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Entertainment

‘Mom’ To End With Season 8 On CBS, Sets Series Finale – Deadline

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CBS’ praised Mom — the network’s longest-running comedy series on the air — will end its run after the current eighth season. Mom‘s series finale has been set for May 6 in its Thursday 9 p.m. time period.

This is the last season of Mom’s two-year pickup the Chuck Lorre-produced multi-camera comedy received in 2019. Also coming up at the end of this season was the current contract for star Allison Janney, who became the series’ sole lead after the exit of Anna Faris last summer.

Eight seasons in, Mom remains a solid ratings performer and an anchor of CBS’ Thursday comedy block. Currently Mom is CBS’ No. 4 comedy behind The Neighborhood and Lorre’s Young Sheldon and Bob Hearts Abishola. (The Neigbrhood and Bob Hearts Abishola were renewed earlier today; a pickup for Young Sheldon is expected.)

“For the past eight years, we’ve had the great honor to bring these wonderful characters to life, sharing their struggles and triumphs with millions of viewers every week,” said executive producers Lorre, Gemma Baker and Nick Bakay. “From the beginning, we set out to tell stories about recovery from alcoholism and addiction that are rarely portrayed in a network comedy series. Whether it was the emotional reactions of the live audience on tape night inside Stage 20, or discussions at the White House regarding the opioid crisis, or the personal stories we continue to receive on social media, we take great pride in knowing Mom has positively impacted so many lives. We are forever grateful to our brilliant cast and guest stars, wonderful writers, and amazing crew for going on this journey with us.”

Mom also is a rare sitcom that tackles important issues. It started with Faris and Janney as daughter-mother duo Christy and Bonnie Plunkett, who, after having been estranged for years while both were struggling with addiction, attempt to pull their lives and their relationship together by trying to stay sober.

“Since its premiere, Mom has touched people’s lives by sensitively tackling weighty yet relatable topics, with a perfect, deft touch,” said Kelly Kahl, President, CBS Entertainment. “Mom redefined what a comedy can be, and we are proud to have been the network home to this wonderful series. We are deeply grateful to Chuck Lorre and his tremendously creative production team, helmed by Gemma Baker and Nick Bakay, and the amazingly talented cast, led by the phenomenal Allison Janney.”

Mom also has been a solid asset for Warner Bros Television with off-network and streaming deals.

“Chuck, Gemma, Eddie and Nick have created a beautiful series with storylines depicting the real-life struggles and successes of those in recovery,” the studio said in a statement. “We are deeply proud of the Mom cast, crew and writers for the impact their work has had, and will continue to have, on viewers around the world, and we thank our partners at CBS for enabling these stories to be told.”

Starring Janney and featuring an ensemble cast including Jaime Pressly, Mimi Kennedy, Beth Hall, Kristen Johnston and William Fichtner, the CBS series began with Christy (Faris), a newly sober single mom raising two children, reuniting with her critical, estranged mother, Bonnie (Janney). Throughout the seasons, it grew to focus on the evolution of their mother-daughter relationship and the friendships and struggles of a group of women in recovery. It has attracted such recurring and guest stars as Yvette Nicole Brown, Ellen Burstyn, Kristin Chenoweth, Beverly D’Angelo, Patti LuPone, Joe Manganiello, Emily Osment, Kevin Pollack, Richard Schiff, June Squibb, Octavia Spencer, French Stewart (originally a series regular), Kathleen Turner, Steven Weber, Bradley Whitford and Rainn Wilson among many others.

The series garnered two Emmy wins and five nominations as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Janney. Most recently, Mom was nominated for three Critics Choice Awards including Best Comedy Series, Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Ficthner) and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Pressly). During Season 3, the show joined forces with then-Surgeon General of the U.S., Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, on a public service announcement regarding addiction. In 2016, Lorre, Janney and guest star Osment were invited to the White House by Champions of Change to be recognized for advancing addiction prevention, treatment and recovery.

Mom premiered on Monday, September 23, 2013 on CBS. Created by Lorre, Eddie Gorodetsky and Baker, the series is executive produced by Lorre, Baker, Bakay and Warren Bell and produced by Chuck Lorre Productions in association with Warner Bros Television.



