The Daily Beast: "Summer 2011 TV Preview: 15 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer"

We’re starting our summer at a bit of a disadvantage: there is no new season of Mad Men to look forward to this year, as we’ll have to wait until March 2012 to find out what happens to Don Draper and the other staffers at Draper Cooper Sterling Pryce. It’s enough to put a damper on anyone’s television-viewing this summer, but there are still some bright points amid a series of repeats and burn-offs like NBC’s Love Bites. (Seriously, avoid that one like you would the plague.)

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Summer 2011 TV Preview: 15 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer," in which I round up what’s new and noteworthy on the telly in the coming months, from True Blood and Torchwood: Miracle Day to British period drama The Hour and the return of Damages and Breaking Bad. All in all, 15 reasons to come in from the warmth of the summer evening and sit down on the couch for a few hours.

What are you most excited about heading to the small screen this summer? Which intrigues you the most? And which will make you change the channel instantly? Head to the comments section to share, discuss, and debate.

Syfy's Caprica is Toast; Better News for Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down

Bad news for Caprica fans.

Syfy has axed the Battlestar Galactica prequel spinoff and will be pulling the remaining episodes from the schedule, effective immediately.

Which doesn't mean that you won't get to see how the season ended. Syfy also announced that it would air the remaining five episodes sometime next year, according to the press release:

"The remaining first run episodes of Caprica -- airing Tuesdays at 10/9c -- will be removed from the schedule as of next Tuesday, November 2. These final five episodes of the season will be re-scheduled to air at a to-be-announced time in the first quarter of 2011, and will conclude the run of the series."

News comes on the heels that the cabler has ordered a pilot for another Battlestar Galactica prequel series, entitled Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, which will return the series' setting to war-torn battles and Viper maneuvers. (I had wondered just what Syfy would do with Caprica last week when that announcement was made.)

"We appreciate all the support that fans have shown for Caprica and are very proud of the producers, cast, writers and the rest of the amazing team that has been committed to this fine series," said Syfy programming chief Mark Stern in a statement. "Unfortunately, despite its obvious quality, Caprica has not been able to build the audience necessary to justify a second season."

No word on just when those remaining episodes will unspool but the fact that Syfy has yanked the series from its lineup--a real rarity among cable networks--points towards just how dismal the ratings were for this Syfy original series, ratings that likely weren't helped by the move to Tuesday evenings at 10 pm where there was a hell of a lot more competition from the broadcast networks than on Fridays.

The news was better for fans of HBO's edgy comedies Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down, both of which were renewed yesterday for third seasons.

I've seen the remaining episodes of this current season of Bored to Death and thought they were among the series' sharpest and most nuanced to date. Fun, hilarious, and meaningful. I'm going to miss this show between seasons. Bored to Death has consistently emerged as one of the most underrated comedic gems on television. I'm glad to see HBO giving it a vote of confidence with another season.

What do you make of the news? Is Syfy right to cancel Caprica? Are you sad to see it go? And are you happy by HBO's renewals for Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down? Discuss.

Syfy Plots Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome Pilot: Where Does that Leave Caprica?

AOL's Maureen Ryan broke the news this morning that cabler Syfy will air its upcoming web series Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome as a two-hour backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off series that will focus on a young William Adama during the First Cylon War.

The project, written by Michael Taylor, shouldn't be confused with Syfy's current BSG spinoff Caprica, which ALSO features a young William Adama, here a pre-teen whose character is vastly different from the Admiral Adama played by Edward James Olmos that we came to know on Battlestar Galactica. Production on the pilot is expected to begin in early 2011 in Vancouver, according to Ryan, though it won't make it on air until at least fourth quarter 2011, if not later.

"When we read Michael's script, it was so clearly a full-blown pilot for a series," Syfy's executive vice president of original programming Mark Stern told Ryan. "The scope is fantastic and bigger, I think, than anticipated, so we said, 'Let's do it as a 2-hour backdoor pilot.' ... We're trying to get up and running as soon as possible."

"It's an opportunity to 'see them before they were famous,'" said Stern. "Here's the Battlestar Galactica as a brand-new, shiny ship -- well, not shiny, but as a new ship that had just been commissioned. What was that like?"

All of which begs the question: what happens to Caprica, the current BSG brand extension that has struggled with viewers and critics alike?

Stern indicated that a decision on the fate of Caprica will be made before November 11th and that the two series were developed independently and can stand separate from each other, given that Blood & Chrome is set ten years after the events of Caprica and four decades before the events of the BSG mini-series.

It will also be, based on the information provided by Stern, Taylor, and Ryan, much more war-driven and action-centric, something that was distinctly missing from Caprica, which focused on the interpersonal conflicts and dynamics between families grieving after a terrible tragedy, monotheistic cults, teenage terrorists, amoral lawyers, backroom politics, and the birth of the Cylon race, the latter of which has been teased for the back half of the freshman season.

But the main problem with Caprica--which I discussed in my advance review of the first two episodes of the second half of the season and in my review of the season finale--is that the stakes weren't high.

While we may have been seeing the emergence of the Cylon threat, unlike BSG, there wasn't the immediate danger of human genocide. Caprica has been about the excess and moral ambiguity of Rome Before the Fall, but throw in less than sympathetic characters and no clear "team" to root for and you have a series that's largely spinning its own wheels.

By contrast, the war-torn Blood & Chrome has immediate narrative stakes. While we know that Bill Adama, here an ensign, will survive to tell the tale, the fates of new characters introduced are up for grabs and many could be destined to be canon fodder. By pushing the narrative into the trenches, there's an immediacy to the threat here, a tension that's lacking from Caprica and a potential for some stories of survival and courage that are more in line with BSG than the current spinoff.

(It does concern me a little that Ronald D. Moore--described as the "godfather" of this project--isn't involved at all with Blood & Chrome. While I'm a fan of Michael Taylor, the lack of Moore's involvement here is a little worrisome.)

It wouldn't surprise me if Syfy looks to wrap up Caprica with the current season. Of course, they could renew it for one more season, allowing the creative team the opportunity to create a "bridge" to the new series, setting up the future conflict and providing the seeds that will pay off in Blood & Chrome.

But, ultimately, given the direction that Syfy seems to want to go in with its BSG franchise, it's only a matter of time before Caprica is, well, toast.

Caprica airs Tuesday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT on Syfy.

Channel Surfing: Quick Headlines Edition

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Today's briefing will be shorter than usual as I'm typing this on my iPhone, as my internet connection is down.

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that ex-Lost executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are teaming up with co-creator Damon Lindelof to develop a drama pilot that's said to be "fairy-tale-themed" and will feature "a female lead." No other details are available, but it's thought that ABC Studios will be the studio behind the project as Kitsis and Horowitz have an overall deal there. Should the project get ordered to pilot, Lindelof would join the staff in a consulting capacity. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Vulture's Josef Adalian is reporting that NBC is developing an adventure/dating reality mashup that's being described as a blend of The Bachelor and Survivor. Project, currently being called Love in the Wild, hails from Endemol and revolves around "teams of two potential lovebirds, dropped into exotic outdoor environments, where they would get busy doing all sorts of challenges together." (Vulture)

Sigh. No Mark Salling hasn't quit or been fired from Glee. Entertainment Weekly's attempts to calm Gleek who are perturbed by Puck's absence from this week's episode: "Though I dunno whether his absence is a side effect of his decision work on music that isn’t in the genre of R&Glee, I do know that it’s only temporary. He’ll miss one more episode—the Oct. 26 Rocky Horror Picture Show tribute—but will be back on air in a big way in early November." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC has given a script order to a period drama based on William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with Catherine Hardwicke said to be in talks to direct the potential pilot episode, from writer Andrea Berloff. Project, from executive producers Todd Garner and Wyck Godfrey, "follows the famous love story while also pealing away the curtain on the impetuous, incestuous, bloody and violent relationships during the Renaissance in Verona." (Deadline)

Syfy is retelling the Sinbad myth with telepic Sinbad and the Minotaur, set to air in 2011 on the cabler. (Variety)

Spike has given a series order to docuseries Coal, following the stories of coal miners in West Virginia. Project, from Original Prods., is set to launch in April, with ten one-hour episodes. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Sons of Anarchy and Haven Renewed, Walking Dead Novels, NCIS: LA, Modern Family, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

FX has renewed motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy for a fourth season. Series, which wraps up its third season on November 30th, is the most-watched series in the cable network's history. "Sons of Anarchy is the most popular show FX has ever had, and the No. 1 series in basic cable for our key demographic," said FX president/general manager John Landgraf. "It is also one of the best, most original series on television." (Variety)

Elsewhere, Syfy renewed freshman drama Haven for a second season, with thirteen episodes on tap for next summer. Production is slated to resume in the spring in Nova Scotia on the sophomore season. (Variety)

Robert Kirkman's zombie comic, "The Walking Dead," which is heading to the small screen later this month with AMC's television series of the same name, will also be transformed into a trilogy of original novels, the first of which will be released in 2011. Kirkman will provide the concept and outline for the novels, which will be written by Jay Bonansinga. (Deadline)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Raymond J. Barry (Lost) has been cast in what appears to be a recurring role on CBS' NCIS: LA, where he will play Branston Cole, an ex-secret agent who has crossed paths with Linda Hunt's Hetty. Barry's character is described as appearing "rail and blind from a stroke he suffered a while back, but he remains vigorous and sarcastic as he lives out the remainder of his days in a retirement home. A man with a long history and a deep well of secrets, he seems to still enjoy the game of espionage and manipulation, leading his handlers down questionable paths.” He'll make his first appearance in November. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that Danny Trejo (Machete) will guest star on ABC's Modern Family, where he will play the school janitor in an upcoming episode. "The Modern Family episode finds Claire in charge of an upcoming school dance at the boys' school," writes Keck. "While all the other moms are afraid of Danny's menacing janitor, fearless Claire forms an unlikely bond with the guy." (TV Guide Magazine)

Ryan Seacrest is said to be in talks with CAA and AEG about launching a cable network. "The business venture is in very preliminary stages, but the network's concept is described as music, pop culture and lifestyle oriented," write The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd and Kim Masters. "Seacrest is likely to have some kind of on-air presence in the venture. Unlike Oprah Winfrey's upcoming OWN cable channel, however, Seacrest is expected to operate mainly as an influential partner rather than serve as the face and personality of the network. The channel won't be 'Seacrest TV, but will have its own brand. (Hollywood Reporter)

Rebecca Mader (Lost) is set to guest star on NBC's Law & Order: Los Angeles this season, where she will play a woman named Rebecca. "The fictional Rebecca’s lot in life is to get run over by a car, yet miraculously survive," writes Fancast's Matt Mitovich. (Fancast)

Tina Fey is set to return to Saturday Night Live with a primetime special that will celebrate the women of SNL. She'll be joined by Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Nora Dunn, Ana Gasteyer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Molly Shannon, and Kristen Wiig. Special is slated to air November 1st at 9 pm ET/PT. (Hollywood Reporter)

Chris D'Elia (Monk) has been cast in TBS' upcoming period comedy series Glory Daze, where he will play Stankowski, described as "as an older, oracle-style figure to the members of a college fraternity." (Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC has given a script order (plus penalty) to an untitled comedy which will star Wilmer Valderrrama (That '70s Show). Project, which hails from Murray and Judah Miller, will have "a musical component" and will be directed by Akiva Schaffer. (Deadline)

