Last August we learned the DREADFUL news that MTV is planning to adapt the UK series Skins for US television … which pretty much ever fan of the original series is vehemently against. The UK version is raw, outrageous and absolutely British … the fear is that the US version will be watered down, sanitized and a poor attempt at Britishness which will only result in lameness. Well, like it or not … plans for a US version of Skins have moved forward from that announcement last year and today, courtesy of CelebriScoop, we get our first look at the US cast of Skins:

The U.S. Skins cast have officially been chosen and the filming has already started. The pilot for the show was filmed last week, which means the show won’t be aired until around September or so. Fortunately for you, my friend knows someone who is auditioning, so I’ve got a picture for all of you. However, at this time I am unsure of who is who or what characters the people in this photo will be playing. I also do not know whether they are rewriting a plot or what the plan is. I do hope it allows for all the famous sex-driven alcohol-loving party-crazed teen kicks as the U.K. series.

I’m sorry … I am totally against this idea. The original show, which can be seen here in the US on BBC America, renders a US version totally moot. I find it highly doubtful that I will enjoy this new version nearly as much as I love the original. I’ve been watching new eps of the 4th season of Skins online since the show debuted last month. Last week’s ep, which focused on J.J., was really fantastic … I just cannot see the US version having nearly as much charm, wit and substance. After the jump, check out one more photo of this new cast of Skins who are coming our way whether we like it or not …

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In January we got our first look at Buffyverse and former Dexter star Julie Benz on the ABC drama Desperate Housewives (who has since settled into her very juicy new role) and today, courtesy of After Elton, we get our first look at another newcomer to the show — John Barrowman. Barrowman, who is known for his role of Captain Jack Harkness on the BBC America series Torchwood, comes to Wisteria Lane later on this season as a baddie named Patrick. Here is one of the new promo pics of John making his appearance on DH:

We know all you John Barrowman fans have been very keyed up about the news that one of our all time favorites would be joining the cast of Desperate Housewives for six episodes as the baddie in the Angie (Drea de Matteo) storyline. We’re still a ways off from seeing John’s first episode, but we’re mighty pleased to exclusively present you the very first pictures ABC has released of John as Patrick. The woman John is with is played by Emma Crawford and if I were her character, I’d be mighty careful about who I let in my house. Something tells me that despite those very pretty flowers, Patarick is up to no good. Anyone have any guesses as to what is going on here?

Wee!! I love John Barrowman … I think he will make a great addition to the Desperate Housewives cast, even if he’s only gonna be on for a short spell. After the jump, check out a couple more promo photos from Barrowman’s debut on DH …

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Earlier this week we learned which celebs will be competing on the upcoming 10th season of Dancing with the Stars — including the AMAZING Shannen Doherty — and today we get to see the celeb contestants’ paired up promo photos each with their professional dancing partners:

“Dancing With The Stars” has slots to fill. Every season, they try to make it seem like they’re choosing “stars” based on their immediate relevance and for variety, but every season, you’re reminded that they have a limited number of types who are cast, and the new season, announced during Monday night’s finale of “The Bachelor,” is no different. The most controversial name is Kate Gosselin. She’s there to be the polarizing one. Like Tom DeLay, Denise Richards, and Kim Kardashian before her, Kate is there strictly because some people will recoil at the sight of her. Her dancing ability is a closed book for the moment, and notoriety is unlikely to get her to the final stages of the competition, but her name recognition should keep her safe in the opening rounds. The “Dancing” raid of the “Beverly Hills, 90210” dressing rooms of the past continues with the appearance of Shannen Doherty. Doherty must surely be the Moby-Dick for producers who have spent previous seasons settling for her onetime co-stars Ian Ziering and Jennie Garth. Her reputation as a buster of chops precedes her, much as distant rumbling precedes an invasion by Godzilla, so many will tune in to see whether she can be made to tango properly or will simply bite off the head of her partner. (She will also undoubtedly hope to outlast her long-ago ex-husband Ashley Hamilton, who lasted three days on the show last season.)

