This week kicks off the real fall season with more premieres than we could possibly list here. Even more intriguing is The Jay Leno Show, kicking off Monday and every weeknight at 10pm. Will it work? I’m sure it’ll launch huge, just like Conan did over on The Tonight Show. But will it last?

If it does, will this spell the slow decline of expensive quality scripted fare on television? And what about expensive less-than-quality programming like ‘Til Death and Brothers? These shows need homes on the schedule as well … for some reason. Read the rest of this entry »

The new season is just around the corner, but the wheels of development keep turning in the background. There was a lot of news this week about new pilots, mid-season shows, and casting for some of our favorites. Some of that is hit and miss, depending on your preferences. For example, I’m not exactly thrilled with the Party Down casting news. On the other hand, anything that puts more Rachelle Lefevre on our TVs is always okay by me.

• Mad Men continues to toil in relative obscurity, but those few fans it has are very loyal, and they should be happy to learn that AMC has ordered up another season of the show.
• HBO has ordered a pilot from Mike White and Laura Dern called Enlightened. A self destructive woman has a spiritual awakening and becomes determined to live an enlightened life, which creates havoc at home and work. It sounds nothing like The C Word, which sounded nothing like United States Of Tara.
• FOX, on the other hand, is going a little more traditional. They have  ordered 13 episodes of Jack and Dan. It sounds more interesting if I also tell you that the show was created by Matt Nix, creator and executive producer of Burn Notice. It’s a buddy cop show that Nix calls an action comedy.

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Michael Jackson’s still making news, this time ensuring that his death was a tragedy. The official report out of the LA coroner’s office was that Jackson’s death was a homicide, brought on by the mixture of drugs he was being prescribed for his sleep disorder. So he very well may not have been too frail for those London concerts … but we’ll never know.

• In related news, A&E is going forward with the Jackson family reality show. Exploitation or honor? You decide!
• The passing of Ted Kennedy brought all kinds of specials honoring this last of the dynasty. Read the rest of this entry »

The new television season is so close. Finally. As we get ready for the premieres to start, the media machines are powering up, bringing us things like the picture above (click it for full size). Heroes, in a desperate last grasp to get some of their viewers back, are apparently basing the new season on Claire’s boobs.  The hope is that you’ll be mesmerized by them, unable to turn away. It seems to be working on Hiro. He’s positively transfixed.  In other news this week….

• ABC announced the celebrity contestants for the new season of Dancing With The Stars, but they held off announcing the partnerships until next week. Screw that, the internet is your friend.You can now look forward to 1000s of comments on the internet, 78% of which will be either “Why even put Tom DeLay on the show?” or “It’s not fair! Mya is a professional!”

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Round and round and round she goes, but where Paula will land, nobody knows. Maybe she can be a zombie on AMC’s forthcoming series.

• The best news ever of the week was that AMC is working on a television adaptation of The Walking Dead. The ongoing comic series is far and away the most compelling “zombie apocalypse saga” I’ve ever seen.
• TNT announced that Saving Grace would wrap with a nine episode run in 2010, because they’re too cheap to produce a full fourth season for the monster hit.
• Comedy Central, on the other hand, yanked Reno 911 after the fact, meaning it’s done and gone.
• The Apprentice’s Omarosa is going to be a minister, and somewhere suddenly cold, Satan is chalking up another win for the home team.
• In a sign that we’ve let this reality TV crap go way too far, Kim’s sister Kourtney Kardashian’s surprise pregnancy is scandalous news.
• Paula Abdul might work on Dancing With the Stars, Ugly Betty, So You Think You Can Dance, something in Australia, a local Wendy’s, or any number of jobs. She’s keeping her options open.
• Meanwhile, Victoria Beckham helped out on American Idol during early audition rounds, and may be lobbying to join the show permanently. And with all that money they saved by not rehiring Abdul, FOX re-upped Simon Cowell for three more years.
• Apparently, the networks are burning through their ’80s and ’90s DVD collections, as now they’ve greenlit a series based on St. Elmo’s Fire. Goonies, anyone?
• Speaking of ’80s and ’90s — toy-themed cartoons proved a hit at the box office again, as G.I. Joe took the top spot at the box office, meaning that I might get my Sectaurs revival sooner than I thought … maybe?
• I refuse to mention a single thing that happened to anyone involved with the Gosselins. But if that saga isn’t train-wreck enough for you, FOX is giving airtime to Octomom.
• HOLY CRAP! STEWIE IS GAY?!?
• Oh, and now the Emmys will be live. All of it. So you’ll have to add six hours to the end of your DVR scheduled recording of it … you know, just in case.
• We get a sneak preview of the future career of Hannah Montana as little Miley Cyrus danced on a stripper pole at the Teen Choice Awards.

With the big TCA presentations going on, it’s been a pretty big week for TV news. However, all of the talk about what we can look forward to in the fall was trumped by one short little burst on Twitter, from Paula Abdul. She chose that unconventional venue to announce that she’s leaving American Idol. What does that mean for the show? With any luck, the beginning of a steady decline that ends in cancellation. Until we are visited by those glorious days, it looks like it will be business as usual.

Kara DioGuardi will be back. According to Mike Darnell, president of alternative at FOX, “Kara’s spitfire personality and sharp musical sensibility infused American Idol with a new energy last year.” Well, one man’s “spitfire personality” is another’s “bitchy haranguing.” Paula will be replaced during the auditions by a collection of pop stars. So far, that includes Katy Perry and Victoria Beckham.  I like that idea, but I hope they’re ready. Those are some awfully crazy shoes to fill. It’s unclear what will happen once the competition begins.

Lots of non-Idol news, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Just because most of your broadcast TV shows are gone for the summer, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to watch. And you know we wouldn’t leave you hanging. So here’s a rundown of some of this week’s hotspots.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

• HBO has The Yes Men Fix the World, a rather odd documentary film featuring a couple of guys pretending to be big corporate bigwigs. They then propose ideas, like how to calculate the value of a human life against profits. So think Michael Moore with humor, maybe? (Mon. 9pm, MTV)
• Ty Pennington takes his special brand of makeover magic to England, to try and revitalize a town and their park project, in Ty’s Great British Adventure. Think of it as Extreme  Makeover: UK Edition. (Sun. 8pm, ABC)
• Sunday offers a couple of “best of” specials. First up is the Top 20 performances of all time, on a special America’s Best Dance Crew (9pm, MTV). And then later, stick around for Comedy Central’s Burned: The Roasts’ Most Outrageous Moments, looking at the best of their celebrity roast series (10pm). Read the rest of this entry »