The brain behind Arrested Development is now developing an Absolutely Fabulous remake for Fox. For those unaware, the British series is about an immature, hippie-era mother, her best friend and her intelligent daughter (played respectively by creator Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha).
In the height of her popularity, Roseanne tried to remake the show and involved the creators and co-stars. Sadly, that didn't come to pass. Whatever you think of Roseanne, at least she was smart enough to involve the original creators, unlike McG. With the big push for Brit remakes thanks to the success of The Office, another attempted remake of this show is not that big a stretch.
While I very much enjoyed the original series, I do think the 2001 and 2003 continued episodes were a bit unnecessary. You know things have gone too far when Whoopi Goldberg guest-stars.
Given the talent behind it, this version could see the light of day. I just hope they actually involve the original creators.
With a healthy stable of hits including The Shield, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, and Damages, you can easily make the argument that FX has a pretty good idea of what makes a good drama and what doesn't. Unfortunately, you can't say the same thing for comedies.
The cable network has scored a huge hit with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (now in its fourth season), but they've had no other comedic successes. You might recall that when Sunny premiered back in the summer of 2005, it aired in tandem with FX's only other sitcom attempt, the Eric Schaeffer vehicle Starved. Personally, I thought Starved was a great show and deserved a second season but the ratings didn't justify it. The subject matter (eating disorders) probably didn't help either.
So after a long hiatus, FX is finally giving comedy another shot with Testees, a new sitcom from the mind of Kenny Hotz (Kenny vs. Spenny). I had a chance to see the pilot episode and after viewing it, I think it'll probably do OK.
If you're like me, the first thing that you do after you wipe those crusty things out of your eyes is turn on CNBC, Fox Business Network or Bloomberg to see how much more the economy is in a tailspin. Sometimes you watch to see how far oil has fallen. Other times you watch just to see if another bank or investment firm failed. Still, other times you watch to shake your fist and scream in anger to no one in particular.
Should any of these reasons be the case, you are not alone. Fact of the matter is you are part of an growing audience for these business channels. Over the last few weeks networks like CNBC and FBN have been racking up the viewers, with many of them jumping on the disaster bandwagon in the last half of September. For instance, when the Dow Jones Average plunged 778 points on September 29th, CNBC's average total viewership reached an all-time high of 726,000. Fox Business Network, which has only been around for about a year and isn't on nearly as many cable systems, garnered an average of 91,000 viewers on that same day.
(S02E02) "His liver must look like camouflage." - Chuck Bartowski
As amusing as he is, I can't say that I'm excited about Lester becoming a douchebag now that he is assistant manager. Haven't we already seen this on shows like The Office? Of course, everyone still defers to Chuck on anything important, but a complete lack of discipline was what made the Buy More a great place to work, wasn't it?
Did the producers copy my iPod when I wasn't looking? Once again, Huey Lewis is the perfect musical choice.
With Rescue Me failing to bring in the ratings FX really needs or wants, and even this final, and for the record brilliant, season of The Shield under-performing, it's pretty awesome that new series Sons of Anarchy seems to have found an audience. I'm a couple episodes behind (so I'm not helping with the ratings I guess), but after a slow start, this story of a biker gang of criminals is really starting to suck me in.
Apparently I'm not the only one. In five short weeks, Sons has managed to not only retain 3.5 million viewers in the adults 18-49 demo, but it's retained 97% of its total audience since the premiere. Which is why FX decided to pick the show up for a second season.
(S04E03) As a native and resident of New Jersey, I was very offended by this episode.
Actually, that's not true. As most Jerseyans will tell you, we have a sense of humor about our state and make fun of it all the time. But when outsiders make fun of it, boy... watch out.
Ted Mosby's the worst kind of New Yorker; he moves there from some other part of the country, rides a subway or two, has a dog at Papaya King and thinks he has the right to make fun of the B&Ts (Bridge & Tunnelers) who love visiting New York but would rather live in their (slightly) cheaper and quieter homes in the suburbs. We've seen Ted unleash his wrath on the Garden State in the past, but now his dislike of my home state came back to bite him in the ass... in the form of a pretty blond doctor.
(S02E05) The game of time-travel chess continues. It seems that whenever Sarah and the gang foil one Terminator plot, another two crop up in its place (or they fulfill some sort of objective from Skynet and bring things one step closer to Judgement Day).
Observations from tonight's episode:
How did Reese get the credentials to teach at the military school? I know being from the future gives one access to certain information, but it seems a stretch.
(S07E06) Week three did not get off to a great start down at Dancing With The Stars HQ. The ten performances we were expecting had been reduced to nine. It seems that while training on Friday night, Misty May-Treanor suffered an injury that would keep her from performing as part of the top ten.
I could go into detail about that right here, above the jump, but I've chosen to be as annoying as the producers of the show, and drag it out until the very end of the post. So, we'll get to that later. Along with Misty's story, we also have a look at how the rest of the couples dealt with tackling the Viennese waltz and the jive. I'll also give you my guess for what it all means for Tuesday's big results show.
(S03E04) A lot of people have said in the comments that it appears as if I don't like Heroes. Believe me, that's not true. I'm actually a huge fan of the show. As a huge comic book junkie for more years and dollars than good sense will allow me to admit, the potential and general premise of this series is tremendously exciting. And the fact that it achieved such mainstream success right out of the gate was nothing short of astounding.
However, just like you'll tell your wife whom you love more than anything else that she has a piece of lettuce stuck in her teeth, I'm not going to just put on rose-colored glasses and pretend that every scene, line and moment of each episode is solid gold. If I see lettuce, I'm going to call them on it. Because the way I see it, it's just lettuce. It doesn't change how wonderful and beautiful she is in the slightest. It's just a little thing that needs to be taken care of because it's distracting me and it doesn't really fit the whole look her face is going for. Kind of like whatever's going on with Mohinder.
