TV Hostages

The Mentalist or The Good Wife? That’s the way most network experts pitched CBS’ Sunday night dilemma. They could either renew the well-liked, moderately-rated crime procedural that does very well in syndication and overseas or they could renew the award-winning, moderately-rated legal drama. It was supposedly one or the other.

While a handful of shows made their debuts last week, this week the major networks will begin to really roll out their fall programming. In addition to the return of some beloved series, tonight has a few new items on the menu, including a CBS comedy and two suspenseful looking dramas. Check out the trailers ahead!

Among the new dramas set to debut next week is CBS' Hostages, a thriller executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, which stars Toni Collette as a doctor tasked to perform surgery on the president. As though that weren't a stressful task on its own, Ellen's family is taken hostage by a rogue FBI agent (Dylan McDermott), who wants her to assassinate the President while he on the operating table.

“It lets you shape an arc without having to stretch out and tap dance,” he explained. “A lot of characters we respond to on cable [are] ordinary people in extraordinary situations,” namechecking Water White and Weeds’s Nancy Botwin as examples.

Ready for the fall? Yeah, me neither. The summer TV season is only just getting started but CBS is already getting their ducks in a row for the Fall and those who want to plan ahead can get a look at what the Eye has in store for their viewers come September.

Described as a political thriller and a family drama, Hostages stars Toni Collette as a doctor whose family is taken hostage by Dylan McDermott, who orders her to kill the president while operating on him, or he'll kill her family. As if she weren't under enough pressure, having to operate on the President of the United States, now she has to worry about her family being held at gunpoint...

CBS has announced their 2013-2014 schedule today, revealing their plans to shuffle things around to make room for the four new comedies and new dramas they have joining the line-up. Person of Interest will move to Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m., while Hawaii Five-0 has been shifted to Fridays. The Eye has new series Hostages set to air Monday nights following their two-hour comedy block, which features two returning shows and two new comedies.

Since playing the role of Jimmy Cooper in The O.C., it's been one notable project after the other for Tate Donovan. Sure, some of us may always associate him - at least a little bit - with his earlier work in such films as SpaceCamp and Love Potion No. 9 (both referenced here without any intended irony), but he's really stepped in up in recent years, between his role in Damages and his contribution to the top-notch cast of the Oscar-nominated film Argo.

Two high profile actors have been announced for CBS’ new pilot, Hostages. Recently, United States of Tara’s Toni Collette was signed on to head the pilot, and today the network announced that American Horror Story’s Dylan McDermott will take the lead opposite Collette.