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Texas mom tackles man ‘caught looking in her teen daughter’s window’

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Dramatic video shows a Texas mom body-slamming a suspected peeping tom accused of looking into her teenage daughter’s bedroom window, according to reports.

“First instinct was just to make sure he didn’t go any further,” said mom Phyllis Pena.

“My kids are my life and just making sure I protect them,” Pena added.

TEXAS DOG LOST SINCE BEFORE 2017’S HURRICANE HARVEY REUNITED WITH FAMILY

The Lake Jackson mom said she got home from a store around 7 a.m. on Jan. 31 to find the suspect staring into the window of her 15-year-old daughter.

He ran away as the mom called police.

Dramatic video shows Texas mom Phyllis Pena body-slamming a suspected peeping tom accused of looking into her teenage daughter’s bedroom window. (Courtesy Lake Jackson PD)

He started to run toward the mom outside of her house, and then Pena dove out at him and tackled him.

The daughter helped pin down the suspect until cops came to make the arrest.

Zane Hawkins, 19, is facing charges of possession of a controlled substance, evading arrest and resisting arrest, Lake Jackson Police said.

“It’s not very often that we have somebody that actually steps in, puts themself in harm’s way to assist in apprehending somebody,” Sgt. Roy Welch said.

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The takedown was videotaped on the police’s dashcam.

“The cop fist-bumped me and he was like, ‘Hey, so I heard the Texans are looking for a new linebacker,’” Pena said.

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Entertainment

Dwayne Johnson performs adorable duet with his mom on ‘The Tonight Show’

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Wednesday, to promote his new NBC series Young Rock. But it was actually Johnson’s mom, Ata Johnson, who stole the show.

After Fallon inquired about Johnson’s mom, her son invited her to share the screen and show off her musical talents. With a little help from Johnson, she played the ukulele and sang two songs.

Viewers enjoyed the performance and several took to Twitter to gush over Johnson’s adorable mom.

Fallon clearly enjoyed being serenaded, especially during the song which was basically about how much the Johnson family loved him.

Young Rock premieres Tuesday, Feb. 16th at 8 p.m. on NBC.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.

See why the Super Bowl streaker helped complete the night for Tapa Bay’s Rob Gronkowski:

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Entertainment

Dannielynn Birkhead Explores Late Mom Anna Nicole Smith’s Past On 20/20

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The 14-year-old and dad Larry Birkhead travel to Anna’s hometown, before he shows her memorabilia he’s been waiting “a long time” for her to see.

Dannielynn Birkhead was just five months old when her mother, the late Anna Nicole Smith, passed away from an accidental drug overdose. And now, 14 years later, the teenager is exploring her mom’s past with her father, Larry Birkhead, by her side for a new “20/20” special.

Airing Friday, ahead of the 14th anniversary of her death, the new special will feature Dannielynn visiting “the most influential places in Anna Nicole’s life for the first time with her father,” including a trip to her childhood home of Mexia, Texas. According to a press release, they’ll “meet her high school friend and see the places she frequented before becoming famous.”

The trip will also take them to Los Angeles, where the two will “visit several sentimental locations” and Dannielynn will see, “for the first time, some of Anna Nicole’s memorabilia from her life and career, tucked away in a storage locker following her death.”

A preview clip from the special shows Larry digging into the storage locker and pulling out a number of items from Anna’s past, including a wedding dress, old clothes she wore on dates with him and a photo album.

“Dannielynn has no idea that she’s gonna see these things. All this is a surprise,” says Larry in the footage. “She has a big heart like her mom had and I think she could appreciate these things.”

“This is stuff that I had for you for like a long time,” he says, as she reacts in shock.

“Anna should be remembered as this larger than life figure that was really a caring, giving person, a beautiful lady who loved her fans and loved her family,” he adds in the footage.

A trailer for the special also shows one of Anna’s childhood friends telling Dannielynn she looks “just like her” mom.

“Dannielynn’s a teenager now and she doesn’t really know a ton of things about her mom,” Larry says in the footage. “As a dad who has a child whose mom passed away, I thought, why not travel back to Anna’s beginnings. To be really honest, I didn’t know a lot about Anna, her early years.”

