Cancelled Casting Notes for November 26, 2011

As you probably know all to well, dozens and dozens of TV shows are cancelled every year. We have to say goodbye to some beloved characters but thankfully the actors that play them often still pop up in other shows. This is what we like to call “cancelled casting.” Here’s what some of those talented folks are up to:

Joanna Garcia (Privileged) is reportedly being courted for a role on ABC’s Once Upon a Time. Word is that producers want her to play a version of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

Jane Curtin (Kate & Allie) is joining the cast of CBS’ Unforgettable and her episodes will start airing in early 2012. The Emmy Award-winning actress will be playing “an acerbic and demanding inspector who was running the medical examiner’s office in Manhattan until being demoted to the Queens Police Department for being insubordinate.”

Former ER castmates George Clooney and Noah Wyle may be up for the same role. According to Now, they each want to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in a movie biography. Wyle has played Jobs twice already; in the Pirates of Silicon Valley TV movie and at Jobs’ request at Macworld in 1999.

No stranger to Friday nights, Dollhouse veteran Amy Acker has been cast on NBC’s Grimm. She’ll be playing Lena, a Black Widow. It seems that the character ages rapidly so every five years she must leech the life out of three guys to maintain her youthful appearance. The episode will air in early 2012.

Elisabeth Shue (Call to Glory) is joining the cast of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as a series regular. She’ll be introduced as a new investigator on the team in the February 15th episode. Her character will have just completed an anger management class and was supposedly fired by D.B. Russell (Ted Danson) when she worked for him in Seattle. Shue will be replacing Marg Helgenberger who’s leaving the venerable series in January.

Timothy Busfield (thirtysomething) is coming to Blue Bloods on CBS. He’ll be playing a likeable and wealthy man who’s accused by his neurotic stepdaughter of murdering his second wife. The episode’s expected to air in early 2012.

Family Ties mom Meredith Baxter will guest-star on ABC Family’s Switched at Birth. She’ll be playing the mother to Kathryn (Lea Thompson). It’s a reunion of sorts for the two actresses since they’ve both played Michael J. Fox’s mom. Thompson played Fox’s mother in Back to the Future at the same time that Baxter was his mom on Family Ties.

Veronica Mars veteran Jason Dohring has a recurring role on The CW’s Ringer, playing Juliet’s teacher. He’ll soon be seen on another CW series, Supernatural. Dohring has been cast as Chronos, the God of Time. He’ll show up in this season’s 12th episode which will air in mid-January.

Becky Newton may not have had much luck with Love Bites but she’s certainly not given up on amour. The Ugly Betty actress is joining How I Met Your Mother as a potential love interest for Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney. Her first episode will air in January and she’s expected to recur through the rest of the season.

Caroline Rhea (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) has been signed to co-star opposite Nathan Lane (Charlie Lawrence) and Ken Jenkins (Scrubs) in an untitled Douglas McGrath comedy pilot for USA. The single-camera comedy centers on an unlucky actor (Lane) whose Broadway aspirations must be put on hold when his Texan father’s (Jenkins) health takes a turn for the worse.

Vanessa Ferlito (24) has joined a USA dramatic pilot from White Collar creator Jeff Eastin. The plot follows agents from various federal and local agencies as they all live at an undercover house in Southern California.

This doesn’t sound like a job for the man of steel. Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) will be playing a down-on-his-luck gambler who goes on a “winning streak” — killing people — on Criminal Minds. The 13th episode of the season will air in early 2012.

What do you think? Will you be tuning in for some of these appearances? Which ones are you looking forward to seeing?