Ed Begley Jr. will turn up on Shonda Rhimes' midseason medical drama Off the Map, according to TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck, who reports that the St. Elsewhere veteran will play Hank, a dentist, in the season's fifth episode. (TV Guide Magazine)

Oxygen has renewed Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood for a sixth season and ordered a new Tori-centric reality project entitled Tori and Dean: Storibook Weddings, which will "focus on Spelling's party planning skills while McDermott focuses on the groom's issues leading up to the pair's nuptials." (Variety)

USA has renamed its upcoming legal drama Facing Kate, which will now be entitled Fairly Legal. News was announced via Twitter by USA executive Ted Linhart. (Twitter)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Sony Pictures Television has signed a two-script deal with writer/actress Stephnie Weir, who wrote ABC comedy pilot Wright vs. Wrong. The first project under the new deal is an ABC comedy pilot that is set at a diner. (Deadline)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Full Season for Raising Hope, Outlaw Arrested, Mary-Lynn Rajskub to Modern Family, The Office Has Glee, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

While the focus so far this season has been on early cancellations, FOX yesterday announced the first full season pickup for this woeful fall season, granting comedy Raising Hope a 22-episode order. News comes a week after the network axed drama Lone Star after just two episodes. "With Raising Hope, Greg Garcia captures a smart take on the working-class family with a great mix of wild comedy and a big dose of heart," said Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly. "The show is running like a Swiss clock, and we're very happy with how well audiences have responded so far -- so we're confident it will build an even bigger audience throughout the season." Meanwhile, the fate of timeslot lead-out Running Wilde is still very much up in the air. (Variety)

The news wasn't so good for the crew of NBC's struggling freshman drama Outlaw, as the production grinded to a halt after three low-rated installments, during which ratings tumbled from an initial 10.7 million to just 5 million. NBC still has five completed episodes of Outlaw on the shelf that are still scheduled to air and will make a final decision on the ultimate fate of the legal drama in the next few weeks. Which means that Outlaw hasn't been cancelled. Or at least not yet, anyway. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider, TVGuide.com)

Damn it, Chloe! TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that former 24 star Mary-Lynn Rajskub is heading to ABC's Modern Family, where she will guest star as "the old high school girlfriend of then closeted Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)" on an upcoming episode of the hit ABC family comedy. (TV Guide Magazine)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that an upcoming episode of NBC's The Office will feature a plot revolving around the employees of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin getting together to watch an episode of Glee. "According to an Office source, no Glee actors will actually appear in the episode," writes Ausiello. "Which means that no, Dwight will not get pantsed by Puck. (Curses!)" (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica) is set to guest star on an upcoming episode of Syfy's Eureka, which returns to the lineup early in 2011. "Got a very cool email today from an old BSG friend, now EP on Eureka," wrote Douglas on Twitter. "He asked me to come play. So, Chief does Eureka, tomorrow. Hells Yeah!" (via Digital Spy)

NBC has given a script order to comedy Party People from executive producer Ben Silverman. Yes, that Ben Silverman. The project, written by David Bickel (who will also executive produce), revolves around "entertainers who work at children's parties," and has been described as "a modern-day Taxi, only with with the under-employed grown-ups dealing with kids birthdays instead of shuttling passengers." (Hollywood Reporter)

UK viewers will get a chance to see Starz's upcoming period drama Camelot, following a deal between GK-tv and UK broadcaster Channel 4. The series, which stars Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green, and Jamie Campbell Bowers, is set to launch on C4 in fall 2011. (Hollywood Reporter)

With ABC having yanked drama My Generation from its Thursday night lineup, the Alphabet has to figure out just what to do with the 8 pm real estate, which it will fill at least for the next few weeks with repeats of Grey's Anatomy. Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice suggests that the network should fill the timeslot with a reality franchise, a thought that I adhere to and had actually been wondering if they would follow through with, as it would be apt counter-programming against the dramas and comedies in the timeslot. "ABC also developed two additional comedies that are waiting in the wings – Mr. Sunshine starring Matthew Perry and Happy Endings from former ABC exec Jamie Tarses — but it seems far more likely the network will take advantage of the fact that no one’s airing a reality show in the timeslot and program its new unscripted show Secret Millionaire, instead," wrote Rice. "The program, which is based on a U.K. format and first premiered on Fox in 2008 and attracted more than 10 million viewers, follows Richie Riches who agree to leave their lavish lifestyles to go undercover in impoverished neighborhoods." Meanwhile, ABC may have to decide what to do with Wednesdays at 10 pm, should it axe the struggling legal drama The Whole Truth, though it's thought that the timeslot would go to Dana Delany's Body of Proof. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

Lifetime has ordered twelve episodes of docuseries Brighton Beach, which follows a group of Russian-Americans living near beachside Coney Island in Brooklyn. Project, from executive producers Banks Tarver and Ken Druckerman, is expected to launch in 2011. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Heading Off-World: An Advance Review of Season 1.5 of Caprica

I was planning to write a lengthy review of the first two episodes of the back half of Caprica's first season, which returns to Syfy tonight after a considerable hiatus (one that was unexpectedly truncated), but AOL Television's Maureen Ryan did all of the heavy lifting yesterday and pretty much summed up everything I was going to say.

I've found Caprica so far to be maddeningly frustrating, a series of false starts, lackluster characters, and thwarted intrigue. (I wrote about my feelings about the first half of the season here.)

The two episodes provided to press for review ("Unvanquished" and "Retribution") haven't alleviated any fears I may have had about the series after its fantastic and thought-provoking pilot.

Two episodes back and I'm already restless, already losing interest in the plights of these characters, who remain unsympathetic and icy. (I will say, however, that the second episode was significantly better than "Unvanquished," and would point you to Ryan's pitch-perfect description of the goings-on on Gemenon. Shudder.)

Battlestar Galatica dealt with similar issues of religion, race, assimilation, and identity, but it was set against a backdrop of survival, where the stakes were enormous as the war between the humans and Cylons could lead to extinction. It's hard to recreate that dynamic here when the strife is limited to humanity at large and a small sect of monotheists who like to train teenagers to take on suicide missions in the name of their god.

But it would be one thing if there were something--or someone, rather--to grasp on to, but Caprica's characters are the embodiment of quicksilver: they're slippery and toxic. None of the central characters--whether that be Eric Stoltz's brooding genius Daniel Graystone, Paula Malcomson's brittle Amanda, Polly Walker's duplicitous Sister Clarice, Sasha Roiz's silent gangster Sam, Magda Apanowicz's sullen teen Lacy, and Esai Morales' dead-eyed lawyer--remain all that compelling and the production seems to treat them largely as sleepwalkers, making their way through a shifting landscape of images, flashbacks, dreams, and ominous portents. A psychic mishmash that dulls the senses rather than intrigue them.

Which is a problem with Caprica itself. There's less of a concrete narrative building towards a centralized arc than there is a series of disconnected incidents that hover over each other awkwardly. The one common thread linking these disparate elements together--that would be Alessandra Torresani's Zoe--is barely glimpsed at all in the first two installments, though her avatar does make one very memorable appearance. (Personally, I've not been a fan of Torresani since the beginning and while her absence is felt somewhat in terms of the overarching plot, there's considerably less hystrionics going on without her.)

As mentioned by Ryan, the first episode's travel to Gemenon, such a crucial destination for the first half of the season, descends into silliness as the STO-backed church becomes a larger influence on the series and we meet a slew of new characters. One in particular made me howl with laughter as the actress playing this key role was just so shockingly awful.

I'm not quite sure how to fix Caprica, other than suggest that the writers pick up the pace and bring the Cylon Centurions into the mix sooner rather than later, tighten the overarching plot, ramp up the tension, and add some subtle layering to the characters to bring the viewers at least a few sympathetic characters to latch on to. As it stands, Caprica isn't a place that I want to visit any longer.

Caprica returns tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on Syfy.

Channel Surfing: Starz to Recast Spartacus, Warehouse 13 Renewed, Mad Men's John Slattery to 30 Rock, Glee, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

It was only a matter of time, really. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello (who is soon to depart the magazine/website) is reporting that Starz has begun the search for a replacement for Spartacus' Andy Whitfield, who was forced to drop out of the production due to a recurrence of cancer. "According to the just-released casting notice, producers are searching for a Caucasian male in his mid to late 30s to play the 'smart, intense, passionate' title role," writes Ausiello. "Interested parties must have an authentic British accent and be prepared to sign a three-year contract." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that Syfy has renewed Warehouse 13 for a third season, with 13 episodes on tap for next season. Additionally, Jack Kenny will remain aboard the series as the showrunner and has signed a development deal with the cable network. "Jack Kenny's superlative leadership and the incredible talent of his cast and crew delivered an outstanding second season of Warehouse 13," said Syfy's Mark Stern. "We're excited to see this successful series return next year and to developing our next hit with Jack." (Hollywood Reporter)

More 30 Rock/Mad Men crossover goodness. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Mad Men's John Slattery will guest star in an upcoming episode of NBC's 30 Rock, where he will play "a candidate running for congress." Slattery is expected to appear in this season's seventh episode. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

TVGuide.com's Denise Martin has an interview with Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan and Cory Monteith about tonight's spirituality-themed episode ("Grilled Cheesus"), in which the glee kids tackle the hot-button issue of religion. "I wish there had been something to launch conversations about feelings and emotions in my household when I was younger," Murphy told Martin about the potential of Glee to start conversations. "When the show is at its best, that is what I think we're doing." (TVGuide.com)

Elsewhere, Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack has a brief chat with Murphy as well about tonight's episode. “I love when people see Jesus in bird droppings on the windows and then there are lines out the door and that seems to happen so often now,” said Murphy. “To me, it just shows everybody in our society, particularly young people, are just desperate to believe in something.” (Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch)

ABC is eyeing another scripted summer series, this time an untitled female-centric spy drama from writer Greg Poirier, director Steve Shill, and executive producers Grant Scharbo and Gina Matthews (The Gates) that is described as "Taken meets The Bourne Identity). (Deadline)

ABC Family has cancelled freshman drama series Huge and will not be ordering the back ten episodes of the first season. "First and foremost, we want to thank everyone who embraced Huge and supported it," said co-creator/executive producer Winnie Holzman. "While it's disappointing not to be able to go forward with the characters we love so much and had so many plans for, we're deeply grateful for this opportunity. Our goal was and is to create television of depth and complexity that inspires people to think and feel. We believe we accomplished that with Huge and can't wait to do it again." (Variety)

Lone Star may have tanked but the pilot director--Marc Webb--who also directed (500) Days of Summer, has already scored a new project at FOX: a single-camera workplace comedy entitled Battleground, which has a script order at the network. (Deadline)

The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff talks with the cast and crew of FOX's comedy Running Wilde, which is struggling to find an audience this season. "If we stay kind of where we are or even grow a little bit, we’re in good shape,” co-creator Mitch Hurwitz said of the series' chances. “If we continue to drop, anything can happen.” (New York Times)

Deadline's Tim Adler is reporting that Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge could be returning to television once more as Baby Cow will recut its series of Fosters-branded internet shorts as a new television series. "Until now Coogan’s cringingly-embarrassing TV chat show host and disc jockey has always aired on the BBC," writes Adler. "The new 6-part series could be sold to Channel 4 or digital comedy channel Dave, Baby Cow boss Henry Normal tells me." (Deadline)

