Posted on Thursday, May 2nd, 2013 by Angie Han

We have a particularly murderer-heavy edition of TV Bits today, with news about Dexter, Hannibal, and The Killing. After the jump:
- Dallas, Veep, Rectify, and Orphan Black get renewed
- Vampire Diaries spinoff gets green light
- Julian Sands joins Dexter in mystery role
- Downton Abbey gets its first black character
- John Oliver will host The Daily Show this summer
- Bryan Fuller has Pushing Daisies movie ideas
- NBC affiliate axes Hannibal
- The Killing‘s new mystery will be solved within the season
- FX and Seth Rogen develop Bigfoot comedy
- Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, and Peter Berg team for HBO
- Alex Gibney will direct Frank Sinatra documentary
- The Arrested Development doc hits tomorrow; see more Season 4 stills
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Is minimal design in teasers now the go-to for kids animation franchises? Despicable Me 2 used the approach to pretty cute effect not long ago, and here an international teaser for The Smurfs 2 (which is likely almost exactly the same as the forthcoming US teaser) relies on little but a Smurf, a white backdrop, and an insistent bit of text. It’s gentle and a little bit silly, like the Smurfs, if not all that memorable.
The real audience for a Smurfs movie won’t care much, I imagine, but the parents buying the tickets might not be all that excited to pony up just yet. Check out the teaser below. Read More »

Briefly: Terry Jones — the Monty Python member who directed The Life of Brian, not the nutter who wanted to burn the Qu’ran in Florida — is preparing to make his return to the director’s chair with Absolutely Anything. The film will star John Oliver, recently known as the Senior British Correspondent (among other titles) at The Daily Show. That makes Oliver the latest TDS alum to jump from small screen to large, and a well-deserved jump it should be.
Jones wrote the script with Gavin Scott, and it reportedly includes as diverse elements as “aliens, a goofy Brit, a talking dog and buckets of silliness,” to all of which I’ll simply say: ‘yes.’
We don’t have info about Oliver’s role (‘goofy Brit,’ one would assume) but Deadline says that Robin Williams is in talks to play the talking dog (named Dennis the Dog) while John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam have all been contacted about voicing aliens. Again: yes. Absolutely Anything is currently hoping to shoot in Spring 2011.

Last night saw the debut on NBC of Community, the new half-hour sitcom notable for starring The Soup quickstepper, Joel McHale, and parting the prime time waters for Chevy “Nugent, Ted Nugent” Chase. Based on the premiere, Community looks to introduce a sweet-hearted strain of politically incorrect irreverence to the Big 3 as a reaction to cable’s shenanigans. This is not really a surprise since the show was created and produced by Dan Harmon, whose credits include The Sarah Silverman Show and the axed Jack Black treasure, Heat Vision and Jack. Earlier this month, the pilot was rolled out on Facebook and the PS3, and today we’d like to know what you thought. Some of my early impressions after the jump…
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