TV/STREAMING . . .

Nick Cannon temporarily taking over 'The Wendy Williams Show'. "The Wendy Williams Show" is getting a temporary new host. Nick Cannon will take over the show on Feb. 4, Feb. 5 and Feb. 6. He'll be continuing Wendy Williams' signature segment, "Hot Topics." Earlier this month, Williams' family announced that she was still recovering from her fractured shoulder and also had to be hospitalized as a result of symptoms from her Graves' disease. "Despite her strong desire to return, she is taking a necessary, extended break from her show to focus on her personal and physical well-being," the statement read. A source told Page Six at the time, "Staff at [Williams'] show are eager to get back to work. We are all hoping she is well. The mood at the set is good ... We just want Wendy to get better." Distributor and producer Debmar-Mercury previously announced that the show would feature a variety of hosts starting the week of Jan. 28. Williams, 54, fractured her shoulder in December and then worried fans when she slurred her words on-air. She later apologized and blamed the painkillers she was taking to treat her fracture. Since then, Williams has delayed her show's return twice. It was originally supposed to return shortly after the New Year but was pushed back to Jan. 14. The show pushed the return date again to Jan. 21 in order to allow Williams to heal and come back at "200%." (PageSix)

Will Meghan Markle Return for the Final Season of Suits? Suits is coming to an end, and likely welcoming back many familiar faces... except for one. "We're not currently pursuing asking [Meghan Markle] to leave her position with the royal family and join us," Suits creator and executive producer Aaron Korsh told press about the possibility of Markle reprising the role of Rachel Zane for the upcoming ninth and final season. "I would love it, but I think it's pretty close to zero," he said while promoting the USA spinoff Pearson at the 2019 TCA winter press tour. Markle left the legal drama at the end of season seven after announcing her then-engagement to Prince Harry. Her character married Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) and the two went off together to start a new life in Seattle. Korsh previously said the decision to write the characters out came before Markle's engagement to Prince Harry was announced. "I sort of had a decision to make because I didn't want to intrude and ask her, 'Hey, what's going on? What are you going to do?' So... collectively the writers, we decided to take a gamble that these two people are in love and it's going to work out," the Suits creator said. Markle and Prince Harry are now married and expecting their first child. As for whether we could see Adams return, Korsh said he did discuss it with the actor before he left the show. "We both decided if the time was right, and he was up for it, and he had the time, that we would do it," Korsh said. However, the writers are just getting to work on the ninth season. USA recently announced Suits, which is currently airing its eighth season, would return for just one more outing next year. "Suits has played an instrumental role in our network's DNA for nearly a decade," Chris McCumber, President, USA Network and SYFY, said in a statement. "I and everyone at USA Network sincerely thank Aaron Korsh, our partners at UCP and the entire Suits family for their tremendous creativity, devotion and support over a truly amazing run." Korsh is working on the new series, Pearson, a spinoff of Suits starring Gina Torres. Get your first look at the new drama right here. Suits airs Wednesdays, 10 p.m. on USA Network. (Eonline)