TVGuide.com's Robyn Ross is reporting that Matthew Lawrence will guest-star alongside brother Joey on an upcoming episode of ABC Family comedy Melissa & Joey, slated to air November 2nd. (TVGuide.com)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC is close to signing a deal to develop a US adaptation of Spanish series Aqui no hay quien viva (Or: I Hate This Place) from executive producers Ben Silverman and Sofia Vergara, with writer Craig Doyle attached to write the script. (Deadline)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Bryan Fuller to Tackle The Munsters, J.J. Abrams Talks Alias Reboot, Matt Smith Talks Doctor Who Xmas, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

File this under: oh my god. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello and Andy Patrick are reporting that Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller is developing an update of--wait for it--The Munsters. NBC has ordered a pilot for the project, which is being described as "Modern Family meets True Blood." If that wasn't enough to whet your appetite, Ausiello and Patrick also report that Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) might executive produce as well. Jaw officially on the floor... (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos talks to Undercovers executive producer J.J. Abrams about the NBC espionage drama and about several topics on everyone's minds: namely that rumored Alias reboot and the Terry O'Quinn/Michael Emerson NBC drama pilot. News of a potential Alias reboot were news to Abrams, despite unnamed sources at the network telling Dos Santos that they're still considering rebooting the franchise. "I know there were some discussions about that early on," Abrams told E! Online. "But it was internal Disney discussions, not discussions with me. So I'm not sure what they're thinking now. At the moment obviously they have True Lies, which I'm sure is going to fill their need for a spy series, and we're obviously very busy at Bad Robot [J.J.'s production company]. So the idea of even discussing it is going to be very delayed for a while. But it's not only up to me; if they wanted to redo it, they could do it with or without me. It's not really my decision." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Metro's Tom Phillips has an interview with Doctor Who star Matt Smith about this year's Christmas special, written by head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat. "We've got Michael Gambon playing a Scrooge-like miser with a time travelling twist – and I think it’s really, really good," said Smith. "It’s particularly Christmassy, lots of snow and lots of twinkly lights. I think it’s full of the right heart and soul for the season. Steven has, once again, written something brilliant." Smith also discusses the Neil Gaiman episode of Who, set to air next season, which he describes as "a real cracker – I think it’s going to be a real one for the Who fans, I think they’re going to love it." (Metro)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a first look at the Cylon Centurions heading to Syfy's Caprica, which returns for the back half of its first season next week. “Daniel Graystone’s creation—the early-model Cylon known as the U-87—emerges as a critical story point,” executive producer David Eick told Ausiello. “Due to the bad PR Daniel has endured since his prized creation, the Holoband, [was blamed for] the emergence of terrorist cells on Caprica, Daniel shifts his company’s focus to the perfection of artificial intelligence and its proliferation throughout the culture as the ultimate `helper’: Never gets tired. Never asks for a raise. Never quits on the job... Meanwhile, Joseph Adama and his brother Sam—using their organized-crime muscle to seize control of Daniel’s company—see an altogether different purpose for the U-87s: to sell to the highest bidder, no matter how violent their agenda might be." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Shelley Conn (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) has been cast as the female lead in FOX's upcoming prehistoric/futuristic adventure series Terra Nova, which will get a sneak peek in May before launching in Fall 2011. Conn will star opposite Jason O'Mara and Stephen Lang and will play Elizabeth Shannon, the wife of O'Mara's character, who travels back 85 million years. (Deadline)

Despite being cancelled earlier this week, FOX's Lone Star's second episode will still get its encore broadcast this Saturday, according to The Futon Critic. (Futon Critic)

NBC has ordered a pilot (with a penalty attached) for a Jack Black-executive produced comedy based on AJ Jacob's book "The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment." Project, from Reveille and Sony Pictures Television, will revolve around "a man fixated on self-improvement who takes on difficult experiments and lifestyles, all of which makes things tough on his family." Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa are attached as writers. (Hollywood Reporter)

Elsewhere at the Peacock, NBC is said to be adapting British reality series The Boss Is Coming to Dinner, from Zodiak USA. Project, from executive producers Grant Mansfield, Natalka Znack, and Claire O'Donohue, revolves around "a group of job applicants who must invite their prospective employer to their home and throw a dinner party. After the boss meets with the candidates, he or she makes a final hiring decision." (Variety)

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that Anderson Cooper is in talks with Telepictures Productions and Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution to host a syndicated daytime talk show. "The talk show deal is complex because its being coordinated between Warner Bros., Cooper and Cooper's employers at CNN -- who have an exclusive contract with the newsman," writes Hibberd. "The deal, which has been in talks for more than a month and may close by the end of the week, calls for Cooper to continue hosting 360. With a lot of moving parts at play, however, sources caution the deal is not yet a sure thing." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that FOX is considering ordering Lawyers for Less, described as "a light legal drama franchise" from creator/star Danny Comden and Sony Pictures Television that will be executive produced and directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. Project, written by Comden and Josh Pate, is said to be "a workplace comedic drama about two best friends - a white-shoe lawyer (Comden) coming back from disbarment for mixing business and pleasure and an enterprising black lawyer who takes him in as partner - who run a small storefront law firm specializing in ambulance chasing and defending the defenseless." (Deadline)

CSI creator Anthony Zuiker will bring the villain from his "Level 26" novel series--Sqweegel, described as a "forensic proof" serial killer--into an episode of CSI set to air on October 14th. He'll be played by Daniel Browning Smith, the world's most flexible man. (Variety)

Nickelodeon has ordered 26 episodes of live-action comedy Supah Ninjas from executive producer Brian Robbins. Series, which stars Ryan Potter, revolves around "a high schooler who discovers that he actually descends from a line of ninjas" and "forms a secret team of ninja crime fighters -- the 'Supah Ninjas' -- with his friends (Carlos Knight and Gracie Dzienny)." (Variety)

Sony Pictures Television has signed a blind script deal with Leah Rachel (CSI: NY), which would be executive produced by Jamie Tarses. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Syfy Brings Caprica Back Early, No Heroes Movie, Office Succession Plans, Fringe, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

I'm still not entirely sure what to make of the news that Syfy has bumped the premiere of the second half of Caprica's freshman season up by several months. While the series premiere aired this past January, Syfy surprised many by announcing that it would be a year later that the back half of Caprica's first season would launch. Cut to yesterday when Syfy seemingly reversed their decision, announcing a shocking soon launch date--Tuesday, October 5th, in fact--while Sanctuary, which was to have that timeslot, will now move back to Fridays this fall, where it will share the lineup with Friday Night Smackdown. “Though we initially announced the January return of Caprica, we still had hopes of finding a way to get the series back on the air sooner,” Syfy EVP Mark Stern told Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. “We’ve been able to successfully re-work our schedule, and are thrilled to bring the show back during what is traditionally Syfy’s most-watched time of the year." I can't help but wonder whether the move is intended to capitalize on Caprica or it's an effort to bury it among the slew of new network and cable series, given that there's now less than a month to get a promotional campaign off the ground. Hmmm... Meanwhile, still no word on a second season pickup. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed, Deadline)

File this under "hardly surprising." Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice is reporting that NBC is not moving forward on a Heroes telepic that would tie up the loose plot points left dangling after the series ended this spring. Despite NBC's discussion of said film, series creator Tim Kring was less than hopeful that said film--like the ones discussed at HBO for Deadwood--would ever make it to air. Which means that the series finale of Heroes will remain just that: the finale, though Kring and Co. could in future again tap into the mythology of Heroes in some other fashion. [Editor: Was anyone really clamoring for a Heroes movie anyway?] (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd has a very long feature examining just how NBC will deal with the departure of Steve Carell at the end of the upcoming season of The Office and cites unnamed sources who say that "the final decision likely won’t be made until after the upcoming seventh season wraps," but "by season’s end, you will know who is getting Michael Scott’s job." According to Hibberd, the current strategy is to use the first half of the season to shine a spotlight on specific characters, giving them each a specific episode in which to be the focal point. The second half of the season will focus then on the issue of succession as Carell's Michael Scott makes his plans known for his departure, while NBC will launch online polls and the like designed to make the decision of his replacement interactive. "By season’s end, one character will have Scott’s job — but that person is not necessarily Carell’s replacement as the show’s star," writes Hibberd. "Sources say writers are tempted to have the character who becomes the Scranton branch's new boss fail in some spectacular manner, leaving the seat open again for another successor during Season 8. One radical notion being explored is the possibility of subtly shifting the show’s point of view so that a current character is the star instead of the boss." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a first look at the Season Three cast photo for FOX's Fringe, which features Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole, and Blair Brown... and a shadowy figure lurking in an open doorway that looks suspiciously like the silhouette of an Observer to me. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

E! Online's Megan Masters talks to Life Unexpected creator Liz Tigelaar about Julia, the mysterious character that Jamie Ray Newman (Eastwick) will be playing on the CW series this fall. "We [introduce] Julia in the premiere, and then we let Cate and Ryan go on with their lives for a little bit. But her name starts coming up again, and Cate's confused about who this person is. We'll actually see some flashbacks of who this person is, and how she knows Ryan," said Tigelaar. "Julia's a person who was an integral person in Ryan's past. He's moved on and is with Cate, but in the course of season one she reappeared and there are repercussions of that. She's definitely lightly threaded into the first 13, and if we get a back nine, she'll be back. She be a character who's going to stir some stuff up for them." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

It's official: Jennifer Morrison (House) has joined the cast of CBS' How I Met Your Mother, where she will play Zooey, a new love interest for Ted Mosby. Morrison's Zooey, according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, is "a rabble-rousing activist who’s hell-bent on saving the Arcadian, an old New York hotel that’s scheduled to be torn down to make way for the Goliath National Bank tower—which Ted just so happens to be designing." But this won't be another date-of-the-week for Ted, according to the show's producers. "This is going to be a big saga for Ted," Carter Bays told EW. "[It's] going to be a big overarching story that will take Ted on a journey that we’re really excited about." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

HBO has confirmed the launch of Season Three of therapy drama In Treatment, which will kick off with two back-to-back half-hour episodes on Monday, October 25th, and Tuesday, October 26th at 9 pm ET/PT. Subsequent episodes will follow the same scheduling. New cast members include Irrfan Kahn, Debra Winger, Amy Ryan, and Dane DeHaan. (via press release)

American Dad producer Bob Kushell has sold two comedy pitches, animated comedy Red Roofs to FOX and an untitled multi-camera comedy to NBC about a "blended family dealing with the death of the clan's patriarch (who had been living a double life)." (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Kara DioGuardi Leaves Idol, Treadstone Heads to CBS, Ashmore Twins Land Fringe, Glee, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. With the holiday weekend having just wrapped, no one was breaking too much news. Which isn't to say that there are no key television-based headlines, because, well, there are. Let's get to it.