New York magazine has reported that the Saturday Night Live team is brainstorming some way to involve the real Sarah Palin in one of the upcoming "Weekend Update" episodes. Word is, she might play Tina Fey in a spoof of her American Express commercial. Granted, this will gain Palin some of those much needed cool points with the comedy crowd, but I'm having trouble picturing this actually coming to fruition. It's fun enough trying to picture what the writers would put her through, because they haven't made any attempts to hide how they feel about her.
Wow, this is quite a list of shows this week, though I think the only one I'm definitely going to buy is the second season 30 Rock set. Maybe the Three Stooges set too. Those are good sets to have. I'm tempted to buy the complete series set for Speed Racer because I remember it from my childhood, but I have a big suspicion that my memories would be better than the show itself.
30 Rock - Season 2
The Beverly Hillbillies - Season 2
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern - Collection 2
Brotherhood - Season 2
Corner Gas - Season 5
Doctor Who - The Brain of Morbius and Trial of a Time Lord
Full Circle with Michael Palin
Ghost Hunters - Season 4, Part 1
How I Met Your Mother - Season 3
Johnny Cash & Friends - Christmas Specials
Martin - Season 5
Midsomer Murders - Box Set 11
Mission: Impossible - Season 5
The Munsters - Complete Series and Family Portrait
You know that scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally, when Meg Ryan is in a New York deli and simulates having an orgasm? Then Estelle Reiner looks over and says to the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."?
Well, that's how a lot of actors in Hollywood must be feeling about actor Steven Weber -- "I'll have what he's having!" -- because he's been on a hot streak going from role to role to role, TV series to TV series. The latest is his landing a juicy part on Desperate Housewives.
The former Wings star will be playing Julie's lover, her college professor who's a serial monogamist, having been married three times. Susan, reportedly, is going to freak out about her daughter getting serious with a guy who's old enough to be her father.
This role is being slated for just one episode, so far, but you never know. He could turn out to be Susan's son-in-law down the road.
The Mentalist, the Tuesday night Simon Baker drama, has just been given the green light for a full season. The show is averaging 15.4 million viewers an episode, which is great considering it's in its first season and there are 22 other police procedurals on the network right now.
But The Mentalist is a bit different than those shows. This show runs completely on the personality of Baker, even if he does have a team of investigators that he is part of. The show is really counting on Baker to sell this character, to be charming and intelligent and funny and all that. Plots and scripts can take a show to great places, but if the lead character doesn't work it can really tilt a show out of balance. Baker makes this character work.
Hasselbeck has had a lot of battles on the show with her co-hosts, from Rosie O'Donnell months ago to Barbara Walters. But today was the day I actually felt bad for her. The group was talking about the election, and how nasty the election could soon get in the final few weeks (Joy wasn't on the show today, so it was Elisabeth, Whoopi, Sherri, and Barbara). After playing the funny debate sketch from Saturday Night Live, the women discussed Governor Palin's attack on Barack Obama over the weekend, linking him to Bill Ayers (probably a desperate gambit by McCain but a fully legitimate one, I believe). Now, this has been brought up before, most notably by George Stephanopoulos in a debate and also by Hillary Clinton if I remember correctly, but the McCain campaign is bringing it up again.
So when the women discussed it, you can pretty much guess what happened.
The brain behind Arrested Development is now developing an Absolutely Fabulous remake for Fox. For those unaware, the British series is about an immature, hippie-era mother, her best friend and her intelligent daughter (played respectively by creator Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha).
With a healthy stable of hits including The Shield, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, and Damages, you can easily make the argument that FX has a pretty good idea of what makes a good drama and what doesn't. Unfortunately, you can't say the same thing for comedies.
If you're like me, the first thing that you do after you wipe those crusty things out of your eyes is turn on CNBC, Fox Business Network or Bloomberg to see how much more the economy is in a tailspin. Sometimes you watch to see how far oil has fallen. Other times you watch just to see if another bank or investment firm failed. Still, other times you watch to shake your fist and scream in anger to no one in particular. 
(S02E02) "His liver must look like camouflage." - Chuck Bartowski
With 
(S02E05) The game of time-travel chess continues. It seems that whenever Sarah and the gang foil one Terminator plot, another two crop up in its place (or they fulfill some sort of objective from Skynet and bring things one step closer to Judgement Day).
(S07E06) Week three did not get off to a great start down at Dancing With The Stars HQ. The ten performances we were expecting had been reduced to nine. It seems that while training on Friday night, Misty May-Treanor suffered an injury that would keep her from performing as part of the top ten. 
(S03E04) A lot of people have said in the comments that it appears as if I don't like Heroes. Believe me, that's not true. I'm actually a huge fan of the show. As a huge comic book junkie for more years and dollars than good sense will allow me to admit, the potential and general premise of this series is tremendously exciting. And the fact that it achieved such mainstream success right out of the gate was nothing short of astounding.
New York magazine has reported that the 
Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.
You know that scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally, when Meg Ryan is in a New York deli and simulates having an orgasm? Then Estelle Reiner looks over and says to the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."?
At 5, TBS has the Rays/White Sox game, followed by the Red Sox/Angels game.
Looks like CBS has a hit on its hands.
I don't know if the rumors about 
Giveaway Monday: How I Met Your Mother season three DVD
Oops! Newspapers around the world use SNL pic as official Palin one - VIDEO
The evolution of TV Squad
