F🍒ox had high expectations for its new series “Emp🎃ire,” which premiered Wednesday night to nearly 10 million viewers.
Consider those expectations met.
“The entire Fox team supercharged this show on some crazy level, as far as making it sexy,” Hollywood heavജyweight Brian Grazer, an “Empire” producer, told me Thursday. “They actualized the hype in a world where it’s so hard to make anything distinctive.”
On “Empire,” Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson lead an ensemble cast in this tale of a dying music mogul (Ho🌄ward), his conniving ex-wife (Henson) and their three sons (Jussie Smollett, Bryshere Gray and Trai Byers) battling for control of the family empire.
“Empire” also snared a 3.8 among adults 18-49 — beating its “American Idol” lead-in (3.2) and tying ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” (Viola Davis) as the season’s best series premiere in that꧂ much-ballyhooed demo.
“We’🐠ve created really engaging characters and offer the audience a lo♛t of surprises,” Grazer says. “There’s nothing predictable within the lives of these characters.
“It’s like an upscale version of ‘Dynasty.’”
Urie goes to Hell (Mich.)
Former “Ugly 🦂Betty” star Michael Urie is directing a new Web comedy series called “What’s Your Emergency” — with some high-octane guest stars, including Urie’s former “Betty” co-star, America Ferrera, Alan Cumming, Richard Kind and David Krumholtz.
The six-episode ser🐻ies, which premieres Jan. 27 on , takes place in town called Hell, Mich. — chronicling the misadventures of the town💎’s inept 911 call center.
So 🐎how did Urie get all those A-listers to appear?
“I’ve slept with all of them,” he jokes. “Kidding, not ALL. Actors love to be in perilಌous situations, and few can resist playing near-death emergencies — especially when they’re funny ones. Basically we sent them the pages and they were like, ‘Hell yes. I’ll choke on a peach pit for you!’”
Series regulars include Broadway vets Sieဣrra Boggess, ꦍReed Birney and Debra Monk.
More TV new♑s: Morgan Langley, the executive producer𒅌 of — premiering Saturday on Spike TV (9 p.m.) — says you’d be surprised at how many of the troublemakers featured on the show, which chronicles a real-life Sin City jail, agree to be on TV.
“Everybody signs a release” [to be shown on TV], he says. “Believe it or not, they sign up enth💜usiastically and often ask us if we can e-mail them when their segment is going to air. Nowadays we’re living in the reality TV universe.”
This marks the first time that “Jail” will spend an entire season (22 episodes) at one facility. “Vegas is like ‘America’s Jail’ with tourists and bizarre stuff,” Langley says. “It was a challenge convincin⭕g them we could do an entire season without stepping on too many toﷺes.”