It's official: Kara DioGuardi will not be returning to FOX's American Idol this season. The singer-songwriter joined the judges table two years ago and FOX has now confirmed the long-gestating rumors that DioGuardi would not be returning for another season of the musical competition series. "I felt like I won the lottery when I joined American Idol two years ago, but I feel like now is the best time to leave IDOL," said DioGuardi in an official statement. "I am very proud to have been associated with American Idol - it has truly been an amazing experience. I am grateful to FOX, FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment, as well as the cast, crew and contestants, for all they have given to me. I look forward to my next challenge, and want to thank everyone who has supported me. All the best to everyone on Season 10!" Idol creator and executive producer Simon Fuller had this to say about DioGuardi's departure: "Kara is one of the world's best songwriters. She has been passionate and committed to Idol over the last two seasons. I will miss having her on the show, but I look forward to working with her in music for many years to come." (via press release)

Variety's Michael Schneider is reporting that the new Idol panelists, including a replacement for DioGuardi could be announced next week, with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler still expected to join the judging team for the next cycle of American Idol. (Variety)

Has CSI creator Anthony Zuiker found his next smash hit? Zuiker has landed a script order for Treadstone, a series take on the black ops division of the CIA from Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne novels, at CBS. Project, from CBS Television Studios and Dare to Pass, will be written by John Glenn (Eagle Eye), who will executive produce with Zuiker. (Deadline)

Shawn and Aaron Ashmore--the twin actors known for their roles in the X-Men film franchise, Smallville, and Veronica Mars--are set to appear in Season Three of FOX's Fringe this fall. The duo are set to guest star in an episode slated to air in November and have turned down other invitations to play opposite each other in the past. "It's usually because the stuff that comes along is kind of hokey," Shawn Ashmore told Chicago Now. "But I think the quality of Fringe is really high and the episode is done well and our characters are intelligent. We're going to have some fun." No word immediately on just who or what they'll be playing but it's safe to say that twins will play into the equation in some capacity. (via Digital Spy)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck has an exclusive first look at John Stamos' Dr. Carl Howell on Season Two of FOX's Glee. "Just when Will thinks he'll win Emma because he can sing and dance, we find out Carl used to be in an '80s boy band," Stamos told Keck. "I discover Will's chewing his teeth, so the other day I had, like, four fingers in Matthew Morrison's mouth." And Carl will also play a key role in causing those Brittany Spears hallucinations this fall in the Spears tribute episode... and will appear in the Rocky Horror Picture Show-inspired Halloween episode as well. (TV Guide Magazine)

NBC is teaming up with DreamWorks Animated for half-hour holiday specials Scared Shrekless and Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special. The first will air on October 28th as a Halloween tie-in while Panda will air on November 24th. Both will be paired with repeats of last year's DreamWorks Animated specials based around Monsters Vs. Aliens and Madagascar. (Hollywood Reporter)

Bill Lawrence is keeping it in the family: Ken Jenkins (Scrubs) is set to guest star on ABC's Cougar Town, where he will play the father of Courteney Cox's Jules, according to Entertainment Weekly. No airdate has been set for Jenkins' appearance, though it's thought likely that he'll turn up this fall. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The Office isn't going anywhere, executive producer Paul Lieberstein told E! Online's Megan Masters on Friday... and indicated that there could be an Office movie. [Editor: for the love of all things holy, no.] "There's been no talk at any point of The Office ending," Lieberstein told Masters. "Maybe when the series is done we'd do an Office movie. I'd be up for that... But they're all such big movie stars now, I don't know if we could afford them on set." Lieberstein also advised fans to stick with the series even after Steve Carell leaves at the end of this upcoming season. "This will definitely change the dynamic [of the show]," said Lieberstein. "And we can't just replace Steve because I think that would lead to failure. We have to do something different. This show is really about office life, which so many people live. And changing it up a little will be welcome to the fans. Steve feels he's played almost everything he can with Michael Scott. There isn't a lot of new territory for him to discover. And if he's feeling that, fans must be, at a certain level, feeling that too—it's an opportunity to reinvent The Office." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Kevin Rankin (Friday Night Lights) has been cast in a recurring role on HBO's Big Love), where he will play the son of a fundamentalist polygamists. (Hollywood Reporter)

The Futon Critic is reporting that Syfy will air Felicia Day's telepic Red: Werewolf Hunter on Saturday, October 30th at 9 pm ET/PT. (Futon Critic)

Elsewhere at the cabler, Syfy is developing conspiracy-based reality series UFO: Unbelievably Freakin' Obvious that will feature Billy Ray Cyrus and his son Trace as they "travel cross-country and offer a skeptical solution to many of the theories," according to Variety's Stuart Levine. "The existence of paranormal phenomena is something I've always wanted to explore further," Cyrus told Variety. "Getting the opportunity to take this adventure with my son, who has always had a keen interest in this area, is a dream come true. I hope this series can shine a light on some of the activities we have questioned, and the mysteries that have long inspired us." (Variety)

MTV has given a put pilot order to an untitled scripted comedy from comedian Bo Burnham which will revolve around "a kid fresh out of high school who's pursing the new American dream of being a celebrity without having any talent," according to Burnham, who will write and executive produce the pilot, alongside Dan Lagana and Luke Liacos. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: WBTV Developing Sandman, JJ Abrams' Alcatraz, Evil Wheaton Back to Big Bang, Free Agents, True Blood, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit and James Hibberd are reporting that Warner Bros. Television is in the process of acquiring television rights to Neil Gaiman's DC/Vertigo comic series "Sandman" with the view of adapting it as an ongoing television series. Among the contenders to tackle the project: Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. It's not the first time that Hollywood has courted the mythopoeic comic series: HBO nearly had a version in development at one time with James Mangold attached; Roger Avery attempted to get a feature film version off the ground in the mid-90s. It's still early days for the project as Kripke is said to be cautious about treading on such hallowed ground and attempting to translate the deeply complex and layered narrative for television. [Editor: Personally, I'd rather that Kripke and WBTV didn't: the plot of "Sandman" isn't a strict narrative in the traditional sense of the word but rather an exploration of stories and myth, strung together with some serialized plots and one-offs about Morpheus of the Endless, a race of eternal beings older than the gods themselves. It would be a very difficult project do justice to, given the strength of Gaiman's work on the series and I can't quite wrap my head around how an ongoing series would function. Would it draw from some of the more linear storylines like "A Doll's House," "Season of Mists," "The Kindly Ones," etc.? Or would it be a procedural about a dream lord who can flit through people's subconscious minds? The latter would make me vomit in rage, really.] (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Warner Bros. Television-based producer JJ Abrams and writer/producer Elizabeth Sarnoff (Lost) are shopping drama spec script Alcatraz, about the notorious San Francisco island prison that once housed the nation's most infamous criminals, including Al Capone and, yes, the Birdman himself. The duo are taking the script--which was written by Sarnoff--to networks. No other details were immediately available, though it seems clear that the Bad Robot-produced project would be a period drama. Or not, as Abrams has been known to throw a curve ball or two. (Deadline)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Evil Wil Wheaton will be returning to CBS' Big Bang Theory to resume his feud with Jim Parsons' Sheldon. “We started talking about the idea of minor celebrities cutting in line, and we thought it might be funny to have our [Big Bang] guys waiting in line for a one-time-only midnight screening of something like Raiders of the Lost Ark with restored footage, and Wil Wheaton and his three friends cut the line," executive producer Bill Prady told Ausiello. "When it comes time for our guys to get in, the line stops; Wil took the last four seats and Sheldon is just furious. Because it doesn’t make sense to him. Wil’s celebrity is not applicable here. This is not Star Trek. It’s just wrong.” Should the episode come together, it would likely air in November. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Another day, another project for Party Down co-creator John Enbom, who has sold a second project to NBC in the last week. Enbom will adapt UK's Channel 4 comedy Free Agents for the Peacock and will executive produce with Karey Burke and Todd Holland and Universal Media Studios. The original UK series, which hailed from Simon Pegg and Nira Park's UK shingle Big Talk, revolved around an agent enmeshed in a very messy divorce. (Variety)

SPOILER! E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos and Megan Masters have the scoop on which actors will be returning for Season Four of HBO's vampire drama True Blood, though the answer might surprise you. According to the duo, Denis O'Hare, Marshall Allman, Kevin Alejandro, and Lauren Bowles will all be back next season, along with the previously reported Joe Manganiello. Yep, Russell will be back in some capacity next season, though he won't be seen initially in Season Four, which will focus--according to reports--on witches. Tommy Mickens will be back as well, as well as Alejandro's Jesus, while Lauren Bowles--who plays Wiccan Holly--has been promoted to series regular. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

As expected, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci's adaptation of Joe Hill's comic book "Locke & Key" has landed at FOX, which has given the project a series commitment, though Steven Spielberg will no longer be involved as an executive producer. Project, which revolves around two brothers who live in a strange New England mansion, hails from 20th Century Fox Television and DreamWorks Television. (Variety)

Elsewhere, FOX has handed out a series order to an untitled sketch comedy show from executive producer Jamie Foxx, which will feature "a diverse cast tackling spoofs of movie trailers, commercials, TV shows, music videos and celebrities." Affion Crockett will star and executive produce the series, which comes from Fox Television Studios, Foxx/King Entertainment and The Tannenbaum Company. (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Mekhi Phifer will be leaving FOX's Lie to Me when the Lightman Group breaks its ties with the FBI. "We’re going rogue a little bit,” executive producer David Graziano told Ausiello. “Lightman [Tim Roth] is going to act slightly in the more old-school PI model of a TV protagonist, [so] we’re doing away with the FBI contract [and] Mekhi is unfortunately no longer going to be on the show. The FBI franchise limited our storytelling a little bit because it had to adhere to the FBI structures of ‘Would the FBI take this case or not?’ The character that’s going to be our badge this season is a bent cop, Wolowsky [The Unusuals' Monique Gabriela Curnen], who goes about business in a similar way to Lightman. There’s a mutual respect from the get-go. We’re working hard to make The Lightman Group a dysfunctional family.” (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

E! Online's Megan Masters has an interview with The Office executive producer Paul Lieberstein, in which he floats another possible replacement for Steve Carell, who is set to leave the NBC comedy at the end of the season: Harvey Keitel. "He's probably the only guy who can do it, and he's doing TV now," said Lieberstein. "I haven't started any talks with his people, but Harvey would do a great job—a very different energy. And we don't want to bring in another Michael, having someone play a very similar character because we have such a high regard for Steve." Lieberstein goes on to say that Keitel could play a former salesman who comes out of retirement in order to oversee the Scranton branch. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

HBO has ordered a third season of dark comedy Hung, with ten episodes likely to air in summer 2011. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

In other renewal news, Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports that TNT said to be close to giving Memphis Beat a second season order. Elsewhere, Lifetime has passed on that Army Wives spin-off that was to star Brigid Brannagh and Gabrielle Union and USA has slashed the episodic budget for legal drama Facing Kate from twelve to ten episodes and pushed the premiere into early 2011, due to scheduling issues. (Deadline)

Syfy has announced the cast for its upcoming four-hour miniseries Nerverland, a prequel to Peter Pan, which will star Rhys Ifans (Pirate Radio), Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies), Bob Hoskins, Raoul Trujillo (Tin Man), and Charlie Rowe (Pirate Radio). Project, from writer/director Nick Willing, will air in 2011. Here's how Syfy describes the project: "Raised on the streets of turn-of-the century London, orphaned Peter (Rowe) and his pals survive by their fearless wits as cunning young pickpockets. Now, they've been rounded up by their mentor Jimmy Hook (Ifans) to snatch a priceless--some believe, magical--treasure which transports them to another world. Neverland is a realm of white jungles and legendary mysteries of eternal youth, where unknown friends and enemies snatched from time welcome the new travelers with both excitement and trepidation. These groups include a band of 18th century pirates led by the power-mad Elizabeth Bonny (Friel), and the Native American Kaw tribe led by a Holy Man (Trujillo), which has protected the secret of the tree spirits from Bonny and her gang for ages--and that has meant war. But as the fight to save this strange and beautiful world becomes vital, Hook, Peter, and the ragamuffin lost boys consider that growing old somewhere in time could be less important than growing up right here in their new home called Neverland." (via press release)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck reports that Cybill Shepherd will be guest starring on ABC's upcoming dramedy series No Ordinary Family, where she will play Barbara Crane, the mother of Julie Benz's Stephanie. (TV Guide Magazine)

Following yesterday's news that Eddie Izzard would be appearing in eight episodes of Showtime's United States of Tara, the pay cabler has announced that Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) will be guest starring in one episode of Tara next season, where she will play "Max Gregson’s (John Corbett) mother, a recluse with a compulsive hoarding problem." (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

Former Heroes star Jack Coleman has been cast in an upcoming episode of CBS' The Mentalist, where he will play Max Armstrong, described as "wealthy, regal, arrogant, self-important man who becomes the prime suspect in a murder," according to TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck. Coleman's episode is slated to air October 14th. (TV Guide Magazine)

Nickelodeon has announced that Jane Lynch's episode of iCarly will air on Saturday, September 11th at 8 pm ET/PT. Lynch guest stars as the "never-before-seen, eccentric" mother of Sam, Pam Puckett. (via press release)

Alyssa Milano will star in Lifetime original telepic Sundays at Tiffany's, based on the book by James Patterson. Milano will star opposite Eric Winter and will play a "bride-to-be visited by the adult incarnation of her childhood imaginary friend" who "begins to re-examine her life." (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Fox Snags Locke and Key, Trouble for Tilda, Torchwood Star Lands Three Inches, Temps, The Office, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing.

