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Exclusive: Nat Geo is expanding the Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted franchise with spinoff series Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Showdown. The new three-part series, which also will feature Ramsay’s daughter Tilly, will premiere at 8 pm on Monday, July 25. It will be followed by previously announced four-part series World of Flavor with Big Moe Cason at 10 pm, making for an all-culinary night.

In Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Showdown, Gordon faces off against UK star chefs Paul Ainsworth and Matt Waldron, who got their starts in Ramsay kitchens before opening their own restaurants. With Paul and Matt working on their home turf, Gordon has to dig deep in the final cooks to prevent his students from becoming the masters. While in Costa Rica, Gordon faces his biggest challenge yet: going head-to-head with his daughter Tilly, the multi-bafta Award-nominated Cbbc cooking show star and cookbook author, in an epic culinary showdown in the series finale.

In...

The world is Nat Geo’s playground with the network’s newly announced slate of unscripted content.

Ahead of Disney’s upfront presentation on Tuesday in New York City, National Geographic on Monday announced a new slate of six personality-driven series aimed to showcase various aspects of culture from around the world. The new shows will feature notable personalities Derek Hough, Kristen Kish, Jeff Jenkins, Indy Srinath and Christian Cooper — as well as high school competitors of a global science fair competition.

Renowned dancer Derek Hough will guide viewers around the world on an exploration of dance history and trends in the new show “Dance the World With Derek Hough.” In each episode, Hough will team up with a celebrity guest to embark on a journey to uncover the global cultural traditions that shape dance. Grant Kahler is executive producer and showrunner on the series. For National Geographic, Betsy Forhan is executive producer,...

Ahead of Disney’s TV upfront presentation on Tuesday, National Geographic announced its next slate of nonfiction programming, doubling down on its recent streak of personality-driven shows with five new series led by “Dance the World” starring “Dancing With The Stars” legend Derek Hough.

“Dance the World” will see Hough team up with a celebrity guest to explore the cultural roots behind some of the world’s most famous dances, with each episode ending with a performance of that dance routine.

Other projects announced include chef Kristen Kish’s “Restaurants at the End of the World,” urban gardener Indy Srinath’s “Farming Is Life,” Christian Cooper’s avian nature series “Extraordinary Birder,” and an untitled travel series starring blogger Jeff Jenkins.

National Geographic also announced a new series based on the Emmy and SXSW Audience Award-winning documentary “Science Fair,” which will see directors Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster return to...

Ahead of its Disney’s Upfront presentation Tuesday in NYC, National Geographic has announced greenlights for six new nonfiction series as part of its latest programming slate.

They include Dance The World With Derek Hough, a series which takes viewers on a global cultural journey of the origins of some of the most popular dance styles; Restaurants At The End Of The World, hosted by chef and entrepreneur Kristen Kish; an untitled series with adventurer and travel blogger Jeff Jenkins; Farming Is Life, with urban gardener and influencer Indy Srinath; Extraordinary Birder, hosted by lifelong birder Christian Cooper, and Science Fair: The Series, from the directors and producers of the Emmy-winning documentary film Science Fair, featuring high school competitors of a global science fair competition.

The new series, which follow on the success of Gordon Ramsay: Unchartered, Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller and Running Wild With Bear Grylls, will premiere...

The world shut down for nearly a year, but a little global pandemic wasn’t enough to stop Gordon Ramsay from adventuring across the globe for his National Geographic series.

“Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” returns to National Geographic tonight (new episodes will be available for streaming the next day on Disney+) with Season 3, which follows Ramsay as he journeys to various culinary hotspots to learn about different cooking methods and cultures. The latest season of the show follows the celebrity chef as he visits Portugal, Croatia, Mexico, Texas, Maine, Puerto Rico, Iceland, the Smoky Mountains, Michigan, and Finland.

Returning viewers will be immediately at home with the structure of “Uncharted” Season 3. As before, Ramsay teams up with each locale’s chefs, wildlife experts, and others to source various ingredients, learn about local cooking practices, and participate in high-stakes adventuring, which range from hunting rattlesnakes in Texas to scaling the slippery coastal slopes of Portugal.

