TVSquad

(S04E15)

Even if this was the first episode of Hell's Kitchen that a viewer had seen this season, they would have understood what the players were like and what the game was about just by watching this season finale. Jen was bitchy and unreasonable, Matt was bat-shit crazy, Louross was hyperactive, Ramsay swore a lot, food got sent back, some food went out raw. It was like a wrap-up of the season while still being a new episode.

But who won in the end, Petrozza or Christina? The answer after the jump.

(S03E06) After two weeks of hard core issues, it's nice to take a break and get an episode that isn't quite so divisive. I was hoping that this final 30 Days would be like the season premiere in that it showed me some things I wasn't aware of.

Growing up in Arizona, I went to school with quite a few Native Americans. I remember my friend Dave King would always make jokes about how I (the white man) took everything from him. It was all in good fun but it was one of the things that made me sensitive to the plight of the Native Americans. Now, as an adult, I always vote in favor of keeping the Native American casinos exempt from paying state taxes. Maybe it has more to do with feeling guilty but, that's how I roll.

(M3) "I like a bar with a nice clean head." - Lou

I'm gonna have to agree with Lou on this one. Nothing is more disgusting than walking in to a bathroom at a bar and seeing water(?) all over the floors, toilet seats with yellow stains, no toilet paper, and sinks that don't work. Some people though, that won't bother them. After all, you are just going in to pee and leave. Unless you're Lou. And you've had 12 beers. And the "pains" kick in. And there's no toilet paper. And you use your sock. The most troubling thing to me about that? There's lot of people who would probably do what Lou did in the same situation. Ugh.

The cable network History -- formerly known as the History Channel (it'll always be the History Channel to me) -- has a couple of projects in the works, one of which will likely fuel both sides of the political debate as election time nears.

"102 Minutes That Changed the World" is a piece on 9/11, culling footage from pros and amateurs, including two terrified New York University seniors in a high-rise dorm just blocks from the World Trade Center. They started shooting the smoking North Tower after it was hit by the first plane, then captured the second plane hitting the South Tower.

The 102-minute piece will premiere without commercials at 9 p.m. on Sept. 11. Done in "real time" format, it'll feature footage from more than 100 sources, pieced together in chronological order, without narration, to provide what History is calling a "seamless historical record of that day."

It's coming. The return of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. With the season three DVD set to be released on September 9th, FX has lined up season four to premiere on Thursday, September 18th. I've gotta say - between this, The Shield, and Sons of Anarchy, FX has one helluva fall schedule. No word on whether or not the first few weeks will be double episodes as they did the past few seasons, but I would imagine they will be.

To prep for the season, FX has been airing promos like crazy (I embedded a great one featuring "Day Man" at the end of this post), but if you haven't been poking around the It's Always Sunny... website, you probably missed this: they made a music video.

I'm not sure why anyone, at this point, hasn't seen the first episode of AMC's Mad Men yet (anyone who wants to see it, that is). The entire first season is up on iTunes, AMC reran the show after the first run, and the DVDs have been out for a couple of weeks now, so there have been a lot of different ways for newbies and fans alike to get caught up on the show if they're interested enough. And now there's another way: AMC has made the first episode available for free on its site.

If you become hooked on the show after watching this first episode (of course you will!), check out AMC on July 20. They're going to have a marathon of the entire first season starting at noon. The second season starts the following Sunday, July 27, on it's new night, Sunday at 10pm.

(After you watch chapter 1 after the jump, click here for chapters 2 and 3.)

Here's who's on the late night shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Jamie Dimon
• The Daily Show: Ted Koppel (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Paul Goldberger and Neil Degrasse Tyson (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Mike Myers, Kevin Robinson, and Adele (repeat)
• Jay Leno: Aaron Eckhart, Dara Torres, and Los Lonely Boys
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: David Beckham and Liv Tyler (repeat)
• Tavis Smiley: Emily Procter and Senator Jim Webb (repeat)
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Selma Blair, Sig Hansen, and Little Jackie
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Jeffrey Tambor (repeat)
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Rob Corddry, Steve Hely, and Vali Chandrasekaren (repeat)

