Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Don't hold your breath for a Red Wedding -- or a dragon -- next season on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
At least not in the Season 9 episode written by "Game of Thrones" executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, which will include a scene that was filmed in Center City on Thursday. (There's no airdate yet for the episode, but the show, which is moving from FX to its new spinoff channel, FXX, is expected back in September.)
“No. It’s not at all" like "Game of Thrones," said "Sunny's" Philly-bred creator and star Rob McElhenney Thursday in an interview during a location shoot at 9th and Green streets in Philadelphia. "In fact, when they said, ‘Hey, [we] have an episode we’d like to pitch to you, I instantly knew” that it wouldn’t be related to the HBO show.
“I realized, no, those guys work 10 1/2 months out of the year on their show. Why would they ever want to spend their off time writing something similar? In the same way that I would never want to write, you know, a half-hour basic-cable comedy in my free time. So it really is closer to ‘Sunny,’ a real traditional episode of ‘Sunny,’ than it is ‘Game of Thrones.’”
Asked if he might get to return the favor and write an episode of "Thrones," the St. Joe's Prep grad looked coy.
"Well, I might show up on 'Game of Thrones,'" he said. "You might be surprised." (Or not. "Lost" fans might remember McElhenney making a couple of appearances there.)
Perhaps as one of the wildlings who live beyond the Wall?
“A wildling — that would be pretty great. A White Walker? Just my face as a White Walker?”
If you do run into McElhenney or his wife and co-star, Kaitlin Olson, around Philly -- the show was scheduled to wrap up two days of filming here on Friday -- please don't bring up Sunday's episode of "Thrones."
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
File both of these under guilty pleasures:
For some of us, summer isn't really here till the return of "Royal Pains" (9 p.m. Wednesday, USA), the show about a concierge doctor named Hank (Mark Feuerstein) whose practice is largely limited to the well-heeled who take their sandals to the Hamptons when the weather gets warm.
Nice work if you can get it, sure, but light as "Pains" often is, I find it weirdly addictive. It doesn't hurt that Liza Lapira ("Traffic Light," "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23") is guest-starring as a patient in the season-opener, which finds Hank still recovering from a head injury.
Also back for the summer: "Necessary Roughness" (10 p.m., USA), with John Stamos joining the cast as the latest alpha-male for whom Long Island sports therapist Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) finds herself working.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
The Season 3 finale of "Awkward" (10 p.m., MTV) is called "Redefining Jenna," which sounds like a decent description of one of my favorite high school shows. Ashley Rickards stars as Jenna, who started her freshman year three seasons ago being redefined by other people (who mistakenly thought she'd tried to commit suicide) and is in a very different place now.
I won't be watching it in real time, though, because I'm a few episodes behind. No need to feel awkward if you, too, have missed any of Season 3. MTV's rerunning every episode Tuesday, starting at 5:30 p.m. So fire up the DVR. For the truly obsessed, there's also a retrospective at 10:30 p.m., "Aftershow. You're Welcome."
Also on TV Tuesday:
-- "Brooklyn DA" (10 p.m., CBS3). A prosecutor fights for the conviction of the person accused of arson in a deadly tenement fire.
-- "Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night" (8 p.m., 6ABC). ABC's late-night host gets a primetime window as the lead-in to the network's NBA finals coverage.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
You can read what I had to say about "Graceland" (10 p.m., USA) and "In the Flesh" (10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, BBC America) in my column.
If you no longer want to wait an entire season of "Survivor" to see people triumph over a carefully edited wilderness, you might want to try "72 Hours" (9 p.m., TNT) in which "teams of strangers are dropped into the wilderness with nothing but a water bottle and a GPS device."
They're looking for a suitcase with $100,000 cash (yes, the quest may be shorter, but the payoff''s smaller).
Not enough money to get you interested? At 8, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is challenging a different group of strangers in "The Hero," also on TNT. The winner has "a chance to walk away with up to a million dollars." (Italics mine.)
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Since talent shows have long ceased to be about the talent, the focus, as "America's Got Talent" returns Tuesday (9 p.m., NBC10) is on the judges, with Heidi Klum and Mel. B. joining Howard Stern and Howie Mandel at the judges' table.
So, a German supermodel and a British pop star? That's a lot of accents for a show with "America" in the title, but by this time, we're used to having the whole world judge us -- Simon and the Supernanny taught us.
Feeling smarter than that? BBC America's Bang Goes the Theory" (not to be confused with the CBS sitcom of the similar name) premieres with three back-to-back episodes beginning at 9, with the first featuring a challenge involving homemade biofuels. (Did I mention cows were involved?)
Also:
-- There's a new episode of CBS' new law-and-order "reality" series, "Brooklyn DA" at 10.
-- Kathy Griffin, according to Bravo, will break a record we never heard of -- for the number of televised comedy specials -- when her 16th, "Kathy Griffin: Calm Down Gurrl," premieres there at 10:30 p.m.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Remember when Charlie Sheen was the biggest star on Monday nights?
So does Fox.
Sheen, who once ruled the beachfront roost on CBS' "Two and a Half Men," now stars -- after a period of unpleasantness we dont need to rehash here -- in a cable sitcom, FX's "Anger Management." He plays a therapist. Yes, really.