National Geographic will bring back a number of franchise titles for the 2021-2022 season. During its upfront presentation on Tuesday, National Geographic revealed that has handed renewals to its Life Below Zero and Wicked Tuna franchises. Also set to return for new seasons are adventure shows Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, Running Wild with Bear Grylls, and Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller.

The documentary network has also set the return for its annual Sharkfest special, marking its 10th anniversary on Nat Geo. It was also revealed that Good Morning America co-anchors Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan will join National Geographic for Explorer, a special produced in partnership with ABC News.

See National Geographic’s complete renewal slate below.

Returning Series

Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted

Renewed for Season Four (Studio Ramsay)

Gordon Ramsay laces his boots, grabs his knives and buckles up as he hits the road to embark on more exhilarating adventures, exploring...

Network: CBS.

Episodes: Eight (hour).

Seasons: One.

TV show dates: July 28, 2018 — September 15, 2018.

Series status: Cancelled.

Performers include: Marcia Clark (host).

TV show description:

A true-crime series, the Pink Collar Crimes TV show comes from executive producers Jon Kroll and Sharon Liese. Hosted by author and former prosecutor Marcia Clark, the docu-series delves into a growing crime demographic -- women.

As PTA mothers, country-club chairs, and more, these women do not fit the profile of the usual suspects. Still, they have taken big risks, taken in some big bucks, and served sizable sentences. Read More…...

National Geographic’s unscripted programs shooting both in the U.S. and abroad are figuring out what it means to get back to work during the pandemic, enacting new regulations and safety protocols to protect their human crews and animal subjects alike.

Having crews out in the field presents a risk not only for the local communities and the filmmakers themselves but potentially for wildlife as well.

“We actually canceled a shoot we were planning to do with bonobos in the Congo,” said “Queens” showrunner Vanessa Berlowitz. “We’ve been thinking a lot about how do we socially distance from monkeys who might be naturally curious and want to come close to us? You can’t necessarily prepare for that. So we’ve had to make some really complex decisions not just for our own safety and the people we work with, but also the animals that we’re filming.

Nat Geo was forced to shut down 77 productions, encompassing 394 hours of programming, across more than a dozen countries around the world in March when Covid-19 struck.

It has been laboriously going through the process of getting many of these shows back to production and showrunners from four of its shows – Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, Running Wild with Bear Grylls, Queens and Category Six – were present at the network’s virtual TCA presentation to reveal how they’ve done it.

Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted has just completed episodes in Croatia, Iceland, Portugal and Finland as it heads into its third season, Running Wild with Bear Grylls has just completed filming an episode in Iceland, female-focused wildlife series Queens is currently shooting in Kenya and the UK and Category Six has been chasing storms in the U.S. since May 11.

Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted showrunner Jon Kroll revealed that the show, which is produced by Studio Ramsay,...

National Geographic is getting into the Emmy Fyc podcast game. The network has launched “Consider This,” a new 12-episode series that will feature stars and producers from Nat Geo’s Emmy contenders.

Guests will include Marcia Gay Harden, Dr. Amani Ballour (“The Cave”), Jeff Goldblum (“The World According to Jeff Goldblum”), Dr. Jane Goodall (“Sea of Shadows”), Bear Grylls (“Running Wild with Bear Grylls”), Keegan-Michael Key (“Brain Games”), Gordon Ramsay (“Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted”), David Thewlis (“Barkskins”), Neil deGrasse Tyson (“Cosmos: Possible Worlds”) and Sue Aikens (“Life Below Zero”). Journalist Stacey Wilson Hunt hosts the podcast.

“Consider This” will be available to download starting Monday via Apple, Spotify, Radio.com, TuneIn, Deezer, Stitcher, Google Play, Overcast and Pocketcast.The first episode features Tyson, followed by one with Key.

Other interviewees include Ann Druyan (“Cosmos: Possible Worlds”), Sigrid Dyekjær (“The Cave”), Jon Kroll (“Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted”), Joseph Litzinger (“Life Below Zero”) and...

“Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” saw the celebrity chef explore beyond the hellish, nightmarish kitchens American audiences know him from and venture to the furthest reaches of the planet.