Vulture's Josef Adalian is reporting that FOX is in talks with 20th Century Fox Television and Dreamworks to develop a series based on Joe Hill's comic book "Locke and Key," which revolves around "three kids who end up watching over a secret, spooky New England mansion filled with mystical doors that transport them to different worlds and give them special powers (like turning into a ghost)," according to Adalian. But FOX isn't turning to just anyone to adapt the series created by Hill (who happens to be the son of Stephen King): Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Fringe, Hawaii Five-0) and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as well as Steven Spielberg are attached as executive producers. (Vulture, Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that there's some major behind the scenes drama brewing at HBO's much anticipated dark comedy pilot Tilda, which stars Diane Keaton as a Nikki Finke-esque Hollywood blogger. Showrunner Cynthia Mort has been removed from the project after the pilot shoot, during which she allegedly clashed with director/executive producer Bill Condon and with Keaton herself. "It was an unhappy marriage from day one,” an unnamed source told Ausiello about Mort and Condon's working relationship. “They banged heads about almost everything…and during production she picked huge public fights with anyone who disagreed with her on anything, including Diane.” Mort's removal prompted a nasty email to the production and the studio; neither she nor HBO would comment on the story, though Ausiello notes that Condon is assembling a new creative team and is close to picking a new showrunner for the project. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Which former Torchwood star is crossing the pond to star in Syfy drama pilot Three Inches? Naoko Mori--who played the much missed Toshiko for two seasons on BBC Three's Torchwood--has been cast as a series regular in Three Inches, which follows a slacker who discovers that he has a useless superpower: he can move any object three inches with his mind. Mori will play "a woman who can duplicate and recite any sounds she hears." Also cast: Melrose Place's Stephanie Jacobsen, who will play Watts, described as "a beautiful 'super' hero who has the ability to shape the emotions of anyone she meets at close range." (Deadline)

Good news for fans of Party Down: the creators of the short-lived Starz comedy series have landed a put pilot from NBC for their next project, a single-camera comedy entitled Temps. The project, created by Rob Thomas, Jon Enbom, and Dan Etheridge, was the subject of an intense bidding war before a deal was reached between NBC and studio Warner Bros. Television. According to Variety's Michael Schneider, Temps will revolve around "a group of recent college grads who are forced to take a variety of oddball temp jobs to make ends meet." Any chance those trademark pink bowties could make a return appearance? (Variety)

E! Online's Jennifer Arrow is reporting that producers of NBC's The Office, which will see the departure of series lead Steve Carell after the upcoming season, would prefer to promote from within rather than bring in an A-lister to replace Michael Scott. Arrow caught up with writer/producer Warren Lieberstein to ask him about whether the show can go on without Carell and just where Michael's replacement will come from. "We're really sad. I don't know how you soldier on from Steve leaving," said Lieberstein. "He's such an amazing talent. He's the best. He's the best, honestly. But we're kind of lucky, we have a lot of movie stars in our cast! Craig Robinson, Ed Helms, Rainn Wilson—and that Krasinski guy is not bad, and Jenna Fischer, she's pretty great. I think the reason we've been able to survive as many seasons as we have is because of the supporting cast." As for the matter of succession, Lieberstein said, "We're still debating. A lot of us want from within, because we think we have such a strong cast, but we'll see. We have a network that also [has] wants." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

In other Three Inches-related news, The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that Andrea Martin (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) has also joined the cast of the Syfy superhero pilot, where she will play Belinda Spackman, the mother of the main character, who is described as "a brutally cynical force of nature who will do anything to protect her son, who has developed a unique not-so-superpower: the ability to move any object three inches using his mind." (Hollywood Reporter)

E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos has an interview with True Blood star Denis O'Hare, who is stealing scenes this season as the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington. O'Hare told E! Online that, despite his character's longevity, he can still be killed. "I am 3,000 years old, but it can be done," said O'Hare. "The vampire rules are if you behead them, if you stake them with wood, or if you put silver on them, they're going down. The silver weakens them incredibly, the wood will actually kill them, and beheading is game over." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

FOX is developing an untitled drama pilot with writer Rick Eid and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci about a prosecutor who discovers that he can tell whether a defendant is guilty or innocent. "Show revolves around an overly ambitious prosecutor who wrongfully convicts an innocent man for murder, an event that becomes the trigger for his magical flashes and an understanding that he has a debt an understanding that he has a debt to repay to the innocent," writes Variety's Cynthia Littleton. (Variety)

Meghan Markle (Fringe) has been cast as one of the leads in USA's legal drama pilot A Legal Mind, where she will star opposite Patrick Adams and Gabriel Macht. She'll play Rachel Lane, described as "an attractive paralegal with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law who's assigned to Mike [Patrick Adams] and becomes his valuable after-hours research ally." Whedonverse alum Gina Torres has also been cast in the project, though her role--senior partner Katherine Pearson--is in second position to ABC Family's Huge. (Hollywood Reporter)

FX is developing comedy 13th Grade, about a "a high school graduate who's content with his meager lifestyle -- until his girlfriend dumps him for being 'stuck' between childhood and adulthood"--with Michael Cera, Derek Waters, and Emily Kapnek. Kapnek and Cera are writing the script, while Waters is set to co-star in the project. (Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Jamie-Lynn Sigler (The Sopranos) will star opposite Sherry Stringfield in Lifetime's currently untitled Josh Berman drama pilot, where she will play Brooke Kross, the partner to Stringfield's police detective Molly Collins. Elsewhere, John Hawkes (Lost) will star in FX drama pilot Outlaw Country, where he will play Tarzen Larkin, the uncle to Luke Grimes' Eli, who is described as "one of the most charismatic and compelling characters in Slaughter, a big-time player in the Southern crime world." (Deadline)

Amy Sedaris (Strangers with Candy) and Tom Cavanagh (Ed) are set to guest star in an upcoming episode of USA's Royal Pains when the series returns for its first ever winter season this January, according to Fancast's Matt Mitovich. Sedaris will play Nan Noonan, "Jill's partner for a Hamptons golf tournament," while Cavanagh will play pro golfer Jack O'Malley. (Fancast)

TLC has ordered eight episodes of Sextuplets Take New York, which is--you guessed it!--about a family raising four boys and two girls in Queens, New York. It will launch on September 14th. (Hollywood Reporter)

Yep, Jennifer Aniston is going to guest star on ABC's Cougar Town next month, when she'll drop by as a therapist for Courteney Cox's Jules. (via press release)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that Life Unexpected's Reggie Austin has been cast as the husband of Vanessa Williams' character on ABC's Desperate Housewives this season. He'll make his first appearance in the fifth episode of the season and will be playing Doug, the New York pro baseball player husband of Williams' Renee Perry. (TV Guide Magazine)

20th Century Fox Television and Chernin Entertainment have signed a blind script deal with Get Him to the Greek writer/director Nicholas Stoller. (Hollywood Reporter)

Former TNT programming executive Julie Weitz has been hired as president of Carol Mendelsohn's production company. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Syfy Renews Eureka, Lone Star Lands Chad Faust, Teri Polo to Law & Order: Los Angeles, True Blood, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing.

It's official: Syfy has renewed drama Eureka for a fifth season. The news of the renewal--no surprise given the ratings and the creative resurgence of the series this summer--was announced by Mark Stern, EVP of Original Programming for Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions, which produces the series. “Eureka remains a steadfast performer for Syfy with its superb cast and perfect blend of drama, comedy and eye candy,” said Stern in an official statement. "Given what Jaime, Bruce and their entire team have done collectively to reinvent the show this year, we can't wait to see what's in store for season 5." (via press release)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Chad Faust (The 4400) has been cast in a recurring role on FOX's upcoming drama series Lone Star, where he will play Harrison, the ex-husband of Adrianne Palicki's Cat. Ausiello, per unnamed sources, confirms the casting and offers up an official description of Faust's character. Harrison is described as "[Cat's] mistake carried over from high school. What was charming about him at seventeen is less than attractive in a grown man with adult responsibilities that until now, he has not wanted to shoulder. But his motorcycle-riding, noncommittal, unfaithful-husband ways are behind him, or so he claims, and he’s back in town now, ready to prove that he’s changed.” Lone Star premieres September 20th. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Teri Polo (Little Fockers) has been cast in a "major recurring role" on NBC's upcoming procedural drama Law & Order: Los Angeles, where she will play Casey Winters, the wife of Skeet Ulrich's Detective Rex Winters. Her character is described as "a former hard-nosed cop who retired to start a family." (Deadline)

MAJOR SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has confirmed that Season Four of HBO's True Blood will feature Hallow Stonebrook, learning from series creator Alan Ball that the "were-sorceress" will turn up in Bon Temps next season, though Ball maintains that Hallow is a necromancer, and said that she is "actually a medium. She communicates with the dead, and she’s interested in developing further powers." No word yet on who will be playing Hallow, though Ausiello has already put in a bid for Buffy's Juliet Landau to take on the role. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Good news for UK fans of Mad Men: Season Four of the period drama will now launch next month on BBC4, several months ahead of the anticipated launch. While the exact launch date is yet to be announced, The Guardian is indicating that it will launch the week of September 4th. (Guardian)

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that CBS is developing a companion reality series for Undercover Boss, handing out a pilot order for an untitled project from the producers of Boss that would "feature two employees who work at the same company competing against one another for a major promotion." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Kevin Spacey and Rod Lurie's cult drama is heading to HBO. Reports are swirling that the pay cabler is close to finalizing a deal to pickup Spacey and Lurie's cult drama The Crux, which revolves around the leader of a billion-dollar global cult. Project is being written by Lurie and Marc Frydman and will star Spacey as said leader. (Variety)

