboy” and “Flashdance,” bringing on “Dear White People” creator Justin Simien to write and direct the latter project.Additionally, the ViacomCBS-owned streamer said during its virtual session at the Television Critics Association press tour it has put a docu-comedy series from “Mr. Show” duo Bob Odenkirk and David Cross in the works.The “Urban Cowboy” project comes after Paramount Television Studios first set up development on a TV series based on the film of the same name at Fox in 2015, which was later scrapped.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus has renewed its revival of “The Game” for Season 2.Starring Wendy Raquel Robinson and Hosea Chanchez, the show is a continuation of the-CW-network-and-later-BET-show of the same name. “A modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football,” “The Game” follows the team as they face racism, classism and more, all while fighting for fame, fortune, respect and love.“The Game” revival also stars Adriyan Rae, Vaughn Hebron, Analisa Velez and Toby Sandeman.The first iteration of “The Game” debuted on The CW in 2006.