TVSquad

It looks like HBO's traditional sitcom experiment was short-lived. Lucky Louie, a multi-camera sitcom created and starring comedian Louis C.K., has been cancelled after its first 13-episode season. This TV Week article ("cleverly" titled "'Louie's' Luck Runs Out") mentions that the show was seen by about 1.3 million viewers on average; the season finale was seen by about that many people, which was 1.2 million less than the network's other summer Sunday offering, Entourage.

It was an interesting try; imagine a sitcom with a live audience, living room and kitchen sets, etc., but with the freedom of language and subject matter that HBO provides. Guess not enough people bought into the experiment for HBO's liking. The president of HBO Entertainment claims she wants to work with Louis C.K. again, but there are no current plans for a new series. At least this might give Louis more material for his stand-up act.

(S04E02) "I still wake up white in a city that ain't." -- Carcetti

Like a lot of people, I watched the first three seasons on DVD. I'm used to overdosing on the shows. Watching them one by one is going to be a painful adjustment, like being forced to put down a good novel every fifty pages for a week. Torture!

A season of The Wire builds slowly, methodically revealing it's characters and theme at a carefully crafted pace. And, watching these, one by one, as they were intended to be shown, only reinforces how powerful the series is. So we've had to wait until the second episode for our first glimpse of some of the show's staple characters.

It's two and out. Ricky Gervais says the upcoming season of Extras will be the last one. At least he feels that way "at the moment," he told the Britain's Sun newspaper [via zap2it.com]. As they did with the original version of The Office, Gervais and writing/producing partner Stephen Merchant say they don't want the show to wear out its welcome, a notion that occurs to most American sitcom producers much later than twelve episodes -- more like 120, say. Or never. Gervais wants to do drama next, and I think he should give it a shot. His comedies have a thread of drama running through them anyway -- Dawn and Tim's romance for example. I'm just saying a drama from Ricky Gervais not a completely whacked idea.

The second series of Extras begins Thursday on the BBC. It'll run on HBO in the Unites States, debut date is not yet set.

Numerous sources are reporting that HBO has decided to give The Wire a fifth and final season. The fourth season, which premiered this past Sunday, was met with great reviews from critics everywhere. However, as most expected, the ratings for the opening episode weren't so hot. No dates have been set for when the fifth season will begin shooting but it is known that the running theme for the season will be how the mass media affects all aspects of the Baltimore streets. Personally, I think this is fantastic news. It's great that HBO recognizes what this show means to the fans and now we'll get a final season to wrap it up properly. Too bad HBO wasn't willing to extend the same courtesy to Deadwood.

A clip from the next season of Extras made its way to YouTube (Season 2 is about to begin on BBC Two). In it, Orlando Bloom signs autographs and tries to impress Maggie (Ashley Jensen) by telling her how much more famous he is than Johnny Depp. In true Ricky Gervais fashion, it's simultaneously hilarious and uncomfortable.

Other celebrities scheduled for cameos on Extras this season are David Bowie, Chris Martin, Daniel Radcliffe, and Sir Ian McKellan.

Orlando Bloom on Extras video clip is after the jump.

[Via TV Tattle]

(S04E01) "Lambs to the slaughter here." -- Maria Donnelly.

During the opening credits the show's traditional theme song plays, but this time it's sung by a chorus of children. As in previous seasons, this is about the only soundtrack music we will hear until the final credits. The Wire doesn't use strings to tell us when to feel pathos, or synthesizers to build suspense. It trusts and depends on the drama and the truth of its characters to tell the story.

Welcome to The Wire: The Next Generation. Some old favorites are back -- though just as dispersed as we left them at the end of season three. We get to check in with some of them, but much of the focus is on new characters we meet for the first time and will be the heart of this year's story. This makes tonight's episode a pretty accessible place enter the story, even if you've never seen The Wire before.

Stand-up comic Patton Oswalt (The King of Queens, Comedians of Comedy, Reno 911) has one of the better celebrity blogs I've found. Maybe that's because he mostly talks about comic books and bad road food, and has yet to format anything to look like poetry. His blog's pretty funny, the fact that he calls it his "spew" not withstanding.

Right now he's begging his readers to tune into HBO Sunday night and watch The Wire season 4. Like others have, Patton calls The Wire the "best show ever on television." Here's the money quote : "The Wire is one of the few times you'll watch TV and not feel like the people making TV think you're a fucking idiot."

Two writers of The Wire, co-creator David Simon and novelist Richard Price spoke at the 92nd St Y in New York City last night. Here's a three-minute clip where Simon talks about his hesitation in approaching Price to write for a mere TV show. That's all fine; I found it informative, but the really priceless moment of the clip occurs in the last 30 seconds when Price talks about his own reaction to one of the most surprising developments from the end of last season.

