TV Talk: Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum hosts ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’; Mass. woman helms a 'Neighborhood' reboot

Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum will guest host ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (11:35 p.m., WTAE-TV) Monday-Thursday this week.

Goldblum’s guests tonight will be Mark Wahlberg, Rob Delaney and musical guest Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge.

On Tuesday Goldblum will welcome John Cena and Omar Sy. Goldblum will also perform with The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra featuring Haley Reinhart.

Greg Kinnear and Janet McTeer, Goldblum’s co-star in the upcoming Netflix series “Kaos” (Aug. 29), will appear on the show Wednesday with musical guest Waxahatchee.

Thursday’s show will feature Awkwafina, Paul W. Downs and musical guest Remi Wolf.

New ‘Neighborhood’

For her thesis project at Harvard Divinity School, Madeline Bugeau-Heartt created a 35-minute pilot episode of a reimagined version of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” called “Neighborhood,” which she premiered in an Arlington, Mass., theater last week.

Bugeau-Heartt, who calls herself “a ‘90s kid,” became a Mister Rogers fan in her 20s and filmed the pilot in her Arlington studio apartment earlier this year, per The Boston Globe. She described the series as not for children but an effort to reach “a childlike place in grown-ups.”

The pilot episode uses the format established by Fred Rogers as Bugeau-Heartt enters her home singing, taking off her coat and putting on a red cardigan sweater. Then she talks directly to the camera, addressing viewers as her neighbors. A friend visits to have tea and he and Bugeau-Heartt do yoga together before Bugeau-Heartt sends viewers into a puppet-filled land of make-believe. Bugeau-Heartt also visits with a musician and another neighbor stops by.

Bugeau-Heartt, a Massachusetts native currently residing in Southern Maine, said in a phone interview Saturday she hopes to be able to put the pilot on YouTube at some point in the near future.

“I really view it as a very humble act of service,” said Bugeau-Heartt, a 2024 grad of Harvard Divinity School who’s involved in the climate movement. “People are yearning for media that privileges a lens of love and kindness and community and wonder, and if there’s any way for me to perpetuate that and for me to be able to put this online for people to access, I’m gonna try my best to do that.”

Very Local cuts

Hearst’s Very Local streamer, which includes Very Local Pittsburgh, home to “Ed and Day in the Burgh” and other locally produced series, laid off dozens of employees last week amid a general contraction in media companies’ spending on programming made for streaming, cable and broadcast platforms.

The result will be a narrower focus “primarily on documentary and news-adjacent programming, formats we have seen resonate with streaming viewers,” said a Hearst spokesman in a statement.

A lifestyle show like “Ed and Day” doesn’t fit those genres. A third season of “Ed and Day” has already been produced and will still stream in the future. No air date has been announced.

Disney+ series updates

At its D23 fan convention over the weekend in Anaheim, Calif., Disney announced its latest Disney+ “Star Wars” series, “Skeleton Crew” (Dec. 3), which has a similar plot to “Star Trek: Prodigy”: Kids find a spaceship, get lost in space and encounter a mysterious figure (Jude law).

Season two of the best “Star Wars” series, “Andor,” will stream on Disney+ in 2025.

Also in 2025, Disney+ will debut an “Inside Out” spin-off series, “Dream Productions,” set between the first and second films.

A filmed version of Disney’s “Frozen” stage musical will stream on Disney+ next year.

Marvel’s “Daredevil: Born Again” and season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” will stream on Disney+ in March 2025.

Four episodes of “The Simpsons” produced exclusively for Disney+ will stream later this year, including two Christmas-themed episodes.

Channel surfing

The fourth and final season of HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend” debuts at 9 p.m. Sept. 9. … Michelle Pfeiffer will star in the “Yellowstone” sequel series, “The Madison,” formerly titled “2024.” It follows a New York City family in the Madison River Valley of Central Montana. … TVLine.com reports Robin Weigert, who played Teddi, one-half of the most interesting couple of Teddi and Velma (Abby McEnany) on CBS’s “Tracker,” will not return as a series regular in season two. It’s unclear if Weigert will still make guest appearance or how Teddi might be written off “Tracker.” … Netflix will pay a production fee to CBS Sports to produce its two NFL games airing on Christmas day, including the Steelers vs. Kansas City Chiefs. The deal does not include or preclude the participation of CBS announcers. CBS will also get to air promo spots during the game and CBS will receive ad inventory in the local markets of the competing teams, per Deadline.com.