Lindsay Lohan's Best Beach Club Words of Wisdom. If you've been watching Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club so far, you'll know that Lindsay Lohan is a visionary. Or at least she talks like one. The actress-turned-entrepreneur is a one-liner machine on her MTV reality show, offering bits of life advice and words of wisdom both to her VIP hosts and the audience at home that's just unparalleled. Where else can you find out that people in Mykonos are just gonna do what they're gonna do? So far, Lindsay has said some pretty legendary things that make us wonder why the heck this reality show is mostly about a bunch of unfunny and unwise "ambassadors" having drama and getting yelled at by Panos. Surprise surprise, Lindsay Lohan is the star of Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club. On not judging people on the beach: "The second you walk onto that beach, we are all equal people no matter how much money we have, no matter where we're from. Everybody has to be treated exactly the same. You can't judge people in Mykonos. There's no point. Because people are gonna do what they do how they wanna do it, and that's the beauty of it." On Brent crying about it: "It's like, what're you gonna do, cry about it, Brent?" On being happy in controlled environments: "Lohan Beach House. It's a controlled environment where people can be happy. My biggest fear in the world is being judged." On champagne showers: "I think we need to give him a champagne shower!" On what it feels like to hold a champagne gun: "I feel like Putin." On this not being the Brent show: "This is not the Brent show. This is Lindsay Lohan." On how to cook fish: "What are we in Atlanta? I'm gonna shuck the fish, take the bones out... I'm not Martha Stewart, I've already been to jail." On the energy in Mykonos: "Americans don't understand the energy in Mykonos, which is very relaxed." On always calling Oprah: "Always call Oprah." On being religious: "I'm religious in the sense of meditation. I do three times a day. This is my own personal religion, and the space that I need to then function myself." On other people being religious: "I'm going to watch you really closely, because you're religious." Stay tuned for more of Lindsay's best/weirdest/most wise lines next week! Lindsay Lohan's Beach House airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on MTV. (Eonline)

We're About to Learn A Whole Lot More About Zoe on This Is Us. Zoe got to join Kevin on his quest for family history, and now she's about to get her turn. This Is Us' newest series regular will get some extra backstory in the upcoming episode centered on her cousin, Beth, Melanie Liburd told E! News at NBC's midseason junket. "We actually learn a lot about Zoe in Beth's episode as well, because Beth and Zoe grew up together," Liburd says. "That's a really exciting episode." "What's so fun about this episode is just the relationship that they have growing up and the relationships that Zoe has with Beth's mom and how Beth behaves with her mom, which is fascinating," she says. "There's some funny moments." Beth's mom is played by none other than Phylicia Rashad, which Liburd was very excited about. "I grew up watching her on television, so it was a dream to work with her," she says. The part of Zoe's backstory that we've gotten so far was the devastating reveal that she was molested by her father, and Liburd says she did a lot of reading and research and even spoke to some people who had been through that before she took on that aspect of her character. She says fans have been really responsive to that storyline. "I've had fans say, well thank you so much for telling that story, that happened to me and you just think, oh my goodness," Liburd says. "So if I can help in any way, any comments that can help me, that's great too." This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC, returning Tuesday, February 5. (Eonline)

Make Way for Another Sexy Legal Drama: Gina Torres' Pearson Looks Tight. Is there enough room in your TV life to welcome another Pearson? No, not on This Is Us, but on Pearson, the Suits spinoff starring Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson. The first trailer for the new USA Network series, looks just as sexy and thrilling as Suits, so you've been warned. The new series follows Jessica Pearson, recently disbarred in New York, adjusting to life in Chicago. She's now Mayor Bobby Novak's right-hand fixer, and quickly becomes embroiled in the crooked and dangerous world. Every action she makes will have big consequences. Can Jessica reconcile her drive with her desire to do the right thing? Those two attributes will be at odds with each other, that's for sure. In addition to Torres, the show stars Bethany Joy Lenz, Morgan Spector, Simon Kassianides, Eli Goree, Isabel Arraiza and Chantel Riley. Suits creator Aaron Korsh is executive producing alongside showrunner Daniel Arkin. Doug Liman, David Bartis and Gene Klein are also on board as executive producers. Korsh and USA recently announced Suits would end after the upcoming ninth season. "Suits has played an instrumental role in our network's DNA for nearly a decade," Chris McCumber, President, USA Network and SYFY, said in a statement. "I and everyone at USA Network sincerely thank Aaron Korsh, our partners at UCP and the entire Suits family for their tremendous creativity, devotion and support over a truly amazing run." Pearson is coming soon to USA Network. Suits season eight is currently airing Wednesdays, 10 p.m. on USA. (Eonline)