• Did you know that Fine Living has new episodes of Emeril Live every night at 7?
• At 8, ABC has a new Wipeout, followed by new episodes of I Survived A Japanese Game Show and Primetime: The Outsiders.
• FOX has a new Moment of Truth (I thought the summer finale already happened?) at 8, then the season finale of Hell's Kitchen.
• NBC has new episodes of Celebrity Family Feud and America's Got Talent.
• At 9, Discovery has a new Deadliest Catch, then a new After The Catch.
• At 10, FX has a new Rescue Me minisode, followed by the season finale of 30 Days.
• Bravo has a new Flipping Out at 10.
• Lifetime Movie Network has the movie Nightmare at the End of the Hall at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Ah, summertime. The heat, the haze, the traffic, the lack of The Office; what's not to hate? Luckily, the brilliant folks behind The Office have been busy figuring out ways to tide us over until the fall. Starting Thursday, July 10, NBC.com will be airing Office webisodes. For those of you who like your Dunder Mifflin-ites live, Mindy Kaling (Kelly) will be hosting the Office Games in Scranton on Saturday, July 19.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Mindy Kaling and Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) as they discussed the webisodes, Office Games, friendly competition and the status of a few MIA Dunder Mifflin employees.

If I were to sit down and think about it, I would guess that I've watched five or six hours of television every single day since 1970.

Now, that might seem like an outlandish number to many people. After all, didn't I go to school and later work? Yes I did. But I can honestly say that when I got home from school I watched TV until 11 at night, every single night, and a lot more during the summer (and I even found time to go outside to play baseball!). Today I have the TV on from approximately 8 AM until well after midnight. That's a lot of TV watching over the years.

I thought of that when I read this article that says Americans are watching more television than ever.

With Rescue Me's fifth season finally (kinda, sorta) getting closer, we're getting more and more news about what's in store for Tommy and the gang. In addition to the minisodes, we've also got some exciting potential casting news: Michael J. Fox may be joining Rescue Me for a multi-episode arc. Fox is set to play a love interest for Tommy's (Dennis Leary) on-again/off-again ex, Janet (Andrea Roth).

Rescue Me may seem like an odd show for the former Spin City and Family Ties star to pop up on, but Fox and Leary are longtime friends. This friendship means that even though the deal isn't completely finalized, there's very good chance that Fox will be seen on the FX drama next summer.

There are two things you may or may not believe about Monk. One is the fact that it is now entering its seventh season on USA Network (season premiere on Friday, July 18th). The other is that the series will be celebrating its 100th episode this year, making it the grandaddy of the 'Characters Welcome' slate of original programming on the network.

This will be an interesting season for Mr. Monk. With the death of Stanley Kamel back in April, Monk will be getting a new doctor this year in the form of Hector Elizondo. In addition to that, Monk's search for his wife's killer will intensify after a big piece of the puzzle was revealed during last season's finale. Throw in guest appearances by Robert Loggia, Brad Garrett and Eric McCormick, and this could be a big season for the show.

One of our writers, Bob Sassone, introduced me to Ken Levine's blog a couple of years ago. Within a couple of weeks I had his RSS feed in my "Must Always Read" category, and there it remains.

If you don't know who Ken Levine is, if you're any sort of fan of television, it's likely you've seen something he's written: His credits include 36 episodes of Cheers, 16 episodes of M*A*S*H, seven episodes of Frasier, seven episodes of Becker, four episodes of Wings, two episodes of The Simpsons ... and a partridge in a pear tree. In short, the man knows how to write; he's won an Emmy for his writing and even sometimes offers a highly-regarded course on comedy writing, called The Sitcom Room.

Levine's blog is filled with stories from his days with the aforementioned shows, and they're sometimes hilarious, always fascinating. As a friend of TV Squad, and to celebrate the all-things Cheers week of Retro Squad, he's taken the time out to share a new story below. Enjoy!

Executive television producer Mark Burnett is being sued by his former business partner Conrad Riggs for $70 million. Burnett, a British television producer, is best known for kick-starting the reality television genre in the United States. He's been on the producer and creator train for shows such as Survivor, The Apprentice, Rock Star, The Contender, Martha Stewart Apprentice, Pirate Master, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, On the Lot (with Steven Speilberg), and more.

So, why is he being sued for the big bucks? Read on past the jump.

There's a long-running joke around our house about the Hallmark channel. Whenever anyone surfs by it long enough to hear a wispy theme song, someone will invariably drop to their knees, lightly press the back of their hand to their forehead, and feign a woman in emotional turmoil. Let's face it, that pretty much describes a lot of Hallmark movies.

So when I read in Variety that Hallmark has 30 movies in the pipeline -- and would be announcing them at the Television Critics Association confab (I guess that's what they call it when it's not the real deal?) -- I knew that a good portion of them would probably have the word "love" in the title.

Yep, sure enough. They've picked up the rights to the next two installments in the Love Comes Softly franchise, based on Janette Oke's series of eight novels set in the Old West.

The seventh title, Love Takes Wing, is in production and will air in the first quarter of 2009, starring Cloris Leachman and Hayley Duff. The final title, Love Finds a Home, is still in the script stage and hasn't been cast.