Not only his reaction, but the reaction of a certain segment of the Baltimore population. YouTube also has a few other good clips on The Wire right now, including the two mini-documentaries HBO ran this summer in advance of the new season. (Video clip below the jump.)

[Thanks to Andrew Krucoff for sending this along.]

Anna Paquin will star opposite of Aidan Quinn in the HBO movie, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, about how the Native Americans were displaced as the United States moved westward. Paquin will play Elaine Goodale Eastman, a writer who stood up for Native American rights back in the late 1800s. She opened a school on the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, where she witnessed the Wounded Knee massacre. Production begins this month in Calgary and, interestingly, the project is being executive produced by Law and Order creator Dick Wolf. No air date is set for the HBO movie.

Anna Paquin won an Oscar at the age of eleven for her role in The Piano, co-starring with Holly Hunter. Of course, she's also in The X-Men movies, and she has a supporting role in one of my all-time favorite movies, Almost Famous.

When all that controversy was going on with Deadwood, one of the reasons that David Milch gave for the show not returning (other than the problems he was having with HBO) was that he was preparing a drama titled John From Cincinnati. Now that show is coming together quickly. Rebecca De Mornay has just been added to the cast, which includes Bruce Greenwood (she'll play his wife), Austin Nichols (he's John and he's from Cincinnati), and Brian Van Holt (from Threshold).

The HBO show is about the surfing world in southern California. Nichols is a rich guy who comes to the area to take surfing lessons, and Matt Winston plays another guy who is coming back to the area to get even with someone for something that was done wrong to him long ago.

As some of you may know, Cracked Magazine recently relaunched with a more "grown up" style far removed from its original focus on the junior high set. The new mag features contributions from television writers from such series as Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Chappelle's Show. One item that didn't make it into the first issue though, is a lovely little tribute to both Winnie the Pooh and the HBO series Deadwood titled, appropriately, "100 Acre Deadwood." Now, before those of you who are at work, or have a heart condition, or are in a place where people might be offended by Pooh and his pals doing drugs, swearing, getting stabbed, and having sex with hookers, you might want to think twice before clicking the link below. However, if it's been your lifelong dream to see Tigger take a knife to the heart, then by all means, click away. Lord knows I'm not one to stand in the way of artistic expression.

In case you're looking for something to do tonight before you go back to work tomorrow, you should check out Dane Cook: Vicious Circle on HBO at 9PM. It's Cook's first HBO special (he had at least one Comedy Central gig that I can recall) and it's well deserved. His two comedy albums (Harmful if Swallowed, Retaliation) both sold like crazy and he recently finished up a nation-wide college tour that was documented in the HBO series Tourgasm. I was at the Syracuse University show and saying it was one of the funniest two hours of my life still doesn't do it justice. So I'll leave you all with this: I think somebody sh*t on the coats. If you know what I'm talking about, then I know what you're doing tonight. If that means nothing to you, then you better be watching HBO this evening.

Okay, before I continue here I just want to mention that this is unsubstantiated information from an untested resource. Also, as far as we know, it is not part of the development deal James Gandolfini recently signed with HBO. And, finally, this is not an idea I came up with during a dream I had last night.

According to a poster at Ain't It Cool News, HBO has been working on a new series called The Centurion, which takes place during the peak of the Roman Empire. Now, you're saying, they already have a show like that called Rome. Well, the premise of this series is that aliens regularly visited the famous city to encourage its citizens to aspire to greater heights. According to the poster, The Centurion is scheduled for a fall 2007 release.

This seems awfully fishy to me. HBO is normally not a network that delves into production of science fiction series. This sounds like something that you would see on a channel like Showtime; they have a history in this genre with shows like Stargate:SG-1 and Jeremiah. Perhaps HBO is producing this show in an agreement with the Sci-Fi Channel, or another outlet. Let me know what you think?

According to this article, HBO has called on the stars of Little Britain, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, to create an American version of the program. Normally, when I hear plans to American-ize a popular British television show, I cringe, twitch for a few moments, and walk away. In this case, I'm actually somewhat curious to see just how in they're going to pull this off. I suppose they'll be tackling the various regions of the States in a similar style to LB, but will they ever be able to create characters of the same extremity as Lou and Andy or Vicki Pollard?

I'm trying to figure out HBO's angle on a story I saw last night on MSNBC. Apparently, Kevin Federline has been cast for at least one episode of the next season of Entourage. He'll play a deadbeat husband of a celebrity. No acting required. Kevin says he's up for it, even if it means poking fun at himself (I'm pretty damn sure that's what it means, Kev).

If you can't wait until next year, you can see Kevin take his first stab at acting on CSI, where he'll play a punk who harasses investigators.