OMG … Kate Gosselin vs. Shannen Doherty … only on reality TV, folks … OY! As I mentioned before, I don’t watch DWTS but now that they’ve cast Shannen for the new season, well, I’m gonna hafta watch my girl kick ass now won’t I? After the jump, check out the rest of the Dancing with the Stars Season 10 promo photos so you can size up the competition for yourselves …

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Great news for fans of James Marsters, the amazing actor who played the vampire Spike on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel … tomorrow night, he makes his debut on the SyFy series Caprica (which is a prequel series to the hugely successful series Battlestar Galactica). In addition to Marsters’s return to TV, he is also talking to interviewers about another vampire project that has taken the world by storm, namely Twilight, and he talks a bit about the possibility of returning to the role of Spike. Here are a few screencaps from James Marsters’s appearance on Caprica tomorrow night and some excerpts from his latest interview:

James Marsters, who played the bleached blond vampire Spike on Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spinoff “Angel,” approves of the new breed of vampires that have taken over pop culture, especially the ones in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” novels. “I like them man. They got my niece to read,” Marsters says on a conference call to promote his guest starring role on “Caprica.” “She wasn’t reading a lot, but she hit ‘Twilight’ and just ate them up and read them five, 10 times. Now she’s on to other vampire romances. She reads like a novel a day now. So, go Stephenie Meyer.” And although he acknowledges that Meyer’s vamps follow the successful formula that Anne Rice used, making the vampires less monstrous and more “ancient creatures with heart,” he says that was the opposite of how “Buffy” creator Whedon approached the fantastical beings. “He really wanted the vampires to be ugly when they were vampires and very quickly dead,” reveals Marsters. “He was talked into the character of Angel by David Greenwalt, his writing partner. He fought it. I don’t think he was too excited about it but he allowed David [Boreanaz] to do it, and the character just took off to the clouds. I think that he always remembered that he was only going to allow one Angel-like character on the show and that all the other vampires were going to remain in some way hideous.” Hideous or not, Marsters is more than willing to don the fangs again. “When Joss came to me and asked me about [reprising the role of Spike] right as ‘Angel’ was coming down, I told him, ‘I’ll follow you to hell, I’ll follow you to heaven. Just give me a call. I’ll do one line for you. I’ll do 10. Sure I’ll do Spike for you. Of course I’ll do Spike for you.’” The only problem is that there’s an expiration date for a Spike return: Seven years, give or take. “You have seven years because I’m aging, and Spike’s not supposed to [as a vampire],” points out Marsters. “I don’t want to do some lame line like, oh he’s been drinking pig’s blood right now so he’s aging slowly or some stupid thing like that. It’s now been seven years. When I look in the mirror I gotta say if I’m well rested, I look OK with the proper lighting. I don’t know. As the years go, I get more and more nervous about that. Let’s just do a screen test and see if we can light this character and say, ‘Look, I haven’t aged.’ If we could hold that, that would be cool.” Since playing Spike, Marsters has played a series of mean, menacing guys, including his character Barnabus Greely, a diehard revolutionary on “Caprica,” but he doesn’t mind being typecast. “I mean if I was playing Urkel, then I’d have a problem being typecast,” he says. “But when you’re typecast as the cool guy or the tough guy, or the potent character or the jerk who mixes things up, I think if you’re going to get typecast, that’s the one you’d want. I went in to audition for this ‘Moonshot’ [moon landing TV movie]. I love the Apollo program, I’m a science geek and stuff, so I was just so excited and would have taken any three roles, but the director’s like, ‘Oh no, I saw you in “Buffy” and I need you for Buzz Aldrin because he’s the rock star.’ “I’ve always been really thankful I got to play a character that got to wear so much makeup and bleach his hair and got to have a cool English accent.”

Yeah, I love this man SFM! He is truly an amazing actor. I LOVED him as Spike on BtVS and Angel and really loved him as Captain John Hart on Torchwood (the ex-lover of John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness character). I have this strange thing about watching P.S. I Love You whenever it airs on cable … so it’s always nice to see him in that movie, too. I’ve not yet gotten into Caprica but if James Marsters becomes a main character, they’ll deffo get me as a new viewer. And speaking of — check out a preview clip of Marsters making his debut on Caprica in tomorrow night’s new ep along with a possibly spoilery description of the episode titled Know Thy Enemy …

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How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris has signed on to appear in the upcoming film The Smurfs, the animated film mixed with live action that will bring the beloved 80’s cartoon to the big screen next year. Filming on The Smurfs begins in April and, very unfortunately, NPH will NOT be playing a Smurf in the film … which is such a shame because he really would make a cute-lookin’ Smurf:

