“Dance Moms” star Abby Lee Miller is ready for her closeup — in a role that hits very close to home.
The love-her/hate-her czarina of Pittsburgh’s Abby Lee Miller Dance Company featured on Lifetime’s “Dance Moms” will make her series acting debut in an episode of the network’s “Drop Dead Diva” scheduled to air this summer.
In the episode, which hasn’t yet been filmed, Miller will play herself when she’s called as an expert witness to testify in a court case involving Bobbi Dobkins (recurring guest star Sharon Lawrence).
Here’s how it all goes down: Jane (Brooke Elliott) — the reincarnated version of dead model Deb Dobkins — discovers that Deb’s mother, Bobbi, has gone back to work as a dance instructor. Bobbi calls on Jane, who’s an attorney, to defend her when she’s sued for negligence by the parent of one of her students, who was injured in her dance class. Enter Abby Lee, who’s called to the stand as an expert witness, where she testifies that — based on video she’s seen of Bobbi’s teaching techniques — that Bobbi may, indeed, have been negligent (leading to the young girl’s injury).
The fourth-season premiere of “Drop Dead Diva” airs June 3; guest stars this season include Serena Williams, John Ratzenberger, Valerie Harper, Brandy Norwood and Patty Duke.
Abby Lee’s episode is slated to air later this summer, most likely in August. “Dance Moms,” by the way, returns with new episodes next month.
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A few words on the death of actor George Lindsey, who passed away last Sunday in Nashville at the age of 83.
George wasn’t a personal friend of mine, but I did interview him several times over the years, both for The Post and for a non-work-related project.
Back in the day, we used to do a feature for The Post’s Sunday TV section called “The Bureau of Missing TV Persons,” in which I would get in touch with people like George — most famous for playing “Goober” on “The Andy Griffith Show” and its spinoff, “Mayberry, RFD” — who hadn’t been seen on the tube in a while. Most of the people I contacted were game for the feature, including George, who couldn’t have been nicer in bringing me up-to-date on what he’d been doing since leaving his regular TV gigs (he was mostly involved with his alma mater, the University of North Alabama, where he was a star athlete in the early ’50s).
The reason I even thought to get in touch with George in the first place was because, just prior to calling him, I had spent some time in Los Angeles with actor Ernest Borgnine. (I was hoping to collaborate on a book with Ernie, who was then 80. He’s now 95 and is still active and working.) During the course of our day-long interview, Ernie mentioned to me that it was George Lindsey who steered him (Ernie) away from suicidal thoughts in the mid-’60s (both were appearing in regular TV roles — Ernie in “McHale’s Navy” and Lindsey on “The Andy Griffith Show”). I mean, who knew?
Both men remained close pals thereafter and, in 1999, Ernie surprised George by donating his entire movie and TV script collection to the University of North Alabama, where George founded the school’s annual film festival, which is named after him.
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Last week I interviewed Fox reality guru Mike Darnell regarding the new dating show, “The Choice,” which premieres June 7 with host Cat Deeley (we ran a story in last Saturday’s Post TV section).
Each week on the show, four celebrity bachelors — seated in swiveling chairs with their backs to the women — will choose potential dates, based on the women’s voices, by pulling “love handles” built into the chairs. “The Choice” will reverse the roles one week, with four celebrity bachelorettes choosing male dates.
Here’s some more from my interview with Darnell:
“Right now in the dating sphere there hasn’t been a big hit since ‘The Bachlelor’ and no in-studio dating show in years, since ‘The Dating Game,'” he said. “And ‘The Dating Game’ was, in essence, a blind-date show, with a wall between the picker and the three people being considered.
“We wanted to take that idea and put a spin on it,” he said. “We had three choices [to do that]. A wall felt antiquated and blindfolds seemed silly — or we could go with another look of spinning chairs.
“The set is huge,” he said. “The way it rolls out is that the girls come out one by one on stage and then have 30 seconds to talk about themselves. If the bachelor likes what he hears, he pulls his ‘love handle’ and turns around, and the women chosen go into a ‘dating pool.’ “
There are several rounds, including a “Speed Choice” round. “It’s like speed dating, where each of the three women get 15 second to have a conversation with the bachelors,” Darnell said. “Their chair turns, and then the next girl gets her chance.”
I asked Darnell the obvious question: Isn’t “The Choice” similar to NBC’s “The Voice,” right down to the shows’ rhyming titles?
“I can’t answer that question,” he said good-naturedly. “I think spinning chairs are a good idea, particularly for this concept. And I did realize the names rhyme.
“I’m fine with you speculating.”
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With the news breaking last weekend that Discovery has reportedly lost a whopping $330 million propping up Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network — with little-to-nothing to show for all that cash — I thought it would be a good time to revisit the numbers for Winfrey’s flailing flagship OWN show, “Oprah’s Next Chapter.”
And they’re not too promising.
Since Winfrey’s March 11 interview with Bobbi Kristina Brown following the death of her mother, Whitney Houston — which snared an OWN-record 3.5 million viewers — viewership numbers for “Oprah’s Next Chapter” at 10 p.m. Sunday have fallen significantly. Since that March 11th episode, “Next Chapter” has averaged only 584,000 viewers, according to Nielsen.
Here are the weekly episode numbers:
* March 18: 808,000
* April 1: 490,000
* April 8: 760,000
* April 15: 380,000
* April 22: 507,000
* April 29: 555,000
Compare that to the nearly 4 million viewers that Winfrey protégé “Dr. Phil” McGraw averaged last week as TV’s top-rated daytime talk show (a title once held by Winfrey) — or the 9.2 million viewers pulled in by “Judge Judy.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: not good, any way you slice it. If Winfrey was a baseball manager, she’d be on “the hot seat” and probably would’ve been fired by now and replaced by the third-base coach.
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Viewers who tuned into last night’s “Hardcore Pawn” on truTV saw the resolution of Ashley’s blowout argument with her brother, Seth, in the show’s American Jewelry and Loan pawn shop in Detroit. Their dad, Les Gold, heads up the cast, with new episodes airing every Tuesday night (9:30).
Elsewhere on the reality scene, producers are casting for the next season of Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” hosted by Gordon Ramsay. Anyone interested in auditioning for the show should send an e-mail to hellskitchencasting2012@gmail.com and put “Hell’s Kitchen” in the subject line. You must include a photo, your full name, age, telephone number, the state in which you live and a few lines about your culinary experience and why you’d be good for the show.
Meanwhile, “Jerseylicious” star Gayle Giacomo has launched her new hair care line, GG Gatsby, following a party at Drom Fragrances attended by “Jerseylicious” cast members Olivia Blois Sharpe and Tracy DiMarco. The launch party will air on the show’s May 20th episode (The Style Network).
And “Next Food Network Star” finalist and author Nathan Lyon is in town this week shooting his new series, “Good Food America with Nathan Lyon,” which premieres on Veria Living July 7th. Nathan will be filming at Dirt Candy in the East Village (430 East 9th St.) this Saturday.
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Last, but not least:
* Ch. 4’s Shiba Russell emcees tomorrow’s Reach Out and Read of Greater New York’s annual anniversary benefit at The Museum Club @ Bridgewaters (11 Fulton St.) . . . Lifetime has renewed “The Client List” (starring Jennifer Love Hewitt) for a second season of 15 episodes set to premiere next year. It’s averaging 2.7 million viewers in its freshman season . . . The seventh (and final) season of CBS’s “Designing Women” is out on DVD July 17th . . . Congrats to Jennifer Rogers and husband Chris on the arrival of Charlotte Eila (pronounced “eye-la”).