TV Talk: Mister Rogers Lego set won’t happen; AMC’s ‘Vampire’ draws blood

PASADENA, Calif. — AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire,” returning for its second season at 9 p.m. Sunday on AMC and AMC+, managed to eclipse the 1994 film in quality in its first season as it retold the first story of Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles.”

The show’s first season was a critical hit and an audience-pleaser, particularly among fans of Rice’s novel who appreciated the ways the series was faithful to its source material.

Season one ended with the apparent death of Lestat (Sam Reid) as his lover Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and their young charge, Claudia (Delainey Hayles takes over the role), moved on (to Europe, as viewers will see in season two).

It was also revealed that in-the-present-day interviewer Daniel Malloy (Eric Bogosian) has been interacting not only with Louis’ assistant, Rashid (Assad Zaman), but actually with the vampire Armand, who was only pretending to be Rashid.

During AMC’s portion of the winter 2024 Television Critics Association press tour in February, executive producer Mark Johnson explained that the show’s second, Europe-set season covers the second half of Rice’s novel.

“The book spoke to us, and it really dictated where we went with this,” Johnson said.

Zaman said while the series follows the book’s plot, Molloy’s present-day interview of Louis in Dubai helps build Rice’s larger vampire world in subtle but noticeable ways.

“This dynamic — having Armand in the room in Dubai in this version — opens up the other books quicker for an audience who hasn’t read them,” Zaman said. “We’re not throwing all of Anne Rice’s work on to the screen and going, ‘This is all of it.’ But we’re planting the seeds. With season two, we get to watch those seeds grow and then also plant more seeds for the future.”

No ‘Neighborhood’ Legos

Lego announced two product ideas submitted by fans will advance to be made as kits and sold in stores, but the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” set was not approved and will not move forward. (Two Muppet-themed sets from last year also were not approved.)

The sets that were approved for production — Minifigure Prize Machine and Western River Steamboat — did not involve copyrighted characters.

A spokeswoman for Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions said Lego never contacted FRP about the proposed “Neighborhood” Lego set.

WQED’s new channel and ‘Hope’

WQED-TV plans to announce a new “linear streaming channel entirely about Pittsburgh and our region,” according to an email WQED CEO Jason Jedlinski sent to staff Wednesday and obtained by TribLive. The channel will feature “short- and long-form content from WQED, community partners, independent creators, and various licensors.” After the transition from analog to digital broadcasting in 2009, WQED aired The Neighborhood Channel, which televised local documentaries (including many Rick Sebak shows), as a digital subchannel.

Next week WQED-TV debuts “Hope and Healing: The Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh” (8 p.m. May 16), a half-hour documentary about how a Pittsburgh boy falling from a moving train in 1902 led to what is now a Pittsburgh institution of compassion and care.

NMB award

During a fundraiser May 4 for the proposed National Museum of Broadcasting, descendants of Pittsburgh broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad helped bestow the inaugural Frank Conrad Award for Broadcast and Electronic Media Innovation on WQED-FM artistic director and morning show host Jim Cunningham.

Bill Flanagan, who participated in a panel discussion of broadcasters during the festivities, will feature the non-profit and its efforts to bring the museum to fruition on “Our Region’s Business” (11 a.m. June 30, WPXI).

Fred Rogers fundraiser

Fred Rogers Productions will host its second mini-golf fundraiser at 9:30 a.m. May 19 at Cool Springs, 3001 Cool Springs Drive, Bethel Park. Teams of two will compete and there will be photo-ops with characters from “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and “Alma’s Way.”

Tickets are $70 for a team of two; there’s also a free option for photo-ops only. Register in advance at Fred Rogers Productions website.

New production training

Filmmakers Industry Partnership, made possible by a $3 million Richard King Mellon Foundation grant, will seek to introduce “a new generation of diverse workers to potential careers in filmmaking” with work on three independent horror films produced by Pittsburgh Pictures, founded by Pittsburgh natives/Hollywood producers/managers Jimmy Miller (filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Downward Dog”) and Eric Gold (“Scary Movie”). It’s unclear if the films will be distributed in theaters or to streaming services.

FIP is seen as a pre-training program for the existing Create PA, the Pittsburgh Film Office’s union-pipeline workforce training program.

Raising the FTC cap

On Monday, film industry and Pittsburgh Film Office representatives rallied at the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg to advocate for an increase in the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit to $300 million. It’s currently capped at $100 million but film industry reps say the cap needs to be higher to stay competitive with New Jersey ($450 million cap), New York ($700 million cap) and West Virginia (uncapped, like Georgia). Ohio recently went from $40 million to a $80 million cap on its film tax credits.

Kept/canceled/spun-off

NBC renewed its “Night Court” reboot for a third season and Joe Manganiello-hosted “Deal or No Deal Island” for a second season.

NBC canceled “Extended Family” but renewed “Lopez vs. Lopez” for a third season.

Peacock ordered a new comedy set in “The Office” universe from the original adapted of the NBC show, Greg Daniels. The new series features a documentary crew chronicling the employees (and volunteer reporters?) who work for a small Midwestern newspaper.

Channel surfing

The great streaming rebundling has begun: After the advent of streaming services led to a la carte offerings of individual services, media companies have slowly started to remake the cable bundle for the streaming era. The biggest step forward comes as Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, usually rivals, announced plans for a Disney+, Hulu and Max bundle to launch this summer. No price was announced. … Per Deadline.com, “Tough as Nails” and “Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan is developing a new “elite physical competition series” for CBS.

You can reach TV writer Rob Owen at rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow @RobOwenTV on Threads, Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook. Ask TV questions by email or phone. Please include your first name and location.