“To this day Howard has been supportive,” Birkhead said. “Almost [as if] the same loyalty that he had for Anna has now carried over to me and Dannielynn.”

“When you talk about Anna Nicole and you talk about where she came from … you talk about the court battles,” he also told ABC News. “In between, there were a lot of happy moments for her. There was a lot of highs before there was a lot of lows.”

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11 Anna Nicole Secrets from Larry Birkhead on Her Jealously, Baby Drama and Death

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According to ABC, the special will also report on “the dichotomy between who Anna Nicole was in the spotlight and who she was in private as Vickie Lynn Smith, her rise to fame, life in the limelight, her tragic death in Florida and the unanswered questions about her death.”

Anna Nicole passed away in 2007 at the age of 39 following an accidental drug overdose. Following a court battle over custody of Dannielynn, Larry has done a pretty good job keeping his daughter’s life private — doing the occasional interview and making annual appearances at the Kentucky Derby.

The “20/20” special airs Friday night on ABC.

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Entertainment

Open Roads is a game about a mom and daughter, on the heels of a lot of ‘sad dads’

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For an industry that’s obsessed with dads — Kratos and Joel, for instance — there are so very few meaningful roles for moms in video games. Moms do exist, but they’re most often dead moms, bad moms, or missing moms; moms that are only there for a protagonist to play off of. The evolution of familial relationships in video games is changing, and at least one indie design team has decided to take on a meaningful maternal story.

“There’s been a lot of sad dads,” Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor told Polygon. “They’ve been good games, many of them. But now it’s just mom hours.”

Gaynor and a team of designers and writers at Fullbright are making a video game, Open Roads, about a teenage girl and her mom. The game, expected out in 2021, was revealed in December, and stars Keri Russel (The Americans) and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart). Gaynor described Open Roads as “a mother-daughter road trip adventure game.” It is, in many ways, very much a Fullbright game, about exploring an environment and searching through things for a person’s story.

Image: Fullbright

But the big difference between Open Roads and Fullbright’s first two games, Gone Home and Tacoma, is that now there are two characters in the space: Opal, the mom, and Tess, the daughter. “What if there was another character in the room who was experiencing these things with you?” Gaynor asked.

The opportunity, then, is in a second perspective — one that creates a meaningful impact on the story simply because of their presence in a space and their relationship to the other character. Players will operate as Tess on a road trip with her mom, a trip that’s sparked by a grandmother’s death. The stuff that Tess rifles through belongs to her grandmother, and through that process, she learns little bits of information about the family’s past, some of which is surprising.

“You’re uncovering these events that were part of your family’s history, but you’re also navigating your relationship with your mom, through your reactions, through the dialogue you have with her, and discovering those characters as much as you’re discovering this story from the past,” Gaynor explained.

Image: Fullbright

It sounds like Open Roads is less about the mystery behind whatever Opal and Tess uncover, but instead focuses more on their relationship. The mystery is the backdrop for that relationship, something to push and pull at it.

Another big part of the story, Gaynor said, is its 2003-era setting. The time period was important to decide from a technological standpoint; this is a game about a road trip, one that would be wildly different if you could pull up a map on your smartphone. In 2003, you could still have a cellphone — but all you could do with it was make calls, play Snake or, if you were lucky, send texts. “But your mom printed out MapQuest directions before you left,” Gaynor added.

It’s also an era that feels nostalgic now, as well as weirdly similar to 2021. Open Roads is a game that was developed, in part, during 2020, a year that people will remember for its rampant wildfires, racial reckoning, and an isolating pandemic. The year will stand out as one of those major periods of our lives; there’s now pre-2020 and post-2020. 2003 felt similar; being post-9/11 and at the start of the Iraq War, Gaynor said. “It was still very much, ‘Support the troops,’ and ‘Never forget,’ which was very much the national — and international — moment.”

Image: Fullbright

Gaynor called it a sort of “sad resonance” with the past that emerged naturally from the year.

“There’s also that feeling of being able to draw from the moment we’re in, the uncertainty and the instability and feeling of public life that feels relevant to the game’s time period,” Gaynor said.

Open Roads is expected to be released in 2021 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

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