Sexy Outlander is back for season 2 on Starz this weekend, which will make the women at The Mindy Project happy. Talking about the strong female personalities in her writers’ room recently, creator Mindy Kaling said, “We bully the men and make them talk about Outlander.”
So what does Outlander showrunner Ronald D. Moore watch for fun? Some Bojack Horseman, a bit of Mr. Robot…and a whole lot of Seinfeld. “I literally watch it almost every single day,” Moore says. “It just becomes how you live your life—you watch Seinfeld before going to bed.”
A new book by former NBCU CEO Bob Wright, inevitably titled The Wright Stuff, offers a tasty tidbit about negotiating with Jerry Seinfeld for a 10th season. Wright and Jack Welch met with Seinfeld at Wright’s Trump Tower apartment in 1997 and offered him $67 million to extend the comedy another year. Concerned about slipping ratings, Seinfeld said no. Ever the master negotiator, Wright told Jerry to sleep on it. Jerry did—and still said no.
Seinfeld has gone on to earn more than $500 million since it went off the air, says Wright, so Ronald D. Moore clearly isn’t the only one tuning in daily.
Another ‘90s TV staple continues to haunt television today. FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson ends this week, while ESPN’s O.J.: Made in America debuts in June. The People v. O.J. stars Cuba Gooding and John Travolta were on hand at FX’s upfront party at a Manhattan bowling alley, pleasantly obliging a thousand media buyers wanting photos.
Henry Schleiff, Investigation Discovery group president, teased Hard Evidence: O.J. Is Innocent at Discovery Networks’ upfront late last week. “For the fi rst time, I questioned if everything I thought about the case was true,” Schleiff said of the project.
Perhaps there’s a bit of Simpson fatigue setting in? No way, says Schleiff. “I don’t think you can run out of Juice,” he quipped.
Schleiff also talked up original movies featuring “A-list actors” on I.D. Like, Gooding and Travolta caliber? Not quite. “We grade on a curve…a big curve,” said Schleiff. “You’ll recognize them if you’re from Canada.”