The six-episode National Geographic show, which aired its Season 1 finale this week, followed Ramsay as he adventured to locations with unique, albeit largely unknown, cuisines, ranging from the craggy white waters of Laos to frigid Alaskan mountains. Despite his a larger-than-life personality and its globetrotting scale, “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” is a disarmingly personable project, one that cleverly expands the audience appeal of his high-volume TV persona.

IndieWire interviewed several of the show’s crew members during the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour to discover how “Gordan Ramsay: Uncharted” differs from the chef’s other television projects and to discern the challenges of filming a cooking show in some of the planet’s furthest flung locales.

Ramsay is undeniably the star of the show,...

Gordon Ramsay has cracked open the grill on his Nat Geo adventure cooking show Uncharted and also addressed the controversy about those Anthony Bourdain comparisons and called “bullsh*t” on chefs handing back Michelin stars.

The British chef also revealed to Deadline that he is set to start filming BBC cooking competition series Step Up to the Plate, which he described as a “foodie Apprentice,” next week in the UK.

Speaking at the TCA press tour on Tuesday, Ramsay was on good form to promote Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, which is produced by his own indie Studio Ramsay. Sitting alongside contributors including Hawaiian free diver and spearfisher Kimi Wener, New Zealand chef Monique Fiso and Laos adventurist Mick O’Shea, as well as exec producer Jon Kroll, he said it was all about “scaling back” and “unearthing those [cooking] secrets that we’ve forgotten about.”

Ramsay traveled to six global destinations including New Zealand,...

Toyo hunches over his street food stove, cooking tuna with a blow torch, stopping to light his cigarette with it and produce a cheeky grin.

The Japanese chef, who owns a roadside stand in the city of Osaka, is one of many highlighted in the Netflix series “Street Food.” Over the course of 30 minutes, Toyo talks about his difficult upbringing and his tooth and nail fight to open the restaurant and keep it that way.

Being able to see stories like Toyo’s on screen is one of the beauties of food TV in the era in which we currently find ourselves. Shows are now travelling all around the world and, in the spirit of the late, great Anthony Bourdain, delving into local cultures and cuisines through the eyes and personal stories of those sweating behind the wok, forming the focaccia and hacking through dense forest to find that special ingredient.

CBS is riding TV’s true-crime wave, announcing a pair of new series premiering this month. Whistleblower is set to sound off at 8 Pm Friday, July 13, and Pink Collar Crimes will be perpetrated starting at 8 Pm Saturday, July 28.

Produced by CBS News for CBS Television Studios, Whistleblower looks into the real-life David vs. Goliath stories of heroic people who put everything on the line to expose illegal and often dangerous wrongdoing when major corporations rip off U.S. taxpayers. Hosted by attorney Alex Ferrer, a former judge and police officer, each hour introduces cases in which ordinary people step up to do the extraordinary by risking their careers, their families and even their lives to ensure others are not harmed or killed by unchecked, unethical corporate greed. 48 Hours veteran Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer, and Alex Ferrer and Ted Eccles are the EPs.

The Pink Collar Crimes logline:...

Think you’re up to Herculean standards? The new Fox reality competition series “Bullseye” will challenge that merit when it premieres next month, hosted by Hercules himself, “Twilight” actor Kellen Lutz. (Apologies to Kevin Sorbo, Lou Ferrigno and The Rock.) Comedian Godrey — A.K.A. the “7Up Guy” — is set to co-host the summer series, which comes from “Wipeout” and “Fear Factor” producers Endemol Shine North America. Jon Kroll and Scott Larsen serve as executive producers. Kevin Wehrenberg, J. Rupert Thompson and Shye Sutherland are co-executive producers. The show will see four men and four women test their bodies and brains in three “ultimate.

For the 15 residents of Utopia, it’s the end of the world as they know it.

Fox on Sunday cancelled its big-budget “social experiment,” effective immediately (meaning last Friday’s episode was the series finale).

Utopia‘s live-streaming feeds will fade to black later today. A Fox insider tells TVLine that it’s “likely” viewers will get to see the show’s participants react to the cancellation before the plug is pulled.

