TV/STREAMING . . .

Crossover Schmossover, Legends of Tomorrow Just Had Its Own Television Event. We are not here to bash the epic Elseworlds crossover currently taking place across The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl. In fact, we are loving the insane, body-swapping, reality-rewriting, ridiculous and hilarious romp the other Arrowverse shows are having right now, but we just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge the fact that Legends of Tomorrow doesn't even need a crossover to be utterly nuts in the best way possible. Just over the course of the night's midseason finale, which became sort of a summary of the whole season so far, one legend was a cat, one was Marilyn Monroe, several were puppets, nearly all of them died at least once, several of them got to star in opening credits sequences for retro TV shows that don't exist, each of them played at least two or three different versions of themselves, and one of them killed a leprechaun. In. One. Episode. And to top all that off, this was all caused by Constantine (Matt Ryan), a character and actor from a canceled show on NBC from 2015, who now both stars on this show and in an animated show on CW Seed, and he was accompanied by Charlie, a shapeshifter with the same face as a character who departed the show last year. It's like they do their own crossover every single week, and we're all over here going wow, a body swap. Wow, Arrow's going to the future. Wow, Barry Allen messed up a timeline again and messed up literally everything. The Legends do all of those things on a near-weekly basis, somehow. Most of the cast is used to it by this point, but it still kind of astounds Jes Macallan, who plays Ava Sharpe. "It was really fun," she said on the set of the CW show ahead of tonight's episode. "Like, what the hell show are we doing? We get to have a sing along, there's songs, there is so much stuff happening this season. We're going to just explode the DC Universe and we're having a blast with it." She said she and Caity Lotz compare the show to Deadpool with both levels of craziness and its penchant for making fun of things (crossovers included). "Let's just embrace it," she said. "Fun fact, because they're so difficult to work with, we had to do a lot of reshoots just to get the puppet person out of the shot and the puppet and the looks, he didn't make the right looks. His eyebrows went like this instead of like this. And so we had a bunch of stuff we had to tack on for the puppets." Just typical "fun facts" you might find on the Legends set, apparently. Anyway, everything's back to normal now in terms of the fact that all the Legends are back to their regular, non-puppet (and non-cat) selves. There may be a demon on the loose now, but that's just par for the course on this show. Legends of Tomorrow airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on the CW. (Eonline)

Tamron Hall is in 'full talk show mode'. Tamron Hall seemed ready to launch her upcoming daytime show last week when she interviewed "Black Panther" costume designer Ruth Carter at the HELP USA luncheon at Cooper Union. "She wore a fabulous white dress .?.?. She spoke about how her show has been picked up in 50 major markets and she was in full talk show mode," said a guest. Investigation Discovery network honcho Henry Schleiff was a sponsor of the event. Hall's Disney ABC show will launch in the fall. (PageSix)

Former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge gets TBS show. TBS has put in development "Strange Times," based on Tom DeLonge's graphic novel and book series, as a potential adult animated series, with DeLonge set to executive produce. Written by Aaron Karo ("Aaron Karo: The Rest Is History"), "Strange Times" is about five dirty teenage skateboarders who solve paranormal mysteries while being chased by Deep State government agents. In the spirit of speaking truth to power and offending everyone equally, the potential series is a love letter to punk rock culture and a middle finger to everybody else. Karo executive produces with DeLonge, The Cartel's Stan Spry and Jeff Holland and Striker Entertainment's Russell Binder. "My love for all things paranormal and skateboarding are sometimes only superseded by my love for offensive humor," says DeLonge. "This series combines them all into one." "Tom is a storyteller," says Binder. "His experiences and his interests are vast, and his desire to share those with a broad and diverse audience is an itch we are beginning to scratch. 'Strange Times' is a comedic take on the tropes of coming of age, friendship, and how to escalate ways to humiliate your best friends while staying out of detention, and ideally, the hospital. "DeLonge originally launched "Strange Times" back in 2011 as a fringe news site reporting on unexplained phenomena. It grew from there, expanding across multiple properties, including a graphic novel and merchandise, and in 2016 DeLonge's "To The Stars" partnered with Simon & Schuster for the release of "Strange Times: The Ghost in the Girl," the first in a planned trilogy of young adult science fiction novels co-penned by DeLonge and award-winning author Geoff Herbach. Comedian and author Karo is best known for Ruminations, his email column and series of books, his young adult novel "Lexapros and Cons" and his Comedy Central special "Aaron Karo: The Rest Is History." DeLonge is repped by APA, Management 360 and Jackoway, Tyerman, Wertheimer, Austen, Mandelbaum, Morris, Klein & Trattner. Karo is repped by Underground and Gersh. (PageSix)