Nicole Scherzinger Picks the Best and Worst Celebrity Guesses on The Masked Singer. By all accounts, being a panelist on Fox's The Masked Singer is not easy. If we struggle to guess who's behind some of those masks with Google at our fingertips, we can't even imagine what it's like to come up with a guess live on the spot. Sometimes, Justin Bieber's the only name you've got in your head, even if it's definitely not Justin Bieber. Nicole Scherzinger sat down with E! News to talk about the hit reality series and spilled on which of her coworkers was the worst at guessing. While she didn't mention the multiple Justin Bieber guesses, she picked out another baffling choice. "When Robin's like, is it Bella Hadid?" Scherzinger said, doing what you might call an imitation of Robin Thicke's voice. "We're like, no, it's not Bella Hadid. She's on 27 runways right now, she's not on The Masked Singer." But Scherzinger then admitted that the panel started purposely making ridiculous guesses like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, which then get edited to look like they were real guesses. Scherzinger says that of all the panel, which includes Thicke, Jenny McCarthy, and Ken Jeong, McCarthy is the best guesser of them all, and she named herself the worst...though she did give worst guess to Thicke, and having seen the show, we can't really say any of them are worse than any others. The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. (Eonline)

'This Is Us' Finale Date Moves After State of the Union Switch. The NBC hit will end a week later than originally planned, thereby affecting the date of newcomer 'The Village' as well. A change in the date for the State of the Union address is starting to have ripple effects on TV networks, including the scheduling of NBC's hit This Is Us. The recently ended federal government shutdown pushed the State of the Union off its initially scheduled Jan. 29 date. President Donald Trump will now address both houses of Congress and a TV audience on Tuesday, Feb. 5. The Big Four broadcast nets had already made plans for the address on Tuesday, Jan. 29, and when that fell by the wayside, they opted to air a mix of mostly repeats and specials in primetime rather than burn new episodes without first promoting them to viewers. The date change for the State of the Union address will push the next new episode of This Is Us back a week to Feb. 12. The season's remaining episodes will also move back a week, with the third-season finale now set for April 2. That, in turn, affects the scheduling for NBC's new drama The Village, which is slated to take over This Is Us' time period in the spring. The series will still premiere March 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, but it will get an extra week airing behind This Is Us before moving to the 9 p.m. slot on April 9. The moves also mean one extra week off in March and April for New Amsterdam, which will rejoin the schedule on April 9 and run through its season finale on May 21. (Hollywood Reporter)

Female-Focused Car-Repair Comedy From Elizabeth Banks Nabs Fox Pilot Order. The multicamera comedy is inspired by a Pennsylvania-based repair shop with all female mechanics. Fox is hitting the gas pedal on Patty's Auto. The network on Tuesday handed out a pilot order for the multicamera comedy based on the Pennsylvania repair shop of the same name with all female mechanics. Inspired by Patrice Banks' Girls Auto Clinic, Patty's Auto is described as an ensemble comedy that centers on Patty and the eclectic women who work for her. Darlene Hunt (The Big C, ABC's Roseanne revival) will pen the script and executive produce alongside Elizabeth Banks and her Warner Bros. TV-based Brownstone Productions topper Max Handelman. Patty's Auto is Fox's third live-action comedy pilot order for the 2019-20 broadcast season. (The network also has two straight-to-series animated comedies.) It's the first comedy and second overall pilot from WBTV to land at Fox. The network, which will be splintered from its studio once the Disney transaction closes, has committed to picking up half its comedies from studios outside of 20th TV. As with the drama Prodigal Son, Patty's Auto will be a co-production between Fox and WBTV. Banks' Brownstone banner has been making a push in the scripted space. The company next has Hulu's Aidy Bryant vehicle Shrill due and has multiple other scripts in contention this pilot season. Keep up with the latest broadcast pilot season pickups, castings and series orders with The Hollywood Reporter's annual guide. (Hollywood Reporter)