Lainie Kazan (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) has been cast in a multiple-episode story arc on ABC's Desperate Housewives, where she will play "a self-employed business owner and neighbor to Teri Hatcher’s character, Susan." Kazan will make her first appearance in the seventh season premiere. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Showtime's series debut of Laura Linney-led dark comedy The Big C brought the pay cabler their highest rated original series premiere in eight years, luring 1.154 million viewers at 10:30 pm on Monday and an additional 429,000 during the 11:30 pm airing, bringing the night's total to 1.583 million viewers. (via press release)

AMC has promoted Ben Davis to VP of scripted programming and Susan Goldberg to VP of production. Davis will report to Susie Fitzgerald, while Goldberg will report to an as-yet-unnamed SVP of production. (Variety)

Disney Channel will launch Shaun the Sheep spinoff Timmy Time with a sneak peek on September 7th, followed by the official premiere on September 13th. "Timmy, the baby lamb drawn into misadventures on Shaun, becomes the centerpiece of stories about initial preschool experiences in his new show," writes Variety's Jon Weisman. "Gestures and animal sounds are emphasized rather than human dialogue." (Variety)

Sony Pictures Television has promoted Kim Hatamiya to EVP, where she will now have oversight of worldwide marketing for the television division. Her role now encompasses the duties of Robert Oswaks, who left the studio in April. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: AMC Finds The Killing, Lotus Caves for Syfy and Bryan Fuller, More Office Rumors, FNL Launch Date, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

AMC has given a series order to pilot The Killing, which hails from writer/executive producer Veena Sud and Fox Television Studios and is based on Danish television series Forbrydelsen, ordering thirteen episodes which will air sometime in 2011. Series, which will star Big Love's Mireille Enos, revolves around the murder of a young girl and a police investigation that connects several seemingly separate story threads. "We are thrilled to be moving forward with this stunning piece of television," said Joel Stillerman, AMC's senior vp of original programming, production and digital content, in a statement. "It is a crime drama, but it is also a gripping character based story that pulls you in and doesn't let go. The storytelling is completely compelling, and the show is visually breathtaking." In addition to Enos, the project--which will be renamed, sadly--also stars Billy Campbell, Michelle Forbes, Joel Kinnaman, and Brent Sexton, among others. (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Syfy is teaming up with Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller to develop a drama series based on John Christopher's novel, "The Lotus Caves." Fuller and Jim Grey will write the pilot script for The Lotus Caves, which--like the novel before it--will revolve around a group of "rebellious lunar colonists [who] dare to take a peek beyond their borders and discover a bunch of brainiac aliens living in the caves of the title." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Could Portia de Rossi or Tony Hale be headed to The Office? New York Post's Jarett Wieselman looks at an unconfirmed report that says that Danny McBride will be dropping by Scranton this season but not as the replacement for Steve Carell's Michael Scott, who will instead be replaced by someone who once starred on Arrested Development. Wieselman then goes on to say that the most obvious suspects, should we believe the report, are Tony Hale, Jeffrey Tambor, and Portia de Rossi. (New York Post's PopWrap)

The date you're waiting for: the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights will kick off on DirecTV on October 27th, according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. No word on when Season Five will turn up on NBC, though it's likely to air next summer on the Peacock. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan has an interview with Sons of Anarchy's Ron Perlman, who plays Clay Morrow on the gritty FX biker drama. "None of us really know where we go from week to week," Perlman told Ryan. "And there's something really exciting about that. I feel if Kurt needed for us to know where we needed to go from week to week, he would tell us if it was going to affect something in our playing of it. The hallmark of his writing is -- he writes in a way that's very vivid and the only thing you ever need to worry about is the moment that you're in. The kidnapping of the child is the event that drives at least the first few episodes. Of course, it's all hands on deck. Whatever is going on in [the characters'] personal relationships is shelved for the moment while we address ourselves to the matter at hand. But beyond that I really can't say. But my guess is -- and I'm like an audience member, in terms of [not knowing] where the show is going to be later in the season -- Kurt is too smart to introduce something without it, at some point, resolving itself. He doesn't feel like he's in any hurry to put all the cards out. That's my guess." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Vulture has an interview with former Lost star Michael Emerson about the release of the DVD and the twelve-minute epilogue entitled, "The New Man in Charge." "I was so pleased with it," said Emerson of Lost's finale. "Instead of employing some narrative device or science-fiction device or time-travel device, [the writers] humanized the whole affair and brought it back to characters and souls, and so I thought it was really a fine solution and one that I’m onboard with. And I’m especially delighted with the way they wrapped up the Benjamin Linus [story]." Asked about some of the negative reactions to the series finale, Emerson said, "It surprised me a bit because a lot of people who were unhappy had been misunderstanding the show for a long time, so why were they still watching it if they’d mixed up what they were seeing? But I guess that’s the deal: It works magically for all sorts of people at all different levels of understanding." As for the epilogue, he described it as a sort of "dessert" to be enjoyed after the main course. (Vulture)

USA Today's Whitney Matheson also has an interview with Emerson about the finale and the epilogue. Asked whether the epilogue was truly the end, Emerson said, "Yeah, they've always made that clear. I think we can take them at their word. These writers will never revisit the material, or at least not soon. And you'll never get the cast together in one place again. But as some people have noted, you might get a couple of cast members together to do something that takes off on a tangent." (USA Today's Pop Candy)

It looks like Jennifer Lopez won't be taking a spot at the judges table on American Idol after all. Citing a report by People, The Hollywood Reporter has a look at why talks with Lopez fell through: "Her demands got out of hand," an unnamed source told People. "Fox had just had enough." (The Hollywood Reporter)

Which brings us to this gem: Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd offers seven reasons why there has been such a delay in FOX announcing replacements for the outbound American Idol judges. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

20th Century Fox Television has signed a three-year overall deal with Family Guy writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, under which they will remain aboard the FOX animated comedy while also developing new projects for the studio. (Variety)

Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice reports that CBS will debut its new daytime talk show The Talk, developed by Sara Gilbert, on Monday, October 18th. Series features six female hosts with kids, including Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini, and Marissa Jaret Winokur. (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

E4 has released the first photo of the cast of Season Five of Skins, featuring an entirely new cast of characters. (E4)

Syfy is planning holiday-themed episodes of its series Warehouse 13 and Eureka and has tapped Judd Hirsch and Paul Blackthorne to drop by Warehouse 13, while Chris Parnell and Matt Frewer will be stopping by Eureka this winter. (via press release)

Jay Mohr is set to guest star in the fourth episode of NBC's new legal drama Outlaw, where he will play Henry Ashford, whom Jimmy Smits' Cyrus Garza will face off with in court in a case involving a mother who accidentally kills her baby after locking it in a car, according to TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck. "NBC is keeping mum as to whether Cyrus or Jay's character, Henry Ashford, will be representing the bad mother," writes Keck. "The network says it will be a weekly guessing game as to which side of the law Outlaw Smits attaches himself." (TV Guide Magazine)

Nick Cannon will remain the chairman of TeenNick through January 2012 under an extension of the deal Cannon has with the Nickelodeon cable network. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Josh Jackson Ponders Vampire Diaries, Lone Star, Blue Bloods BTS Drama, James Marsters' Torchwood Dreams, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Quite a fair amount of headlines and stories to get through today, so let's get cracking!

E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos is reporting that Joshua Jackson is possibly contemplating making a trip to Mystic Falls next season. The Fringe star is said to be weighing a possible guest stint on the CW's Vampire Diaries. "We talked about it," said Jackson about a conversation he had with Kevin Williamson at Comic-Con. "It turns out that he's not making a comedy with Vampire Diaries and it might be too inside baseball comedy if I popped up. But who knows... They're all too handsome." Meanwhile, was Dos Santos able to get any clues about Season Three of Fringe out of Pacey-Con's Jackson? "It picks up literally where it left off last year," said Jackson, "and our show just continues to get greater and more bizarre and strange and disgusting and wonderful every time we put it on the air." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Andie MacDowell is "thisclose" to joining the cast of FOX's upcoming drama series Lone Star, where she would play the love interest of Jon Voight's character, should a deal be able to be closed. Meanwhile, Rosa Blasi (Make It or Break It) has come on board Lone Star, where she will recur as Blake, the "Lady Macbeth-esque wife" of Mark Deklin's Trammell. [Editor: fingers crossed that MacDowell's deal takes; Ausiello indicates it's "98 percent done."] (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that showrunner Ken Sanzel has left CBS' Blue Bloods following "creative tension" between the producer and actor Tom Selleck. "I learned... that Tom Selleck hasn't been accepting the scripts which CBS' Blue Bloods executive producer Ken Sanzel has been giving him," writes Andreeva. "So a standoff developed over character vs procedural visions for the series, summarized to me as 'creative tension.' By midday, Sanzel was still staying with the show. No more. Insiders just emailed me that the former New York cop told the staff late today that he is leaving. There's no exit date yet." Trouble emerged when the star and the showrunner had vastly different takes on the series, according to insiders. "Sanzel's vision was for a compelling crime procedural, whereas Selleck wanted softer character exploration," writes Andreeva. "Sanzel knew the network was behind him. But Selleck wanted to be in charge of the show." (Deadline)

Former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star James Marsters is looking to reprise his role as Captain John Hart on Torchwood, which is jumping from BBC America to pay cabler Starz for its upcoming fourth season. "Russell [T Davies is] over here [in LA] trying to get an American version of it done. If he doesn't call me, I am going to find him," Marsters told io9. "I'm into it, just ask Russell." [Editor: I will, seeing as I'm sitting down with Russell T Davies tomorrow.] Marsters, meanwhile, will be seen next season on Smallville and on Syfy's Caprica. (io9)

Ryan Murphy seems open to Neil Patrick Harris returning to Glee, so is the "It's such a tricky thing [because] that's not the network that How I Met Your Mother is on," Harris told E! Online. "So I can't just say, 'Oh, I'll just keep doing Glee's,' because they're on Fox and I'm on CBS. I have bosses that make me sign contracts to keep me at one place for a long period of time, and understandably so. I love the gig, love doing it. They're [the Glee guys] super fun, and they didn't shoot me at the end of the first episode, so if I'm ever able to come back I'd love to." As for Murphy, he too is hopeful they can finesse the relationship and bring back Harris' character for another go-around. "We would love to have Neil back," said Murphy. "We have a little problem that he's a regular on another show. But he's in the Fox family and they help us out a great deal with that. I think we've just begun to see the tip of the villainy for Brian Ryan." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Laura Bell Bundy has been cast in a recurring role on CBS' How I Met Your Mother, where she will play Robin's new co-host on Metro News One and a potential new love interest for Ted. Or at least someone he goes on a date with. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Rosie O'Donnell is heading to OWN. The nascent cable channel, overseen by Oprah Winfrey, will be the home of a new daily talk show hosted by O'Donnell that will launch in 2011 and be based in New York. "Rosie is an undeniable talent who has captivated TV audiences for nearly 20 years,” said Oprah Winfrey in a prepared statement. "She’s a true original, who brings her authentic voice, dynamic energy and pure passion to everything she does." (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

IFC has ordered six episodes of sketch comedy series Portlandia, created by Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, who will star in the Portland-based half-hour series. The Lorne Michaels-executive produced series, which begins production this month, will launch in early 2011. According to Variety's Jon Weisman, "Portlandia incorporates a series of absurdist short films featuring Armisen and Brownstein playing different characters, such as the owners of a feminist bookstore, a militant bike messenger and a punk rock couple negotiating a "safe word" to help govern their love life." (Variety)