Update: It looks like we won’t be seeing the cast’s reactions, after all. Executive producer Jon Kroll on Sunday confirmed the series’ cancellation, followed by this...

After Sunday night's premiere of Fox's "Utopia" much of the conversation was about embarrassingly alcoholic contestants, poorly concealed pregnancies and pixelated nudity. But garnering nearly as much conversation as Huntress Hex, Drunken Buffoon Josh and Polyamorous Dedeker was the show's on-screen narrator, the immaculately dressed, carefully mustachioed Dan Piraro. I chatted with Piraro on Sunday afternoon after seeing only a few early minutes of footage, which was enough to know that he could hardly be more different from Fox's legacy of reality hosts ranging from Ryan Seacrest to Mario Lopez to Monica Lewinsky to Cat Deeley. It isn't just the infinitely twirlable facial hair or the fact that "Utopia" enlisted a frontman who has passed out of Fox's coveted 18-49 demographic.  Piraro arrives on "Utopia" with an established career in a field rarely mined for reality hosting gigs. Since 1985, Piraro's single-panel comic "Bizarro" has been syndicated in hundreds of newspapers,...

Fox’s Groundbreaking Social Experiment Utopia kicks off with a three-night premiere beginning Sunday Sept. 7 at 8pm Et/Pt on Fox and then Tuesday at 8pmET/Pt and Friday at 8pm Et/Pt. In the next five weeks, the show will air on Tuesdays and Fridays and thereafter, only on Tuesdays. Fans of the show can also watch the show’s 24/7 live stream, at utopiatv.com. Want to be on Utopia? Apply here! I sat in on a call with Fox’s Executive VP of Alternative Entertainment, Simon Andreae, and Utopia Executive Producer, Jon Kroll and they shared information with me and a group of … Continue reading →

The post Fox Execs Discuss Utopia appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.

This fall, Fox's new experimental reality Utopia will drop 15 strangers in a remote location for a year, with limited supplies and no backgrounds, and task them with creating a society from scratch.

Based on the hit Dutch show, the American adaptation comes from creator John de Mol, who will executive-produce along with David Tibballs, Conrad Green (who left Dancing with the Stars to join the show) and Jon Kroll(The Amazing Race).

Add Utopia and other new fall shows to your Watchlist

The Season 1 cast includes a lawyer, a preacher, a pregnant lady (who's keeping it a secret) and an ex-con. What could possibly go awry with this crew?!

Read More >...

Check out the first look at Fox‘s new comedies and dramas as part of the 2014-2015 series orders. Check back for more as they come in. Gotham – Fall Drama Produced by Warner Bros TV and based upon characters published by DC Entertainment. From writer/executive producer Bruno Heller, director/executive producer Danny Cannon and executive producer John Stephens. Gracepoint — Fall Event Series Produced by Shine America in association with Kudos and Imaginary Friends. From writer/executive producer Chris Chibnall and executive producers Anya Epstein, Dan Futterman, Jane Featherstone,John Goldwyn and Carolyn Bernstein. Futterman and Epstein serve as showrunners. Mulaney – Fall Comedy Produced by Universal TV, Broadway Video and 3 Arts Entertainment. From writer/executive producer John Mulaney, director/executive producer Andy Ackerman and executive producers Lorne Michaels, David Miner, Dave Becky, Jon Pollack and Andrew Singer. Utopia – Fall Unscripted Series Produced by Talpa Media USA. From creator/executive producer...

Less animation, plenty of reality, and another two-hour comedy block reduced — those are some of the quick take-aways from Fox’s 2014 fall schedule announcement.

First up: On Mondays, the network will launch perhaps fall’s most-anticipated new drama, the Batman prequel series Gotham at 8 p.m. followed by the sophomore return of Sleepy Hollow at 9 p.m. Fox has ordered 16 episodes of Gotham and 18 episodes of Sleepy Hollow. On Tuesdays, ambitious new reality show Utopia, in which contestants try to build a perfect society over the course of a year, will open for New Girl and The Mindy Project (which...

