Princeton-Plainsboro is undergoing another major shake-up: Sources confirm to me exclusively that Jennifer Morrison is leaving House.
Neither Fox nor Morrison’s reps would comment, but I’m told the actress did not quit; her exit was a creative decision on the part of producers. Morrison — the first of the show’s original cast members to depart — shot her last scene earlier this week and her final episode will air in November.
Suspicions about Morrison’s House future were raised last week when she was MIA at the show’s premiere screening in Hollywood.
Here’s what else I’m hearing about this surprising and, I’ll say it, disappointing, turn of events.
* Unlike Kal Penn’s dearly-departed Kutner, Cameron will not be killed off.
* Morrison’s on-screen husband, Jesse Spencer (Chase), is not leaving the show. (Do the math and you can probably figure out how she’ll be written out.)
* Producers are leaving the door open for Morrison to make a guest appearance later in the season.
The last point will prove little comfort to Cameron fans, especially since this was the season Morrison’s nearly three-year stint on the backburner was supposed to end. In fact, just last month series creator David Shore told me (video below), “Chase and Cameron fans will be happy with the way we’re going to reintegrate them into the team — at least on a temporary basis.” (That temporary qualifier should’ve been a clue.) Even Morrison recently admitted it was “great” being front-and-center again. “I have been working a lot,” she told us, “and there are things that happen to House very early in the season that have a domino effect on all of the other characters.”
I haven't watched House for a few years - in fact, I think Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison were still engaged in real life when I finally gave up on the show - but it seems that many a fan is outraged by this development. Apparently, now that Chase and Cameron are married viewers were expecting a bit more Chameron screen time. Oops. Sorry guys.
On a different note, the route for this season's Amazing Race (premieres this Sunday!) is up. If you DON'T want to know anything about this season's route, turn away now! Otherwise, scroll down and check it out. (Info courtesy of EW.com.)
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It’s almost ‘go’ time: The 15th installment of The Amazing Race kicks off Sunday night on CBS. To get you in the spirit of celebrating the big 1-5, we offer a peek at the contestants’ route (see: above), along with a few teases supplied by executive producer Bertram van Munster (see: below).
• The action begins at the Los Angeles River, and for the first time in show history, a team will be eliminated mere yards from the starting gate. The challenge involves a fence with thousands of license plates—some of them from Japan (which serves as the first destination). “Twenty four people run up and frantically start grabbing license plates, but they’re wrong because as usual they don’t read their clue,” chuckles van Munster. “Eventually a team gets eliminated—they see the cars drive off and it is bye-bye. We told them 100 times, ‘Read your clue. Repeat after me: Read your clue.’ They don’t read the clue. It’s unbelievable. Nothing has changed.”
• Once they get to Tokyo, Racers find themselves on a Japanese game show, and they have to eat a tear-inducing Wasabi bomb. Notes van Munster: “Even the Japanese are horrified by it, which is good. If the Japanese are horrified by another game show, then we’re on the right track.”
• When contestants arrive in Vietnam, they face down a Roadblock involving 2,000 ducks. “You have to show how good you are in guiding these ducks from one end of a soccer field, across a little bridge to the other end, turning them around and bringing them back into the pen,” explains van Munster. “It turns into total duck madness. It’s just hysterical… I’ve tried for eight years to integrate it into the show, and we never succeeded in getting [contestants] to do it. They know it’s too difficult. So I said, ‘Roadblock!’”
• In Dubai, competitors will be presented with a chilling Detour: They have to take snow from an indoor ski area and build a snowman outside in the scorching Middle East heat. “The quality of the snow changes instantly the moment you bring it out,” chuckles van Munster. “And the snowman can’t be a little one—it has to be five-, six-foot-high snowman with eyes and a real carrot in his nose.”
• In another first for the show, one of Race’s most infamous Roadblocks is revisited. “It is so crazy and difficult to do, and it was so amazing the last time we did it,” says van Munster. “And it’s just as crazy and amazing this time.”
• Although this Race takes place over a relatively brisk 21 days, van Munster insists that it won’t be any easier. “Very often in the middle of the series, [the contestants] get kind of cozy with each other and there could be a little bit of a lull,” he notes. “In this race, there is no lull. There is pedal-to-the-metal competition. They’re constantly overtaking each other. Every time we stand at the finish line we were blown away who gets eliminated and who stays in.”
• Among the contestants to watch:
-Herbert and Nathaniel from the Harlem Globetrotters. (“Great sense of humor.”)
-Justin and his best friend Zev, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. (“The things Zev says are so right on the money and they come from left field… You’re gonna love that team.”)
-Professional poker players Maria and Tiffany. (“They are incredibly shrewd. They are tough as nails… They’d do anything to win. They blew me away.”)
-Keri and her aggressive lawyer-fiance Lance. (“He’s so combustible. He whacked a piece of wood so hard, he opened his hand.”)
• Van Munster adds that he prefers to feature fresh contestants rather than familiar faces on Race. “I was never fond of ‘All-Stars’ and stuff like that,” he explains. “A cast like this is proof that to have new people is always a good idea, because every time we find new characters, new stories, new energy, new karma, you name it.”