Star Trek producer explains how Picard spin-off will be 'extremely different'. The mysterious upcoming Star Trek series bringing back fan favorite Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is going to be very different in tone from previous shows in the franchise, and below, executive producer Alex Kurtzman explains exactly how. The writer-producer has worked on J.J. Abrams' Star Trek films and is the current showrunner of CBS All-Access' Star Trek: Discovery, as well as an executive producer on the Picard series. We asked Kurtzman how the spin-off will compare to Discovery and Stewart's previous Star Trek series, The Next Generation. "It's an extremely different rhythm than Discovery," Kurtzman told EW exclusively. "Discovery is a bullet. Picard is a very contemplative show. It will find a balance between the speed of Discovery and the nature of what Next Gen was, but I believe it will have its own rhythm." Continued Kurtzman: "Without revealing too much about it, people have so many questions about Picard and what happened to him, and the idea we get to take time to answer those questions in the wake of the many, many things he's had to deal with in Next Gen is really exciting. 'More grounded' is not the right way to put it, because season 2 of Discovery is also grounded. It will feel more... real-world? If that's the right way to put it." So, there you have it, the words that come to mind when asked to describe the Picard show are things like "real-world, contemplative, grounded." (And, yes Kurtzman used "Picard" as if that's the show's title, but there is no official title yet, and it's pretty hard to imagine the actual title won't have "Star Trek" in it.) Only Stewart has been cast in the spin-off so far, Kurtzman added. "The writers' room has broken about eight episodes and we're moving quickly, and I couldn't be more excited about it," he noted. There's no premiere date announced as of yet. In the meantime, we have season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery coming Jan. 17. Kurtzman took over the captain's chair on the series last June. Now that the Discovery story has moved beyond the Klingon war, the show is taking on a bit of a lighter tone and has added Anson Mount (as Captain Pike) and Ethan Peck (as Mr. Spock) to the cast, which is led by Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham). (Entertainment Weekly)

The First Images of Netflix's Carmen Sandiego Are Here. Carmen Sandiego has been found, and she's looking good on Netflix. Gina Rodriguez will make her debut as the new voice of the iconic globe-trotting thief in the new 20-episode animated series, which premieres January 18. She stars alongside Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard, who voices Player, Carmen's BFF and accomplice. Netflix has released the first images of the new series, which is told from Carmen's perspective, and so far, Carmen and her pals look pretty darn cool. The streaming service will follow up the animated series with a live-action Carmen Sandiego movie, also starring Rodriguez. Per Netflix, Carmen Sandiego tells Carmen's backstory from her perspective, describing her as a modern-day Robin Hood who steals from V.I.L.E. to give back to their victims. "Carmen is publicly perceived as a criminal by most law enforcement agencies�correction, make that a master criminal due to the sheer scale and theatricality of her heists. We will follow her escapades and get to determine not only where but WHO in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" Carmen Sandiego hits Netflix on January 18. (Eonline)

'Power' halts production after car crash kills crew member. The Starz drama "Power" shut down production after a car crash at a Brooklyn shooting location killed a longtime crew member early Monday. Filming for the show's sixth season was postponed out of respect for the family of Pedro Jimenez, 63, and to allow cast and crew time to grieve, a Starz spokeswoman told The Post. Jimenez, a parking production assistant who worked on the show since season one in 2014, was killed when a coworker ran into him as he was setting up traffic cones for a shoot on Douglass Street in Cobble Hill. "I just learned we lost Pedro Jimenez, a member of the Power production team early this morning. My prayers and condolences are with the entire Jimenez family," tweeted rapper 50 Cent, who co-executive produces the show. Stars Omari Hardwick and Naturi Naughton also posted their condolences on social media, with Hardwick remembering Jimenez as "beautiful, hardworking, GRACIOUS Pedro." "As a person in communication & exchange of spirit as much as I was with good ole Pedro... I'm rocked," Hardwick wrote on Instagram. "NO team ever imagines losing a teammate. Let alone like this." It's unclear how long the production will shutter for, Starz said. (PageSix)