After nine years at Dancing With the Stars, showrunner Conrad Green is packing up his dancing shoes. Green will exit ABC's reality staple following its current 18th cycle and join Fox's Utopia, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Big Brother and The Amazing Race's Jon Kroll has also boarded the Fox social experiment. Story: 'Dancing With the Stars': ABC's Aging Reality Show Tries to Skew Younger With Changes "I'm enormously proud of everything we've achieved on Dancing With the Stars," he said in a statement obtained by THR. "This has been the job of a lifetime and I'm thankful for

read more...

When season 18 of Dancing With the Stars wraps on May 20, executive producer/showrunner Conrad Green will take his final bow.

EW has confirmed that Green, who was been with Dancing since its launch, is leaving to work on Fox’s Utopia, a new project from Big Brother creator John del Mol. Utopia will take 15 people and put them in an undeveloped location to build their own civilization. They will have an entire year to do so, amidst eliminations and other reality show shenanigans.

Big Brother’s Jon Kroll will also join Utopia as an executive producer.

Deadline first reported the news.

Exclusive: It’s the end of an era at ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. Conrad Green, who has been executive producer/showrunner of the veteran reality series since its launch, will depart after the end of the current 18th season. He is leaving to join Fox‘s upcoming Utopia as executive producer. Also joining the upcoming social experiment reality series as executive producer is Jon Kroll (Big Brother, The Amazing Race). Green was part of the original BBC Worldwide Prods. team of Dancing that pitched the format to ABC. His nine-year, 18-cycle stint will come to an end at the May 20 season finale. “I’m enormously proud of everything we’ve achieved on Dancing With The Stars,” he told Deadline. “This has been the job of a lifetime and I’m thankful for every performance, every dancer and every colleague I’ve worked with over the years, and to ABC and BBC Worldwide Prods.

Lloyd’s of London has put up the cash and Spike TV is on the search to find the mysterious sasquatch in $10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty. The network has picked up the one-hour reality series that will follow teams of scientists, zoologists, seasoned trackers, and actual Bigfoot hunters as they seek the creature. Whatever team can irrefutable prove Bigfoot is real will win the $10 million prize, underwritten by Lloyd’s. The $10 million is the largest cash prize in TV history. Spike TV has put in a 10-episode order for the series, produced by Charlie Corwin’s Original Media. Corwin, Michael Riley and Jon Kroll will executive produce. $10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty will be filmed in various locations in the U.S..

As if Stan Lee wasn’t busy enough, he’s apparently been involved in digital content development, the full scope of which will be revealed tomorrow during a panel discussion at Comic-Con International. The breakdown of properties, though, was released in advance of the formal announcement and since one of our pals is involved, we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this news.

Vuguru and Pow! Entertainment unveil the premium YouTube channel Stan Lee’s World of Heroes at a panel in Room 6Bcf at 11:45 a.m. with a panel including Mark Hamill, Adrianne Curry, Peter David, Jace Hall, Bonnie Burton and America Young. The programming schedule includes:

Stan Lee’s Super Model (scripted action comedy) – From Stan Lee, two aspiring models Bree and Sera and blogger friend Lizzie, are accidentally exposed to a mysterious serum that grants them super powers. Their newfound powers wreak havoc on...

A few years ago, former Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels took some heat for calling contestants on the NBC show "monkeys." Perhaps Michaels was just ahead of her time: Vulture has learned that later this month, cable network Nat Geo Wild will launch Big Baboon House, a reality show that is Big Brother with primates instead of troglodytes.It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: Producers tricked out a rural abode in a small South African village with all manner of Av equipment and one-way mirrors, and then, aping Big Brother, producers (led by Jon Kroll, veteran of Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and Amish in the City) gently prodded their simian "houseguests" to see what would happen when food, natural predators, and even a Christmas tree were introduced into the equation. The producers' most surprising discovery: These baboons might actually be better behaved than the human buffoons on...

