TVSquad

That's the finding of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, ruling against the producers of CSI: NY who claimed that the show could be considered "a critically-acclaimed look at forensic policing in post-9/11 New York City."

The show has been airing on Canada's History Television channel and the commission says that the producers (Alliance Atlantis) have to take it off the air by January 1 (the producers have to take it off the air? Can't the channel just not show it?)

In other news, Pussycat Dolls Presents is not educational television, and Weeds is not a health and exercise show.

Each year, television production studios send out oodles (that's the word I use when I don't have an exact figure) of DVDs to voters for Emmy awards. This year, CBS Paramount Television went green with its Emmy campaign. It's all explained on this website, but CBS has essentially decided to save the planet by not creating a bunch of DVDs that will just go in the trash and has, instead, directed voters to watch episodes online.

That means we can watch 'em, too.

Go here to check out which episodes of CBS Paramount (different from the CBS network) were submitted for Emmy consideration. The online video quality looks and sounds great. Among the contenders are a CSI episode with Liev Schreiber, Criminal Minds with James van der Beek, and an episode of Jericho, which the CBS network recently canceled.

CBS is on a good run, being the most watched network for the last five years, but they have taken a bit of heat for the formulaic way they have gone about doing it. Not arguing with success, the whole family of CSIs, and their crime based cousins, will be back, but the network is trying to branch out with some edgier programming. Most notably, Swingtown, Viva Laughlin, and Moonlight.

Returning: The Amazing Race, Cold Case, 60 Minutes, How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, CSI: Miami, NCIS, The Unit, Criminal Minds, CSI: NY, Survivor, CSI, Shark, Without A Trace, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs, 48 Hours Mystery.

New: Viva Laughlin, Swingtown, Moonlight, Cane, Big Bang Theory, Power of 10, Kid Nation

Out: King of Queens, Jericho, The Class, Close To Home

Moving: Without A Trace moves back to Thursday at 10. Shark heads to Sunday at 10.

Before I begin I just want to let you know that I am just the messenger, and that all replies of outrage should go directly to Andy Dehnart at MSNBC. See, Andy writes the weekly '5Top' column at MSNBC's website and this week he focuses on the top 5 shows that should be canceled. Now, you would think that a list such as this would contain shows such as According to Jim, The War at Home, or Meet the Press. This one actually contains none of those shows. In reality, it contains five shows that are actually still pretty big and watched by good amount of the viewing public.

From bottom to top, Andy wants to cancel CSI:New York, ER, The Simpsons, 24 and Lost. Wow! All right, I could see CSI:NY and ER, although the longest-running medical drama on television right now has seen a rebound this season. It may not matter anyway as next season may be the show's last. But, The Simpsons? Sure, it's not as strong as it used to be; however, if you're a FOX network executive are you really going to pull the show right before The Simpsons Movie premieres in theaters this summer, which will probably bring a resurgence to the show next season? I think not! Lost and 24? Sure, cancel those. Just be ready for the angry mobs of rabid fans that storm the network studios when that happens.

By the by, after you read Andy's picks scroll down to the live MSNBC vote on what shows should be put out of their misery. Lost is up there with 15 percent of the vote, followed by ER and The Simpsons with 12 percent. Oh, According to Jim is on that list as well, with a measly seven percent of the vote. Huh. Maybe we were all wrong about that show after all.

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

I'm honestly not even sure how I came up with this, but there are a ton of medical dramas and comedies on TV. That means there's a lot of TV doctors, both past and present. So why not have some of them do battle? I think it seems incredibly logical. Peanut butter and jelly. Hot dogs and beans. TV doctors and cage-matches. So there... because I said so.

Now, with so many shows out there, some people may be wondering why I didn't choose doctors from some of the programs you'd expect. For instance, I stayed away from pitting any of the members of Grey's Anatomy in a battle royale because I figured if any of them got into a fight with someone, it'd just turn into an unexpected sex romp. By the same token, I didn't pick anyone from St. Elsewhere figuring that any fight involving someone from that show would just evolve into an inside joke that only a few people understood. Additionally, not every character I picked is from a straight up "medical" show and in one instance, I'm not sure they're actually even a doctor. Whatever... it sounds fun doesn't it?

Jim Carrey has been doing the talk show circuits to promote his new movie The Number 23. I'm always waiting for him to mention Lost's Easter eggs, but it seems that he sure loves himself some David Caruso and CSI.

In his visit to The Late Show With David Letterman, Carrey's exuberant comedic personality came out to play and he paid homage to David Caruso by doing his own impressions of the CSI actor.

If you're Jim Carrey, all you need is a good pair of sunglasses and a line from your favorite cartoon!

And in other Top 5 news, if you're looking for someone to say that they have never seen Paula Abdul drink...

It's a cross-promotional party over at CBS for Grammy Week '07. In anticipation of the February 11th broadcast of the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, nominees Mary J. Blige and Nelly Furtado will be making special guest appearances on CBS shows. Blige will be playing opposite lackluster recording artist Jennifer Love Hewitt on an episode of Ghost Whisperer, and Nelly Furtado will be playing a dead hooker on CSI: NY. Oops... actually she's not playing a dead hooker. I just saw "network crime procedural" and "attractive woman" so I thought "dead hooker."

After spending the holidays with my family, I was driving back home early this morning when an odd billboard along the interstate caught my eye. It was Gary Sinise doing his best to strike a manly pose and convince me that the best way to spend my holiday money was by purchasing a ridiculously expensive Baume & Mercier watch. I then began to laugh as I glanced down at my beat up Timex and pushed the Indiglo button. Still gets me every time. It's like a firefly on my wrist.