Starting this week, Fox, the cable net's corporate big brother, will be airing episodes of the show at 9:30 p.m. Mondays. Given that almost every other comedy on network TV is a rerun (with the exception of Fox's "The Goodwin Games," which you might also want to check out at 8:30), Sheen's new gig is worth a look.
Also worth your time: "The Fosters" (9 p.m., ABC Family), a new drama about fostering and adoption that stars Teri Polo and Sherri Saum as a couple already raising biological and adopted children who decide to open their home to at least one more.
MTV's "Teen Wolf" launches its third season at 10.
Probably not worth anyone's time: ABC's "Mistresses" (10 p.m., 6ABC), a disappointing remake of the British series that ran on BBC America. That one's available for streaming on Netflix, if you're curious. This one stars Alyssa Milano, Yunjin Kim ("Lost"), Rochelle Aytes ("Madea's Family Reunion") and Jess Macallan and it's not so much shocking as it is duller than anything called "Mistresses" has a right to be.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
“It was just amazing to see him live. It’s like saying you saw Coltrane play,” says Robin Williams in “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic” (9 p.m., Showtime).
Williams is just one of the comedians who pays tribute to the man whom Dave Chappelle calls “undisputed champion of the world...case closed, period, exclamation point” in this freebasing-and-all documentary that’s probably the hottest thing happening inside tonight.
FX, meanwhile, is trying to get viewers in a Will Smith frame of mind on the opening day of his latest movie, After Earth,” with “Enemy of the State” at 5 p.m., followed by back-to-back showings of “Hancock” beginning at 8.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
If you're not already counting down the minutes to the championship rounds of the 86th annual National Spelling Bee (live on ESPN from 8-10 p.m.), the season finale of "Mike & Molly" airs more than a week late (8:30 p.m., CBS3).
Pulled from Monday's schedule last week because it somehow involves a tornado and thus was deemed too close to the real-life tragedies playing out in Oklahoma, it's on after a rerun of "The Big Bang Theory" at 8, which should help people find it on a different night, since viewers seem to follow Sheldon and Leonard wherever they go.
Also new Thursday: "Save Me" (8 and 8:30 p.m., NBC10), the Anne Heche sitcom that NBC's burning off as fast as it can, and "Hannibal" (10 p.m., NBC10), the drama about the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and his more than slightly deluded FBI consultant friend Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Last I checked, the fate of "Hannibal" still hangs in the balance, with NBC still waiting to see if it will ask it back for next season. I'm still on the fence myself. As much as I love executive producer Bryan Fuller's work, I'd prefer to see this kind of artistry lavished on something that didn't involve so many splashily arranged corpses.
Oh, and for those who prefer a bit of carefully edited "reality," "Pawn Stars" returns to the History Channel at 9, on a new night and with a new original theme song from Lynyrd Skynyrd, titled "Winning Isn't Everything."
Ha. Tell it to "Hannibal." And "Save Me."
UPDATE: NBC has just renewed "Hannibal" for a second season. Here's the Thursday evening announcement:
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — May 30, 2013 — NBC has given a 13-episode second-season renewal to its critically applauded drama “Hannibal.” The new season will air no earlier than midseason.
“Hannibal” is based on the characters from the novel “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris and was developed for television by Bryan Fuller, who also serves as writer and executive producer.
The announcement was made by NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Philadelphia's Strawberry Mansion High's in the spotlight Wednesday (and probably not in the best way) as ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer reports on "Hidden America: Our Most Dangerous Schools" during her evening newscast (6:30 p.m., 6ABC) and later on "Nightline" (12:35 a.m., 6ABC).
The report, delayed a couple of times by breaking news, has Sawyer taking "viewers inside what has been officially labeled one of the most dangerous high schools in America and reveals what it’s like to teach, to learn and to try to gain a foothold in life there."
In other less-than-upbeat news, Bob Costas revisits the Freeh Report on Penn State's handling of the Jerry Sandusky case on "Costas Tonight" (11 p.m., NBC Sports Network), with former Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who wrote a review of the report, Wick Sollers, who represents the family of the late Penn State head coach Joe Paterno and Paterno family spokesman Dan McGinn among the guests.
During the program, recorded Tuesday, Sollers announced a suit against the NCAA on behalf of Paterno's estate and a number of individuals, arguing that the consent decree that resulted from the Freeh Report was unlawful.
Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
The first day of the summer season, and it's a jungle out there already, with NBC tossing "Save Me," its leftover midseason sitcom with Anne Heche, on to the Summer Burn-Off Theater barbie at 8 and 8:30 p.m. -- you can read my review here -- and Fox at 9 launching "Does Someone Have to Go?" a "reality" series in which businesses allow employees to decide which of their colleagues isn't cutting it -- and to do something about it.
Originally, this one was to be called "Someone's Gotta Go," and had companies in trouble letting workers vote on who got fired, but in this economy, even Fox apparently thought that might not fly. So now it's possible that no one will get the ax. But still, if this is your idea of entertainment, you must really miss the days when lions and Christians got together.
Meanwhile, ABC continues to play it safely Canadian for the summer, with its new police drama, "Motive" at 9 (I kind of liked it, but forgot it almost immediately afterward), followed by the return of "Rookie Blue," which in its fourth season probably should be called "Veteran Blue."