The network that once billed itself as "Television for Women" is getting ready to unleash a reality show that imagines a society in which womenfolk do not exist. Vulture hears that later today, Lifetime will announce a June 6 premiere for The Week the Women Went, a five-episode docudrama in which producers extracted all of the adult women from the small town of Yemassee, South Carolina, and then watched as everyone with a Y chromosome was left to fend for himself, raising the kids, tending to home, and operating all the local businesses. It's like Wife Swap if the other mother never showed up.Twtww is actually based on a seven-year-old unscripted format pioneered by the BBC back in 2005 and since exported to numerous countries around the world. The American version was put together by exec producer Jon Kroll (The Amazing Race) and BBC Worldwide Productions, and it looks as...

HollywoodNews.com: MatchingDonors.com is asking the public to help raise awareness about being a living organ donor on MatchingDonors.com through their Everybody Can Save A Life Video Contest! This contest will also get the entrants videos before Hollywood’s Top decision makers, producers, and studio executives, and winners will receive cash prizes as well as the opportunity to work with these top people in Hollywood as Assistant Producers on a television show or movie, or even Assistant Produce an iPhone social game with the creator of Xbox Live. (See extensive information at http://www.matchingdonors.com/life/pdfdocs/Contest.pdf).

Thanks to a very generous donation from the Hollywood Awards, the First Place winner will also be given two tickets and be invited to attend the Hollywood Awards® Gala where they can socialize with Hollywood’s biggest stars. See more at http://www.hollywoodawards.com.

Nineteen people die...

UPN closed out the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour on Sunday with one of the more out-there reality program announcements of the three dozen or so broadcast and cable networks that were presented during the two-week junket at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. Amish in the City, as the project has been dubbed internally at the network (but not on-air, executives assure) aims to follow five Amish teens as they experience their culture's traditional rite of Rumspringa, UPN entertainment president Dawn Ostroff said. The ritual calls for young Amish adults to leave insulated Pennsylvania Dutch communities to explore the outside world and discover whether they want to commit to the Amish way of life. It was the subject of the 2002 documentary Devil's Playground, and its producers Daniel Laikind and Steven Canton, are executive producing the reality series for New Line Television along with Amazing Race alumnus Jon Kroll.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- "Menno's Mind" is a B-grade sci-fi effort that should please undiscriminating fans of the genre and will make a perfectly respectable entry in Showtime's series of sci-fi films. For some reason, it was deemed worthy of inclusion in the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, where it recently had its world premiere.

The film boasts a respectable cast, starting with Bill Campbell ("The Rocketeer") as Menno, a computer technician who helps people experience virtual-reality fantasies (a "V-chip override" is required for the more racy ones). He and his co-worker (Michael Dorn of "Star Trek: The Next Generation") are oblivious to the rebel underground that is battling the corrupt government, including power-mad presidential candidate Felix Mendina (Corbin Bernsen), who plans to infiltrate the country's computer system to alter the population's minds.

When rebel leader Dourif (Bruce Campbell, "Army of Darkness") is killed, his brain is downloaded into Menno, who suddenly finds himself swept into the struggle. Fortunately, his new partner is the beautiful Loria (Stephanie Romanov), who, like the villainess in the last Bond flick, is capable of producing lethal damage with her well-toned thighs.

Director Jon Kroll is unable to establish a sustained tone for Mark Valenti's scattershot screenplay, with the result being that "Menno's Mind" skitters nervously among fantasy, camp and hard-edged action. Although the film has a stylish visual design and does deliver decent effects on what was presumably a very low budget, that doesn't compensate for the often stiff performances and poorly directed action sequences.

Although Campbell makes for a bland hero, Bernsen provides some laughs with his entertaining and scenery-chewing performance.

MENNO'S MIND

A Showtime Networks Inc. release

A Regent Entertainment production

Director:Jon Kroll

Producer:Larry Estes

Executive producers:Paul Colichman, Mark Harris, Stephen Jarchow

Screenplay:Mark Valenti

Cinematographer:Gary Tieche

Editor:Steve Myers

Color/stereo

Cast:

Menno:Bill Campbell

Loria:Stephanie Romanov

Felix Mendina:Corbin Bernsen

Simon:Michael Dorn

Mick Dourif:Bruce Campbell

Sen. Enoch Powell:Robert Vaughn

Running time -- 90 minutes

No MPAA rating...