TV briefs: CW's 'Valor' dying, 'Archer' back in time, Shaq gets a treehouse

Shaq with Pete Nelson at Shaq's McDonough home. CREDIT: Animal Planet

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

Shaq with Pete Nelson at Shaq's McDonough home. CREDIT: Animal Planet

Posted Friday, March 2, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

Pete Nelson got to build a special treehouse for TNT basketball broadcaster and NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal at his McDonough home for an episode of "Treehouse Masters" airing Friday, March 2 at 9 p.m. for the season finale.

O'Neal gave Nelson full control over creating the treehouse. Nelson opted to build a swanky bar and lounge evoking the Prohibition Era of the 1920's. The decagonal structure has a soaring twenty-five-foot high ceiling and extra wide stair system to accommodate Shaq. Pete also oversaw the creation of a nine-foot-tall and four-foot-wide door for the superstar basketball legend.

 After the Build.

Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

Matt Barr, a lead in the Atlanta-produced CW military drama "Valor," has already been cast on another CW pilot "Skinny Dip."

This does not bode well for the future of "Valor," which has averaged about 1.4 million viewers this season.

CW boss Mark Pedowtiz told Deadline why the show has not resonated with its audience and did not get additional episodes beyond the original 13.

"It did not resonate the way we'd hoped it would resonate," he said. "I wanted to do one for 6-7 years; it maybe is a question whether the CW audience would come to a military drama for us. It did not help that there were 85 of them this year, I don't think any of them did really well. I'm proud of what (creator Kyle Jarrow and producer Bill Haber) did, I will be in business with them again. We will take a hard look at everything in May for scheduling purposes."

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Credit: Rodney Ho

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Credit: Rodney Ho

FXX's Atlanta-produced "Archer" returns April 25 with a new concept: a change in time. And while the characters have the same names and largely the same personalities, their 1939 jobs are completely different.

This season, the animated spy comedy finds Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) as a semi-functioning alcoholic seaplane pilot on the lush South Pacific island of Mitimotu. It's 1939, and while the rest of the world is concerned about the looming Second World War, Archer is concerned only with who's buying his next drink

Along with his trusty co-pilot/sidekick Pam (Atlanta's Amber Nash), Archer must navigate quicksand, cannibals, super-intelligent monkeys, poison darts and pirates in this dangerous and mysterious land.

Jessica Walter plays Archer's acid-tongued mother and hotel owner; Aisha Tyler is Princess Lanaluakalani, island royalty and local revolutionary; Judy Greer is the abandoned heiress Charlotte Vandertunt; Chris Parnell is Siegbert Fuchsthe, an obvious German spy posing as a businessman; Adam Reed as the impeccably uniformed French Capitaine Reynaud; and Atlanta's Lucky Yates plays the audacious Scarlet Macaw Crackers.