TVGuide.com's Ileane Rudolph is reporting that former Battlestar Galactica star Edward James Olmos will guest star on an upcoming episode of CBS' CSI: NY. Olmos will play a former gang leader whom Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) had put behind bars 15 years earlier who is now released from prison in an episode slated to air in October. (TVGuide.com)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Richard Schiff (The West Wing) has joined the cast of CBS' Criminal Minds spinoff, where he is set to recur as FBI Director Jack Fickler. He'll make his first appearance in the series premiere episode, which is slated to air in midseason on CBS. The cast includes Forest Whitaker, Janeane Garofalo, Matt Ryan, Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, and Kirsten Vangsness. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Just what happened to Ed's pea puree on Bravo's Top Chef? TVGuide.com's Gina DiNunno talks to outsted contestant Stephen Hopcraft to find out about the missing accompaniment from last week. "I know he didn't steal Ed's pea puree," said Hopcraft. "Ed either didn't bring it, or it got lost. I even told Ed I blame myself for it because me, Ed and Angelo shared a cooler that day, and I was the first one in the cooler and pulled some of my ingredients out and maybe I didn't put his pea puree back in. I thought I did. I honestly know Alex, and I know he didn't steal it. And I'm probably the only one who's going to say that, so make sure you write that in big, bold letters." (TVGuide.com)

Fox Television Studios president Emiliano Calemzuk will ankle the studio in mid-September in order to take on the newly created position of CEP at Shine Group Americas and oversee Reveille. Calemzuk will remain based in Los Angeles and will report to Elisabeth Murdoch. Calemzuk will likely be succeeded by EVP David Madden. [Editor: congratulations, Emi!] (Hollywood Reporter, Variety))

Katie Jacobs (House) has signed a massive two-year overall deal with a host of interested parties, including FOX, 20th Century Fox Television, and Universal Media Studios. Under the terms of the deal, Jacobs will remain aboard FOX's House as an executive producer as well as develop new projects for studio Universal Media Studios before moving to a new production deal at 20th Century Fox Television, which will be targeted for FOX. (Whew.) "It's been a mutually beneficial relationship over the past couple of years," Jacobs told Variety. Jacobs has also earned a blind pilot directing commitment at FOX as part of the deal. (Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Noah Reid (Strange Days at Blake Holsey High) has been cast as the lead of Syfy's drama pilot Three Inches, which revolves around a twenty-something slacker named Walter (Reid) who gains the ability to move objects three inches with his mind after he is struck by lightning. Walter then brings together a group of other heroes, each of whom has a similarly lackluster power. (Deadline)

Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that A&E has ordered a sequel to the 1978 documentary Scared Straight!, which it will air as a series of four one-hour specials entitled Beyond Scared Straight!. Project, from executive producer Arnold Shapiro, "will chronicle modern confrontational approaches to juvenile crime prevention" and "focus on a different prison program, following a group of at-risk teens and preteens going through the program and then catching up with them two months later." Specials are scheduled to air on the cabler in winter 2011. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Marc Graboff is staying put. NBC Universal have signed a new three-year deal with Graboff, chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, who writes, "I hear the renewal talks went on for several months and Graboff was approached for outside gigs but ultimately opted to remain at NBC where he has been since 2000." (Deadline)

NatGeo has ordered a fifth season of Locked Up Abroad, with ten episodes slated to air in 2011, and announced launch dates for Season Seven of Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan (October 8th) and Sebastian Junger's Sundance documentary Restrepo (November 29th). (Variety)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that former BBC Worldwide Prods. executive Tasha Brown as been hired at Chernin Entertainment, where she will serve as the VP of comedy development. (Deadline)

G4 has ordered eight half-hour episodes of docuseries That's Tough!, which will take audiences inside "the toughest high-security prisons, sniper units and bank vaults." Project, from Super Delicious, is slated to launch on October 20th. (Hollywood Reporter)

CMT has officially entered the scripted game: the country music-focused cabler has ordered twelve episodes of multi-camera comedy Working Class, according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. Project, from writer/executive producer Jill Cargeman, stars Melissa Peterman as a single mom who moves her family into an affluent neighborhood. Series will premiere in January. (Deadline)

Doug Liman's production company Hypnotic has signed a two-year overall development deal with Universal Cable Prods. Liman is directing MTV's comedy pilot I Want My Pants Back, written by David Rosen, as the cable production studio moves into producing content for channels that are not affiliated with NBC Universal. Among the projects in development at UCP for non-NBC Uni channels: AMC's drama pilot Pushers, from creator Neal Baer (Law & Order: SVU). Liman, meanwhile, is one of the executive producers on USA's Covert Affairs. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Details on Kanakaredes' Exit from CSI, Alphas Lands Two, More on McPherson, HIMYM, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello talks to CSI: NY executive producers Pam Veasey and Zachary Reiter about the departure of Melina Kanakaredes from the crime procedural and how they'll handle Stella's exit, given that Kanakaredes will not be reprising her role this fall. "We’re giving her a noble exit,” said Reiter. "We chose not to go the route of killing her off or having her go missing. We felt that would weigh too heavily on the team." However, the action will instead pick up a few months after the events of the season finale and reveal that Stella moved to New Orleans. "She left to run a lab there," Veasey told Ausiello. "And she picked that city because it’s the city of Katrina, the city of BP oil, the city where people are looking for someone to lend a hand. She’ll essentially be Mac in New Orleans. We wanted to do something that was respectful and made a lot of sense." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

More casting on Syfy's 90-minute drama pilot Alphas: Malika Yoba (Defying Gravity) and Laura Mennell (Watchmen) have signed on to star in the pilot, which is written by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow and directed by Jack Bender. Yoba and Mennell will star opposite David Strathairn and will play members of the Alpha team, a group of people "who have extraordinary mental and physical abilities" and who "investigate difficult-to-solve cases that the CIA and FBI have either passed over or were unable to solve." (Variety)

The Hollywood Reporter's Kim Masters is reporting that ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson resigned from the network amid a formal sexual harassment probe into alleged misconduct involving several women--both executives and on-air talent--and an incident at a corporate retreat. Said investigation had been going on for the three weeks leading up to his announcement that he would be stepping down from the company. "Upon Steve McPherson returning to work from his vacation on Monday, he made a voluntary decision to resign and ABC accepted his resignation," said McPherson's lawyer, Tom Hoberman, in a statement. "It is not uncommon for high level executives to be the subject of gossip and innuendo. That would include rumors of internal situations which can easily be misinterpreted or misrepresented. Seems like it goes with the territory, and there is nothing further to discuss." According to Masters, ABC "pointedly did not deny allegations of inappropriate conduct." The situation remains in flux and ABC has yet to officially name a replacement for McPherson, though it's widely believed that ABC Family's Paul Lee has scored the seat. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan talks to How I Met Your Mother creators/executive producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas about what went wrong with the fifth season of the CBS sitcom. "We set out to say, 'What if every episode, you hit the reset button at the end of the episode?'" said Bays. "...We had fun doing that, but I feel like that's not the show we wanted to do." Thomas concurred. "A certain kind of fan of the show felt like last season was less emotionally interesting, less interesting in the larger arc of 'Who's the mother?' but also less interesting in the sense of moving forward in these characters' lives," he told Ryan. "I feel like we earned fans by exploring a lot of different rites of passage in people's lives, and last year I feel like we did a lot less of it." Ryan also gets Bays and Thomas to discuss details of Season Six of Mother, including the return of Rachel Bilson, the handling of Barney and his quest to find his real father, Marshall and Lily's attempts to have a baby, the third installment of the Robin Sparkles saga, and the fact that "by the end of the season, everyone's lives will change dramatically." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, meanwhile, has a few further details on the return of Rachel Bilson's Cindy to How I Met Your Mother. "Bilson will appear in the show’s sixth season premiere this fall when Cindy shows up at MacLaren’s bar, the favored hangout of Mother‘s central quartet," writes Ausiello. Meanwhile, her return sets up some important storytelling. “The season premiere is going to be very much informed by her presence,” Carter Bays told Ausiello. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that USA has renewed procedural drama In Plain Sight for two additional seasons, the series' fourth and fifth installments. "The main cast, including Mary McCormack, Frederick Weller and Paul Ben-Victor, are all set to return to In Plain Sight, which will continue to film in New Mexico," writes Andreeva. (Deadline)

E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos has a run down of just who will be on Glee this season, who won't be, and who may be. It's a long list, to say the least. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Paul Giamatti (John Adams) has been cast in an HBO telepic that will depict the two-week tour that Nikita Khruschchev took of the United States in 1959. Project, from Playtone, is based on Peter Carlson's nonfiction book "K Blows Top," and will be adapted by Paul Bernbaum. "Once in the States, Khrushchev famously blew up when he was informed that a planned trip to Disneyland had to be tabled because of security concerns," writes Variety's Cynthia Littleton. "(The book's title comes from New York Daily News headline about the Disneyland flap.)" (Variety)

BSkyB has signed an exclusive output deal with HBO, said to be in the arena of $234 million over the next five years. Under the terms of the deal, the satcaster retains exclusive rights to all new HBO series, with the first being Boardwalk Empire, current series, past series, and right of first refusal on UK co-productions. (Variety)

Elsewhere across the pond, Channel 4 has secured the UK rights to NBC's upcoming thriller The Event, which will launch in the UK in October. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: Damages Season Four Details, Susan Sarandon Gets Miraculous, RTD Teases Torchwood, Fringe, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

Now that the ink has dried on Damages's DirecTV deal, Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello talks to executive producers Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman about whether the format for the serpentine legal drama will be altered for its fourth and fifth seasons, whether the budget will be affected, why Ellen has gotten past the fact that Patty tried to have her killed, who will be returning, and a host of other issues. "DirecTV wants us to do the show that we’ve been doing," said Zelman. "If anything, they want us to push what we’ve been doing even further. They’re encouraging us to be as bold as possible, which is something we strive for anyway. There have been no discussions about altering the show in any fundamental way." Except for the fact that the episodes will be longer, that is. "What’s exciting for us as creators is that on the 101 Network there are no commercials, so it’ll be an uninterrupted hour," said Todd A. Kessler. "And that lends itself to the type of storytelling we do." Production on Season Four begins in January. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The cast of HBO's drama The Miraculous Year--from writer John Logan and director Kathryn Bigelow--just keeps getting better and better. Susan Sarandon (The Lovely Bones) will join Norbert Leo Butz, Frank Langella, Hope Davis, Lee Pace, Patti LuPone, Eddie Redmayne, and Linus Roach, among others in the cast of the drama pilot, which follows the lives of a wealthy Manhattan family. Sarandon, who will guest star in the pilot, will play Patty Atwood, the director and choreographer for the new show that Norbert Leo Butz's Terry is mounting. (Deadline)

