The English actress has joined the NBC Pilot as Samantha Bloom, sources are confirming.

Mbatha-Raw will play opposite former Soul Food star Boris Kodjoe in the pilot, which NBC has now confirmed will be directed by J.J Abrams.

Undercovers is an NBC dramedy about married spies co-created and exec produced by J.J. Abrams (if you don’t know who he is by now you’ll never know) and Josh Reims.

As well as Doctor Who, she has also had brief stints in Spooks, Bonekickers and most recently Lost in Austen.

George Clooney has found three actors for a show he’s producing for TNT, Delta Blues. And he used to work in some hospital with one of them…

Abraham Benrubi, Celia Weston and DJ Qualls have joined the cast of TNT’s pilot Delta Blues.

“Blues” centers on Dwight Hendricks (Jason Lee), a Memphis police officer who lives with his mother (Weston) and moonlights as an Elvis tribute artist.
Benrubi will play Sgt. J.C. Lightfoot, a 6-foot-5 Caucasian man with a braided ponytail who is only one-eighth Chickasaw but lives by his tribe’s wisdom and dispenses sage quotations to the rest of the Memphis detectives. Qualls will play a cop and Dwight’s protege.

George Clooney and Grant Heslov will Executive produce through their Smokehouse Pictures production shinge.

Country Star Trace Adkins has joined Nashville based drama Tough Trade, THR.com is reporting.

Joey Lauren Adams, Boyd Holbrook and Claire van der Boom have also bee cast in the pilot.

via THR.com

Nashville native Adkins will play Scared, a friend and bodyguard to Linwood Tucker (Shepard) who is fiercely loyal to the family.

Adams will play Shawnelle, the strong and blunt fifth Mrs. Linwood Tucker who is determined never to be the newest ex-wife.

Holbrook will play the youngest Tucker, Jackson, who is poised to become the crown prince of country music by following his family’s legacy.

Van der Boom (“The Pacific”) will play Jackson’s half sister Billie, the only woman in the world of the Tucker men who holds the family together with her strength and will.

A casting scoop that is an indication of how Sendhil Ramamurthy thinks Heroes’ renewal prospects are faring…

Ramamurthy has joined NBC’s comedic drama pilot “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer” as a series regular.

Ramamurthy will play an ambitious but good-natured lawyer who was in Rex’s shadow until Rex’s career switch and whose friendship with Rex becomes complicated when he falls in love with his pal’s fiancee (Abigail Spencer).

Jane Curtin has also been cast in the pilot that stars David Tennant as Rex Alexander, a top Chicago litigator who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court.

The Rex pilot will be in second position to Heroes should the network pick it up, but there is a chance that even if Heroes stays on the air Ramamurthy will end up on Rex.

Nicole Richie has secured herself a pilot order, courtesy of ABC.

The Simple Life star is headlining a single-camera half-hour sitcom playing a professional woman with complicated family relationships and struggling to figure out what role she’ll take as her life and her family evolve.

Richie had the initial idea for the show and will have a producing credit as well as starring.

The star most recent TV gigs include guest starring roles on 8 Simple Rules, American Dreams and Eve as well as four seasons of The Simple Life

Sarah Shahi starring vehicle “Facing Kate” has added a couple of familiar faces.

“Battlestar Galactica’s” Michael Trucco and “How I Met Your Mother” actress Virginia Williams have joined the pilot, sources are reporting

The series follows Kate (Shahi), a lawyer who gets a divorce and then shifts careers to become a mediator after the death of her dad who headed up a law firm.

Williams will play Kate’s younger widowed stepmother, while Trucco will play Kate’s ex, a charming attorney who still harbors feelings for her.

Trucco played Anders on “Battlestar,” while Williams appeared as Claudia on a few episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” and guest starred on USA’s “In Plain Sight.”

So there’s a plane bearing towards Wisteria Lane and now we know who the pilot who crashes it is.

The Simpsons star Dan Castellaneta, (the voice of Homer Simpson), will be taking on the role of the pilot that crashes a small plane in Fairview during the midseason finale of Desperate Housewives on December 6.

Castellaneta has recently guest starred on Greek as Rusty and Dale’s professor in the ABC Family show.

via variety.com

Fox has pacted with “Four Christmases” helmer Seth Gordon and scribe Adam F. Goldberg on a comedy about a group of twentysomething geniuses who are tasked with cracking computer security systems.

The single-camera project hails from Sony Pictures TV and Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison shingle. The untitled laffer stems from an idea of Gordon’s that he developed into a series concept with Goldberg and the Happy Madison crew. Goldberg will pen the script and exec produce if it is picked up to pilot. Gordon is onboard to helm the pilot, if it goes, and exec produce.