Neil Patrick Harris will star in Sony’s big screen adaptation of The Smurfs, says Deadline Hollywood. He won’t be voicing one of the Smurfs though as the project is a mix of live-action and animation. Harris will play the lead live-action character. The site says that filming begins in April, when Harris will be on hiatus from CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother.” The Raja Gosnell-directed film is scheduled for a July 29, 2011 release. “The Smurfs” were created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known throughout the world as Peyo. “The Smurfs,” originally called “Les Schtroumpfs” in French, were created for a Belgian series of comic books, first as minor characters. The villagers, known for their blue skin and small statures, spawned a line of statuettes, games, toys, theme parks and a hit TV series, which ran as part of NBC’s Saturday-morning lineup from 1981-90.

AHHHHH … I really wish NPH was playing a Smurf in this film. The mixture of animation and live action has me worried that it will turn out kinda terrible like the Alvin and the Chipmunk movies … or even worse — like the Garfield movie! Ugh!! I’m really not convinced that this Smurfs movie is going to turn out well and may, in fact, mar some of our beloved memories of the original 80’s cartoon. I do take comfort, tho, in the fact that if anyone can make this movie better … it’s Neil Patrick Harris. I guess we’ll have to wait and see … I’m still totally on the fence.

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Over the past few weeks, new characters that will be featured in the upcoming sequel film Toy Story 3 have been revealed and today we learn of a new one. Thus far, there have been 5 characters introduced via promo photos … today’s new character makes 6. Say hello to the half man/half bug action figure named Twitch:

Meet Twitch, the insectaloid warrior, where MAN + INSECT = AWESOME! This sturdy action figure stands over five inches tall, with more than 15 points of articulation, including ferocious chomping mandibles. Use his powerful wings and impenetrable exoskeleton to evade capture! Twitch is meticulously detailed and includes his signature magical battle staff and removable chest armor. For children ages 4 and up. Other insectaloid figures sold separately.

Aww, I like this guy. He deffo looks like an action figure from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (I mean, he really reminds me of the Buzz-Off character). There are 5 other new characters included in Toy Story 3 — after the jump, you can meet them …

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Great news people!!! Shannen Doherty, that beloved actress of TV shows like Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed, is making her return to network TV as a contestant on the competitive reality TV series Dancing with the Stars! As you may recall, we saw Shannen in the front row at New York Fashion Week in mid-February but little did we know that appearance was a precursor for more Shannen to come. The new cast of Dancing with the Stars was revealed last night … and altho I never, ever watch the show, I can tell you I’ll be tuning in to watch and root for Shannen Doherty to win!! Here are a few promo pics of our dear Shannen, including promos from BH, 90210, Charmed, Playboy magazine and Dancing with the Stars:

Shannen Doherty — We’ve watched her grow up, but we’ve never seen her dance. Shannen Doherty is a TV icon known throughout the world. She soared to fame as everyone’s favorite troubled teen twin Brenda Walsh on the popular television series Beverly Hills, 90210 and later as the bewitching Prue Halliwell on Charmed. All this came after beginning her career at 11 years old starring as Jenny Wilder in Little House: A New Beginning. Over the course of her career, she has appeared in numerous made-for-TV-movies, television series and films including Heathers and Mallrats. Shannen later went on to produce and star in her own reality show, Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty, for the Oxygen Network in 2006. Recently, Shannen reprised her role as Brenda Walsh on the CW’s 90210 and completed filming the Hallmark made-for-TV-movie Growing the Big One. She is also the author of the upcoming book Bad Ass from publisher Clarkson Potter. We can’t wait to see this talented actress take on her latest role as a dancer on our stage. Wonder if the judges will have a special paddle for her with a 90210 on front.

Shannen will be teamed with professional dancer Mark Ballas and, I contend, they will LAY WASTE TO THE PITIFUL OTHER CONTESTANTS IN A SHOW OF FORCE THAT CAN ONLY RESULT IN THEIR TOTAL, UNQUESTIONED AND ABSOLUTE WIN! Or, at least I hope they will ;) I know there are a few DTWS fans out there — so, in case you missed hearing the announcement last night, you can learn who else will compete on the new season of Dancing with the Stars after the jump …

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