Russell T Davies has teased information about the upcoming fourth season of Torchwood that will air in the US on Starz next year, telling a journalist from SFX that it will be very dark indeed, if not darker than Torchwood: Children of Earth. "Actually, this story is also very dark," said Davies. "I think with that, Torchwood found its feet. People found something very compelling and very chilling about it. I love the way people got on their high horse saying, 'Oh, he killed his grandson!' Hello! He saved every single child in the world! If you would fail to do that then you're the monster, frankly. It's this extraordinary treatment that only science fiction heroes get You find that. If ever a word is said out of place by the Doctor or Captain Jack, or even by Sarah Jane sometimes, people throw their hands up in horror, whereas in any other drama any character is capable of any thing at any time. That's the only way to write, and it's the same for these people as well. I thought it was fascinating and challenging what he did there, but hard—it was so hard. I do think with the whole of Children Of Earth we found a new heartland for Torchwood." (via Blastr)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a video interview with the stars of FOX's Fringe, in which Anna Torv, Josh Jackson, and John Noble discuss Season Three, the romance between Olivia and Peter, and familial bonds. Well worth a look if you don't mind vague spoilers. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan talks to Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia, the producers of Syfy's Eureka about Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton's upcoming turns on the dramedy series as well as about James Callis' Dr. Grant. According to Paglia, Day will play a "very eccentric scientist, someone who was invited to be at Eureka but turned it down," when the series returns for the back half of its season in 2011. According to Ryan, Day's character will be "brought in to consult on a problem and Day's character and the character played by Wheaton, who will appear in several episodes, will be involved in a love triangle with a Eureka regular. The producers wouldn't say who it is, but I'd bet money that it's Fargo." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Glee fans, say goodbye to Coach Tanaka. TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that Patrick Gallagher--who plays the surly high school coach/gym teacher, is not expected to return for the second season of Glee this fall and the producers will be introducing a new character--Dot Jones' Shannon Beiste--as the new football coach at William McKinnley High. "As he has not been written into the show's first few episodes," writes Keck, "it appears that Tanaka ran his course after failing in his attempt to marry Emma." (TV Guide Magazine)

Liam Neeson is set to guest star on an upcoming episode of Showtime's Laura Linney-led dark comedy The Big C, where he will play Bee Man, an eccentric man whom Cathy consults for a possible cancer treatment. (via press release)

Nigel Lythgoe is said to be thisclose to finalizing a deal that will see him return to FOX's American Idol as an executive producer for the tenth season. Lythgoe is widely expected to close the deal and serve alongside Ken Warwick, Simon Fuller, and Cecile Frot-Coutaz. "Fox is seeking to bring back Lythgoe to work on the hit series as part of a master plan to reboot the show following the exit of top judge Simon Cowell," writes The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd. "In addition, Idol fans can add pop star Justin Timberlake to the list of potential Cowell replacements. Timberlake, along with legendary singer Elton John, is on Idol producer 19 Entertainment chief Simon Fuller's wish list." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Common (Date Night) has been cast in AMC period drama pilot Hell on Wheels, the first talent attachment to the drama, which depicts the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Common will play Elam, described as "a freed slave who comes west seeking work on the railroad and his place in the world" and who, "as a half black, half white man... does not completely belong to either world." (Deadline)

G4 has purchased four anime-inspired series based on Marvel characters from Sony Pictures Entertainment. The cabler has ordered twelve episodes each of X-Men, Wolverine, Iron Man and Blade, which it will launch in 2011. Marvel Entertainment will produce with Madhouse and each of the anime series will have some thread connecting it to Asia in some way. [Editor: the inclusion of Wolverine here then makes sense, given his history in Japan, but X-Men? Interesting.] (Variety)

It's thought quite elementary that BBC One's new mystery series Sherlock--a modern-day version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's sleuth from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss--will be recommissioned for a second season after 7.5 million viewers tuned in on Sunday to watch the first episode. (Broadcast)

In other UK news, British viewers will be able to watch the CW's Nikita and NBC's Chase, following a deal between studio Warner Bros. Television and The Living TV Group (a division of BSkyB) that will bring the series to Living. Nikita will air this fall on the channel, while Chase will jump across the pond in 2011. (Hollywood Reporter)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Jeff and Jackie Filgo have left ABC's comedy pilot Awkward Situations For Men, which is being reworked and will be reshot. The cast of the original pilot--Danny Wallace, Tony Hale, and Laura Prepon--will return for the redone pilot though studio Warner Bros. Television will have to find a replacement for the Filgos, who wrote the pilot with Wallace and served as executive producers on the project. (Deadline)

TV Guide Magazine's Will Keck is reporting that an earthquake will rock Los Angeles in the September 13th season premiere of 90210. "We wanted to open the season with an event that has both physical and emotional ramifications for several people," co-executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman told Keck and added that the incident will seriously affect one character. "One of them has a very serious injury that takes time to resolve and sort of changes the direction of his or her life." (TV Guide Magazine)

Epix has acquired rights to stand-up comedy film Louis C.K.: Hilarious, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year. The pay cabler will air the film on September 18th on Epix, its website, and its on demand service before Comedy Central gets a second window in 2011. (Variety)

CBS and CBS Studios have signed a talent holding deal with former King of Queens star Leah Remini, who will also serve as one of the hosts of CBS' new mom-centric daytime talk show. Under the terms of the deal, Remini will star in a new half-hour comedy pilot for the network. (Deadline)

Former ITV managing director Lee Bartlett has returned Stateside, where he has moved into the business affairs EVP position at Discovery Communications. He'll be based in Los Angeles and will report to Peter Ligouri. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Being Human Creator Toby Whithouse Discusses Syfy's US Adaptation

Appearing on SFX's SFX presents The British Invasion panel, Toby Whithouse, the creator of the BBC Three supernatural drama Being Human, responded to a question about his feelings surrounding the American adaptation of Being Human, which is currently being cast and which will air on Syfy.

"It will be a wrench, but I will console myself with the money," joked Whithouse when asked by moderator Dave Bradley about how it would feel to see his series adapted for American audiences.

Whithouse's full answer to to the question can be found below, courtesy of Televisionary special correspondent Mark DiFruscio, who was on hand to film Whithouse's response.



Season Two of Being Human launches tomorrow night on BBC America.

Channel Surfing: Olivia Munn Tackles Chuck, Scott Porter Investigates The Good Wife, Chris Isaak Could Replace Simon, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. A few things to get through before I hit the road for San Diego and Comic-Con.

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Olivia Munn (the newly minted Daily Show correspondent) will guest star on NBC's Chuck this fall when the series returns for its fourth season on September 20th. Munn, who is a series regular on NBC's midseason comedy Perfect Couples, will play "an impossibly cool, smart, and pretty CIA agent who intimidates and schools Chuck and Morgan" in the same installment that features Dolph Lundgren. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

In other scoop, Ausiello writes that former Friday Night Lights star Scott Porter will be joining the cast of CBS' The Good Wife this fall. Porter, whose CW pilot Nomads was not ordered to series, will play Blake, described as "Kalinda’s private-eye counterpart at the D.C. firm that’s merging with Lockhart & Gardner" who "offsets his cynical attitude with lots of hidden humor and sexual charisma. He is disguised as a landlord when he first encounters Kalinda, who doesn’t appreciate being taken in by this ‘master of disguise.’ However, underneath their fractious interactions, there’s definite chemistry between these two." Porter is expected to appear in at least ten episodes of The Good Wife's second season. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Wicked Game? Singer Chris Issak is among the frontrunners to replace Simon Cowell on FOX's American Idol, as is Harry Connick Jr. while Bret Michaels and Donald Trump have each lobbied to replace Cowell for the tenth season of Idol. "The network is determined to land a widely known music industry figure for the post, and THR has learned that singer Chris Isaak has met twice with the network," write James Hibberd and Kim Masters. "Also, at least one desirable candidate has set off a tug-of-war between Idol executive producer Simon Fuller and Cowell -- whose upcoming Fox singing competition The X Factor is similarly seeking judges." Hmmm... (Hollywood Reporter)

Syfy has announced that the back half of Season One of Caprica will not air until January 2011, a sizable delay given that the first half of the season wrapped in the end of March. Here's how Syfy is positioning the remainder of the season: "In season 1.5, the once idyllic world of Caprica – as well as life across the colonies – falls prey to an explosive chain reaction of consequences set off by the characters’ many questionable actions in the season’s first half. Tensions rise, power shifts and the line between reality and the virtual world becomes increasingly blurred as everyone struggles to learn – and conquer – the stakes in this volatile setting. As the season races towards its stunning conclusion, events of each episode lay the framework for the inevitable (and brutal) clash between the newly-created Cylon race and their human creators." (via press release)

Universal Media Studios has signed a deal with The Office writer/co-star B.J. Novak that will keep him aboard the NBC comedy series for two more seasons and will be bumped to an executive producer title halfway through the series' upcoming seventh season. He'll also develop new projects for the studio as well. "B.J. has been an integral part of The Office since the launch of the show," said Angela Bromstad, NBC's president of primetime entertainment. "Whether he's in the writing room or appearing on screen, we always get the smart, sophisticated, ridiculously funny humor from him that the fans have come to love." (Variety)

Mark your calendars: HBO has announced that Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down will return for their second seasons on Sunday, September 26th at 10 pm and 10:30 pm ET/PT respectively. (via press release)

TVGuide.com's Denise Martin is reporting that Katherine Moenning (The L Word) will guest star in the upcoming season of Showtime's serial killer drama Dexter, where she will play a tattoo artist appearing in one episode. "How she'll become embroiled in the serial killer's world remains unknown," writes Martin. The fifth season of Dexter launches Sunday, September 26th at 9 pm ET/PT. (TVGuide.com)

Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) will be dropping by ABC's The Middle for the second season premiere, airing September 22nd. She'll play a new teacher for Brick who is "an intimidating force to be reckoned with" and "'strong' opinions about Frankie's parenting methods." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

File under strange but true: CBS' drama pilot Chaos, the subject of a lively back and forth between the network and studio 20th Century Fox Television, is allegedly alive again, according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. "The resurrection process took a step forward yesterday when CBS' entertainment president Nina Tassler had lunch with 20th TV chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman to discuss the matter," writes Andreeva. "I hear the Brett Ratner-directed Chaos is now back on track for a midseason series order at CBS, possibly as a co-production between 20th TV and CBS TV Studios. The only major obstacle is bringing back the cast, led by Freddy Rodriguez, which was released on June 30 when the actors' options expired. I hear the actors have been approached about returning and things look optimistic on that front." (Deadline)

If you were worried that the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore wouldn't be back for a third season, you can rest easy today: the entire cast has renegotiated their contracts and will be approximately $30,000 per episode for Season Three. [Editor: the sound you hear? Me gagging.] (The Wrap)

ABC Family is launching new comedy Melissa & Joey on Tuesday, August 17th, with two back-to-back episodes at 8 and 8:30 pm ET/PT. (via press release)

Cinemax is resurrecting the thriller anthology genre with a new latenight series Femme Fatales, based on the magazine. Format will be a half-hour anthology, airing in a latenight slot with a narrator introducing short-form thrillers. Project, which has received a series order, is executive produced by Mark A. Altman and Steve Kriozere. (Hollywood Reporter)

Bert Salke will replace Chris Carlisle as the president of Fox21, the subdivision of 20th Century Fox Television that specializes in cable and reality programming. He is expected to start in August and will report to Dana Walden and Gary Newman. (Deadline)

FremantleMedia has teamed up with Mark Sennett Entertainment and Headline Pictures to develop period racing drama The Drivers, which will be based on Wallace A. Wyss' book, "Shelby: The Man, the Cars, the Legend." Series will revolve around a group of drivers from US and Europe who race for the top prize at Le Mans and will be set in either the 1950s or 1960s. (Variety)

Stay tuned.