LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The Fox network is shaking up Wednesday night by swapping reality hit “American Idol” and the new police procedural “Lie to Me.”
Once the singing competition moves into the finals March 11, Fox will pivot “Idol” to 9 p.m., turning its ratings Death Star against ABC’s “Lost” for the rest of season.
The Tim Roth-starring “Lie to Me” will stay out of the way by shifting to 8 p.m.
Though “Idol” and “Lost” tend to have different audiences, last week Fox aired a two-hour “Idol” that stretched into the 9 p.m. hour and seemed to take a little steam out of the mystery thriller, whose ratings have fallen with each episode this season.
For “Lie,” the move is a mixed blessing. The drama won’t have nearly as much competition at 8 p.m. Wednesday, but it won’t have “Idol” for a lead-in either.
This is the first time in two years that “Lost” has faced “Idol.”
Entertainment Weekly recently interviewed Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly. This is a short clip that’s been released so far with their debate on science-fiction and it’s effects on the show.
Dead or alive, Claire Littleton will be once more be found on Lost when the series returns for its sixth season – but in the meantime, actress Emilie de Ravin has kept herself busy, costarring with Cybill Shepherd in Lifetime Networks’ adaptation of Nora Roberts’ High Noon premiering March 21, and with Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and a veritable who’s who of Hollywood talent in the upcoming gangster film Public Enemies.
But she’s most excited about playing a 12-year-old. With a beak.
“I am so excited right now – I just booked my first animated job!” de Ravin exclaims. “It’s this movie called The Guardians of Ga’hoole and Zack Snyder is directing it. It’s a movie about this group of Australian owls and it’s just a wonderful story. It’s adapted from the [Kathryn Lasky] books.”
And how does an actress devoted to throwing herself, heart and soul, into embodying her characters prep to become an adolescent owl?
“That was the thing!” de Ravin laughs. “I was auditioning and I was, like, ‘Huh! What kind of voice?!’ So I just sat at home for a day and created some voices and went in and … yep!”
Watch for the premiere of The Guardians of Ga’Hoole in late 2009 or early 2010.
Celebrated US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger not only scored an invite to Tuesday’s Presidential Inauguration, he also has an open invitation to visit the set of Lost, the ABC series revolving around the miraculous survivors of a plane crash.
“We would love to meet Sully,” Carlton Cuse told TVGuide.com when asked if he and fellow Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof might invite the pilot to visit the show’s production base in Hawaii.
Sullenberger has been commended for his ability to safely land Flight 1549 in New York City’s Hudson River, and without any casualties among the 155 passengers and crew members on board. That he was able to do so, Cuse notes, is rather ironic given one of the “extras” on the Lost Season 4 DVD set.
“It’s funny,” says Cuse, “because there’s a special feature which has somebody trying to debunk the Oceanic 6’s story” about surviving the plunge of Flight 815. “There’s this aviation expert basically saying, ‘A water landing is impossible. That part of their story doesn’t hold up. You could never land a plane on the water.’”
Just got my new issue of TV Guide and Evangeline is on the cover!!! There’s a really great interview with her and I’m uploading the scans to Lost-Media as I type this!!!
