As often as NBC fails, there are certain things that they do well more often than other networks. I’m in love with their current Thursday night comedy block, and they have a tendency to put out really great police procedurals. Unfortunately, this is where the fail comes in. Life is an amazing show, but we’ll never see a season 3. Southland was also much better than I expected it to be: the 7 episodes that NBC aired pulled from the best aspects of Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order. Yet NBC still canceled it, after initially picking it up for a second season.

So as soon as NBC pulled that boneheaded move, the speculation began as to who was going to swoop in and save this show. Early on, TNT was named as a top contender, and now it’s official: TNT has announced that it will be airing Southland. Honestly, when I first heard the news, I didn’t really care. After all, the current deal that’s in place is to air the seven episode first season that already aired on TNT, and follow it up with the six episodes that have already been shot for season 2. But what about new episodes? Is 13 all we’re going to get?

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No need to beat around the bush. Stuff happened this week. Let’s get right to it.

• Jon & Kate Plus 9.8 million viewers for their season premiere; that’s better than all of the broadcast nets on the night.
• Susan Boyle, the Britain’s Got Talent sensation, earned a spot in the finale this Saturday, but may be having a nervous breakdown in the process.
• The first step in the new television landscape begins this week as Jay Leno says goodbye to The Tonight Show, with Conan O’Brien taking over Monday.
• There was lots of bitching this week about the voting results of American Idol, with AT&T admitting to helping Kris Allen fans “power vote” for free. In the end, it doesn’t really matter.
• Nigel Lythgoe got GLAAD mad by criticizing two male dancers who performed a samba on So You Think You Can Dance, saying words that some say were homophobic and others say were simply in bad taste.
• Rumors have started to swirl that a reimagining of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might make its way to the silver screen, without the involvement of creator Joss Whedon.
• Twitter is developing a television show that looks like it’s training the next great celebrity stalkers.
• This just in, Karen Gillan will be The Doctor’s companion when Matt Smith takes over the role of Doctor Who in 2010 from current Time Lord David Tennant. She’s really young, too (21)!

Sears / YouTube

Commercials are the great equalizer, aren’t they? You may like a particular actor, for instance, and think that they’re having a great career. Then they pop up in an ad, and you realize that most of them are struggling along just like the rest of us.

Take the case of our favorite Twitterer, Felicia Day. By most standards, she’s doing quite well as an actress; geeks everywhere swooned at her turn as Penny on Joss Whedon’s internet sensation Dr. Horrible. She also had a meaty patient-of-the-week role on House. But if you’ve been watching commercials lately (and that’s fewer and fewer of you, thanks to DVRs), you might have noticed Day hawking washing machines for Sears, as part of their “Blue Appliance Crew.” Video is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Sci Fi

One of the really intriguing things about twitter is that there are a number of television people, both in front of and behind the camera, using the service. That’s how I know, for example, that CliqueClack pal Wil Wheaton is in an upcoming episode of Criminal Minds. Not only that, but he also really enjoyed his time there.

One of the more available shows is Eureka. Over the course of their just finished mini season I noticed a few tweets from show-runner Charlie Craig that hinted at just what their production was like. You’d find Charlie tweeting about cutting the new episode just a couple days before it went to air. It all came to a head with their mid-season finale, which you can read about on the Eureka Writers tumblr page.

It’s a crazy story with scripts and story ideas being rejected by the network. The telling bit is this quote from the new entry. “Two days before production began… the Powers That Be pulled the plug AGAIN on the script.” Yikes. The post walks through how they managed to pull off the biggest episode of their short season by writing the episode on the fly. It’s a fascinating look behind the scenes.