In this Aug. 28, 2015 file photo, Deborah Cox attends the 2015 BMI R&B/Hip-Hop Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. Lifetime TV's "The Balancing Act" will feature several Broadway productions this summer, including a visit to Cox who is on tour with “The Bodyguard.” "The Balancing Act" launchs its third season Aug. 8. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP, File)
By Mark Kennedy, Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --
Lifetime TV's "The Balancing Act" will feature several Broadway productions this summer, including behind-the-curtain peeks on "An American in Paris," ''Finding Neverland" and "The King and I."
The shows will be included in a six-part "Broadway Balances America" series that offers viewers a look at the cast and crew who make the shows possible. "The Balancing Act" will launch its third season Aug. 8.
The episodes, sponsored by Broadway Across America, will also include visits to "The Illusionists – Live from Broadway," ''The Little Mermaid" and Deborah Cox on tour with "The Bodyguard."
The show is also available on Apple TV, Amazon and Roku.
Ashley Walters, left, and Rosalind Eleazar pose for photographers at a photo call for the television series "Missing You," Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
It's Netflix's resolution every new year to give viewers a headscratcher in January.
Since 2020, the streamer has released a U.K. miniseries based on thriller book by Harlan Coben over the holidays. It seems to have paid off: "Fool Me Once," starring Michelle Keegan, Adeel Akhtar and Joanna Lumley, launched this past January and became what Netflix says was one of their most watched shows of the year, amassing 108 million views.
2025's seasonal suspense series is "Missing You," based on Coben's 2014 New York Times bestseller. It stars Rosalind Eleazar ("Slow Horses") as Detective Inspector Kat Donovan, a police officer who specializes in finding missing people — apart from the fiance that vanished 11 years earlier.
"They know Jan. 1 is the sweet spot for them," says actor Richard Armitage, who has appeared in each winter Coben adaptation, which relocates the stories from the books' America to the north of England. "People have ownership over the show now, so like, 'I want my Harlan Coben show on New Year's Day. Give me my Harlan Coben fix.'"
"It's perfect timing for the release, to be honest," says co-star Ashley Walters. "Most people are going to be hung over or, you know, just not have anything to do with the day."
The show opens with the shock of Donovan's ex-fiance (Walters) popping up on a dating app, over a decade after she came home one day to find him gone.
"I've ghosted people before," laughs Armitage. "Just people you don't want to talk to anymore. Not digitally though."
Another star, Jessica Plummer, isn't a fan of those who disappear without saying goodbye, though.
"I'd just feel too guilty," she admits, calling it "cowardly and lazy — sorry Richard!"