Jimmy Kimmel's Office Gets a Makeover from Tidying Guru Marie Kondo. During the clean-up exercise, Kimmel discovered that some items needed better placement in his office -- a wiffle bat signed by Magic Johnson, a sculpture of Kimmel's grandfather's head and an emergency ladder, to name a few. Jimmy Kimmel hopped on board the KonMari train on Tuesday night when he invited tidying guru Marie Kondo to help him clean his office. Kondo, the star of Netflix's Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and the author of four books on organization including The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, was greeted by the late night host announcing, "Can I be very honest with you? I had a nightmare about this; I woke up upset because I dreamed you came into my office and started destroying my things." Kondo laughed and replied, "What's important about my method is that you'll be doing all the hard work. With the KonMari method, what we'll be doing here today is checking if everything that you own sparks joy or not." First, Kondo and her translator sent "love and appreciation" to the office, signaling the start to her tidying method. Asked what he would prefer his office to look like, Kimmel said, "I'd like it to not be a rumpus room." Kondo then proceeded to asses Kimmel's work wardrobe and office items, encouraging him to consider their continued use. Kondo's translator told Kimmel that the rumor that Kondo said people should have just "30 books" isn't true. "I don't know where that rumor came from, it's a complete misconception," the translator said. Kondo then proceeded to "wake up" mountains of books on Kimmel's floor by tapping them. "Hey guys, wake up!" Kimmel addressed his books. During the exercise, Kimmel found many surprising items, such as a yellow pages phone book, a wiffle bat signed by Magic Johnson (that particular item sparked so much joy that Kondo suggested it be placed on the wall), a pair of pants that Kimmel had lost, a sculpture of his grandfather's head and an emergency ladder "in case we need to escape," said the host. After everything had been combed through and carefully decided upon, Kimmel's initial worries were long gone and he said to Kondo and her translator, "I feel more stable emotionally now." (Hollywood Reporter)

'NCIS: New Orleans' Executive Producer Fired After HR Complaint. Adam Targum was second in command on the CBS drama, which has been dogged by allegations against a former showrunner. An executive producer of NCIS: New Orleans has been fired from the show following a complaint against him made to CBS' human resources department. Adam Targum had been serving as second in command of the drama alongside showrunner Christopher Silber. He was let go on Jan. 25, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. CBS declined comment on the nature of the complaint. As reported by Vulture, the complaint was made earlier in January; sources told the site that Targum "bullies" people on set and that the HR department was told that several members of the writing staff had issues with him. "He's incredibly tone-deaf, and if a guy like this is put into a room with staff that's been through a lot of trauma in the past two years, there are going to be problems," one source told Vulture. Targum's dismissal follows the firing of former showrunner Brad Kern, who had an overall deal with CBS canceled in the wake of multiple investigations into his conduct on NCIS: New Orleans. Kern had been demoted from showrunner to consulting producer after two HR inquiries, then dismissed after a third investigation by outside counsel that also looked into Kern's behavior on past jobs. "As previously reported, the claims regarding NCIS: New Orleans in 2016 have been addressed," CBS said in a statement. "Any subsequent reports or claims involving inappropriate comments or objectionable behavior in the writers room -- or anywhere on the production -- will be investigated, and action will be taken to address any findings inconsistent with a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace. "During the past few months, our company has clearly communicated that our culture is a top priority; this includes the production offices and sets of our shows. All show employees, including showrunners, are required to take annual non-harassment training. In 2019, we are committing additional significant resources to expand these education and training programs to foster the best possible creative culture and workplace environment for the production process." CBS also paid $9.5 million to actress Eliza Dushku in 2017 to settle harassment claims against Bull star Michael Weatherly. She had joined the show's first season as a potential love interest for Weatherly's character but left after saying he made demeaning remarks about her in front of other cast and crew. "This is not a 'he said/she said' case," Dushku wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed. "Weatherly's behavior was captured on CBS's own videotape recordings." (Hollywood Reporter)

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