Anywho, I just thought it was amusing. I always get a kick out of what items celebrities choose to lend their name and image to. Remember how much fun I had when I found out that Evangeline Lilly was endorsing a new line of carpet?

So I decided to look into this odd pairing (Gary Sinise isn't exactly synonymous with watch connoisseur) and if you're still interested, read on for my life-altering realization.

There's a tongue-in-cheek article over at The New York Times about a theory among television critics that all the procedurals on CBS are an homage to Les Moonves. I'm starting to subscribe to this theory (and feel a little jealous that I didn't come up with it first!). The columnist argues that procedurals such as all the CSI franchises, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, Shark and NCIS all have a lead male character in his 50s who is a workaholic and young minions eager to please him. The writer suggests that this is how CBS chief exec Les Moonves sees himself.

The article points out that while guys like Jerry Bruckheimer produce many of the series, it's Moonves who does the hand-picking of the series that make air. And he chooses the man who will play the 'fatherly' lead roles. The writer notes that, like Moonves, none of these lead actors is bald (except Stanley Tucci, but 3 lbs was canceled after thre episodes). And, Moonves' marriage to Early Show anchor Joey Chen reflects the common storyline in these series about young, beautiful women falling in love with the married-to-work men.

Is it a waste of newsprint? Maybe. But it's still a cute poke at Moonves and all the similar series he has on CBS.

(S03E01) I'm not planning on covering CSI: NY all season (once it starts up, I'll be writing reviews for 30 Rock on Wednesday nights), but I figured I should at least put something up on the season premiere. It was actually pretty decent, especially since I think this is the weakest show in the CSI franchise. Describing any of the intricacies of the cases seems pointless at this point though. In the off season, this show has gone through a lot of changes and that's what I'd like to discuss.

The crew and supporting cast members of CSI:NY were filming in a building where a mummified corpse was discovered on Tuesday. The actual filming was happening in a Los Angeles apartment building, where the landlord found one of his tenants had been dead for quite a while. Apparently the guy was behind on rent and, on the day of filming, the landlord decided to make a house call. The body was found two floors below where filming was happening so real police presence apparently didn't disrupt fake police on camera.

Edward Furlong will have a recurring role on CBS' CSI:NY this season. He'll play Shane Casey, a young man who is somehow involved in the investigation of a serial killer. The description of the actual storyline makes me think the CSI writers have lost their minds: "where a serial killer uses trendy t-shirts as inspiration for his grisly murders." Do they mean those innocuous t-shirts from American Eagle, etc. that are either retro or don't mean a damn thing? How will a vintage Miami Vice t-shirt have a role in a murder?

In case you're wondering who Edward Furlong is... he had a brilliant role a few years ago as Edward Norton's hateful younger brother in American History X, but you may also recognize him as a young John Connor in Terminator 2. Oh, and he was arrested in 2004 for freeing lobsters from a restaurant tank.

Furlong's first CSI:NY episode airs Wednesday, Oct. 11.

When CBS announced the creation of their online video site innertube, the network mentioned that they'd eventually start streaming their prime-time content, but they didn't say which shows would go online, besides the new drama Jericho. Yesterday, CBS revealed the returning shows that will be streamed for free: Survivor, NCIS, Numb3rs, and all three CSIs will stream, with a few breaks for fifteen-second spots. Every show will begin streaming the day after the show airs and stay online for four weeks, except for Jericho and Survivor, which will remain up until the end of the season.

So this means that two of the four major networks are now streaming prime-time shows for free; ABC announced their expanded roster of shows earlier this month. NBC? Fox? You going to join us in the 21st century?

Well, folks, it's time to start arranging your calendars; the networks are beginning to announce the premiere dates for both their new shows and their returning shows. So, if you've been hankering to find out what happened to Lilly and Marshall on How I Met Your Mother, what the new show Jericho is going to be like, or how many new ways CSI is going to show a person's pancreas, then look below and make note of these dates:

9/14: Survivor: Cook Islands
9/17: The Amazing Race 10
9/18: The Class, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, The New Adventures of Old Christine, CSI: Miami
9/19: NCIS, The Unit, Smith
9/20: Jericho, Criminal Minds, CSI: NY
9/21: CSI, Shark
9/22: Ghost Whisperer, Close to Home, Numb3rs
9/23: Crimetime Saturday, Crimetime Saturday, 48 Hours Mystery
9/24: 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race 10, Cold Case, Without a Trace

[via Cynopsis]

On the one hand, painstakingly compiling a list of those television characters who perished during the 2005-06 season shows that America is still the home of ingenuity and hard work. On the other hand, it also shows that we watch waaayyy too much television and should really be using that ingenuity and work ethic to develop alternate fuels and build cities under the sea.

What would the end of a television season be without a list of the dearly departed (Well, it would just be the end of a season. But that's besides the point)? Thanks to the wonderful Internet, we now have such a list, and it looks like the body count was pretty high this past year. Leading the pack with ten dead was 24, with Alias slightly behind at seven. In a tie with six dead each were Prison Break and, surprisingly, Veronica Mars. The Sopranos, who you'd think would have been swimming in dead bodies, only had five deaths in the season-to-date.

The complete list, including deaths in shows such as Scrubs, CSI: NY, and The Shield (poor Lem) can be found at MagnetMediaFed. The list creators welcome any additional deaths that they missed. Perhaps you should add the death of Joey Tribbiani from Joey . . . no, wait, that was just the death of Matt LeBlanc's career. Never mind.

[A hearty thanks to Rick for the tip. Tombstone courtesy of Tombstone Generator ]