Fox Network Group Launches Streaming Service FoxNow in Europe The SVOD platform will debut on Vodafone TV in Spain, streaming episodes of series including 'The Walking Dead,' 'Deep State' and 'Legion.' FoxNow, the streaming service of Fox Networks Group, will debut in Europe through Spain's Vodafone TV, the companies announced in Madrid. The service, which will include full seasons of series from the Fox and Fox Life channels as well as a catalog of other films and series, will be available exclusively to Vodafone TV Total customers starting Dec. 14. Highlights of the FoxNow European service include drama series The Walking Dead, Deep State, False Flag and Legion as well as Vis a Vis, Fox Network Group Espana's first local production with Mediapro's Globomedia. Telecommunications giant Vodafone is ramping up its service in Spain in a push to compete with other operators in the territory, particularly Telefonica's Movistar, which on Tuesday announced it would be including Netflix into its new online offerings. Netflix is also available on Vodafone TV in Spain, alongside such channels as AXN Now, HBO Espana and Amazon Prime Video. Ignacio Garcia-Legaz, director of Vodafone TV, said the company's goal was "to offer the best portfolio of film and television series" in Spain but said the group had no plans to follow Movistar+ and Netflix and make a major investment in the production of original content for the Spanish market. (Hollywood Reporter)

Kevin Hart's Oscar Exit Divides Americans (Exclusive Poll) Some 36 percent said the Academy was "right" to ask the comic to apologize for past homophobic tweets or step down, while 34 percent said that was "wrong," a Hollywood Reporter/Morning Consult poll finds. Many Americans say that Kevin Hart made the right call to back away from hosting the Oscars after his anti-gay tweets resurfaced and he declined to apologize anew for the years-old remarks. However, the comedian's video posts to his 66 million-plus Instagram followers about why he didn't revisit his old tweets were viewed more favorably than unfavorably, while the film Academy was viewed negatively by some, according to a new Hollywood Reporter/Morning Consult poll. Hart's decision to step down from hosting the 91st Oscars was viewed favorably by 44 percent of Americans in the survey, which was conducted from Dec. 7 - 10 from a national sample of 2,202 adults. Among respondents, 26 percent said that Hart shouldn't have exited as host. Americans were split on whether the Academy made a good call to ask Hart to apologize or step down: 36 percent of respondents said the organization would have been "right" to pressure the comedian to apologize, while 34 percent said that was "wrong." Generally, 29 percent of respondents said they viewed Hart less favorably after the episode, while 26 percent viewed the Academy less favorably. The comedian had officially unveiled his selection as Oscar host on Dec. 4, hours after THR reported that the actor had held talks with representatives from the Academy about the role. Hart, a reliable box office draw whose recent hits include Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ($962 million worldwide) and Central Intelligence ($216 million), was expected to help boost the award show's flagging ratings. This year's Jimmy Kimmel hosted ceremony on March 4 drew 26.5 million viewers, an all-time low for the Oscars. Less than 48 hours later after Hart's unveiling, news outlets had published stories noting the comedian's use of anti-gay and homophobic sentiments in tweets from 2009, 2010 and 2011 after those tweets had been resurfaced on the platform. One of Hart's first reactions was to publish a Dec. 6 Instagram video in which he wrote, "Stop looking for reasons to be negative...Stop searching for reasons to be angry" and gave a casual explanation about why he wasn't looking to revisit the tweets. The same day, he spelled out what he viewed as an ultimatum from the Academy. "So, I just got a call from the Academy. And that call basically said, 'Kevin, apologize for your tweets of old or we're going to have to move on and find another host.' Talking about the tweets from 2009 and 2010," Hart said in a follow-up video. Hart added, "I chose to pass, I passed on the apology. The reason why I passed is because I've addressed this several times. This is not the first time this has come up, I've addressed it. I've spoken on it." In the new THR/Morning Consult survey, 42 percent of Americans viewed Hart favorably after his Instagram post. Meanwhile, only 14 percent viewed the Academy more favorably. The hosting debacle also shed some light on what many Americans think of controversial, years-old tweets being resurfaced. Broadly speaking, 56 percent respondents agreed with the statement, "An old social media post does not represent the person who posted it and has no influence on my opinion of someone." On the other hand, 44 percent agreed with the sentiment, "Social media posts are a form of expression and influence my opinion of someone regardless of how old the post is." Part of Hart's Instagram explanation had been that he was being targeted by "trolls" online. In his Dec. 6 Instagram post he said, "we feed the internet trolls and we reward them. I'm not going to do it, man." For others, the comedian missed an opportunity to make a simple gesture toward inclusivity. "Kevin Hart shouldn't have stepped down; he should have stepped up," stated GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis shortly after the comedian withdrew. Ellis added, "Hart's apology to LGBTQ people is an important step forward, but he missed a real opportunity to use his platform and the Oscars stage to build unity and awareness. We would still welcome that conversation with him." The Academy has yet to comment publicly on the incident. (Hollywood Reporter)

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