TV Bits: ‘Perry Mason’ Changes Showrunners, ‘Dawson Creek’ Gets Its Theme Song Back, ‘Infinity Train’ Spin-Off Movie, And More

 

In this edition of TV Bits:

• Perry Mason changes showrunners for season 2
• Dawson’s Creek gets its theme song restored on Netflix
• Amazon sets the cast for its TV series adaptation of  Brian K. Vaughan’s Paper Girls
• Josh Hartnett to star in Sky original thriller series The Fear Index
• Infinity Train creator planned spin-off film ahead of series cancelation
• ABC passes on Alec Baldwin/Kelsey Grammer comedy

HBO has tapped writers and producers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler as the new Perry Mason showrunners, taking over from Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones, who created the show and served as showrunners for the crime noir’s first season. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Amiel and Begler will step in as showrunners starting with Perry Mason season 2, with Matthew Rhys set to reprise his role as the title character based (loosely) on stories by Erle Stanley Gardner.

Fans don’t have to wait for their lives to be over for the original Dawson’s Creek theme song to be restored.  Sony has reportedly made a deal with artist Paula Cole to restore “I Don’t Want to Wait” as the theme song to Dawson’s Creek on all streaming platforms, including Netflix, where the show is currently streaming. According to The New York Times, “I Don’t Want to Wait, which served as the theme song for all six years Dawson’s Creek aired on the WB, was replaced with Jann Arden’s “Run Like Mad” when the series debuted streaming platforms, due to a short-term licensing deal that ensured the series could only use the song for five years. Cole has reportedly recorded a new master of the iconic theme song and negotiated a contract for streaming use.

Deadline reports that  Sofia Rosinsky (Fast Layne), Camryn Jones (Cherish the Day), Riley Lai Nelet (Altered Carbon) and Fina Strazza (A Christmas Melody) have been set as the four leads in Amazon’s Paper Girls series, based on Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s acclaimed graphic novel of the same name.

Rosinsky stars as Mac Coyle, Jones as Tiffany Quilkin, Nelet as Erin Tieng, and Strazza as KJ Brandman — four young girls out delivering papers on the morning after Halloween in 1988 who are unwittingly caught in a conflict between warring factions of time travelers. Paper Girls comes from Plan B.’s Stephany Folsom, Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers, with Folsom and Rogers set to showrun. The series is set to film in Chicago this year.

Josh Hartnett is set to star in the Sky original thriller series The Fear Index, based on the bestselling novel by Robert Harris (Fatherland). In the four-part limited series adapted by Paul Andrew Williams and Caroline Bartleet and directed by David Caffrey (The Alienist), Hartnett stars as Dr Alex Hoffman, “a computer scientist and genius who is ready with a new AI product launch that promises big returns, but whose roll-out plans go awry. What follows is a journey through the worst 24 hours of his life — cutting across reality, memory and paranoid fantasy, forcing him to question everything he sees with his own eyes,” per Variety.

Also starring in the series are Leila Farzad (I Hate Suzie), Arsher Ali (The Ritual) and Grégory Montel (Call My Agent). The Fear Index will air on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW later this year.

Infinity Train showrunner Owen Dennis told CBR.com that, before the Cartoon Network show was canceled with its ongoing fourth and final season, he had planned for a full-length spin-off film to run adjacent to the season. “We actually wrote a whole script for a movie that was going to run parallel to and fill in the gaps found in Season 4,” Dennis told CBR. “It was all about Amelia and how she became the conductor.” Alas, Infinity Train was canceled and it was not meant to be.

Deadline reports that ABC has passed on the untitled Alec Baldwin/Kelsey Grammer multi-camera comedy, which was set to follow three men — Baldwin, Grammer, and  Alec Mapa — as “they reunite decades after splitting up as roommates in their 20s. The three will then try to have one last hurrah at the lives they aspired to have.” Network executives at ABC reportedly saw the finished pilot episode after giving it a straight-to-series pick-up for the 2021-22 season, but chose not to go forward with the series. It’s now being shopped elsewhere by 20th Television in the hopes of being picked up. The comedy is written by Modern Family’s Chris Lloyd and Vali Chandrasekaran, and was directed by James Burrows.

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