TVSquad

All I can say after word came out today that they AMC renewed Breaking Bad is FINALLY! What the hell took so long? Every bit as critically acclaimed and amazing as the already renewed Mad Men, this meth and cancer dramedy defies description and blows away expectations. After the strike-shortened seven episode first season, AMC has committed to a full thirteen-episode run for its sophomore effort; no word yet on when the new season will film or air.

Bryan Cranston is a veritable tour de force in the role of Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher who begins producing meth to procure the funds necessary for his family to get by after he dies. Aaron Paul is equally strong as his half-witted cohort in crime, and the two of them are the grimmest comedy duo since ... well, maybe ever. Each week the series surpassed expectations by getting better and better, and that was only seven weeks. I can't imagine nearly twice that!

[via Ain't It Cool News]

Attention How I Met Your Mother fans! There's a 99% chance that the show is returning for a fourth season. CBS still hasn't given the Monday night laugher an official pick up -- which they did for the freshman sitcom The Big Bang Theory way back on February 15th -- ticking off many a comedy fan (including yours truly). Nothing against Big Bang; I love the show. But was it more deserving of an early pick up than Mother? Not to me.

Anyway, I had the chance to interview How I Met Your Mother's Josh Radnor yesterday and the actor told me that the cast is definitely working on the assumption that they will be back next fall. When I asked him directly if the show will be renewed by CBS, he laughed and said, "I'm not worried, but who knows. It's television and stranger things have happened. We're doing better than we've ever done, although I kind of go to sleep when I read those Nielsen reports. I would think we are coming back. Yes, we are."

That was enough for Josh, but I needed more assurances. Call me needy. I pressed for evidence that Lily, Marshall, Robin, Barney and Ted are all going to be hanging out at McLaren's with me next fall, like usual. "I'll just say this, we are filming a cliffhanger. It's not like we wrap up the series."

We told you recently about Reaper star Bret Harrison's blog posting about sending your socks to The CW, to get them to renew the devil comedy, which is "on the bubble." Now it looks like those socks might be going to the wrong place.

On her TV Guide blog, Valarie Rae Miller discloses that a lot of socks that viewers have sent in have actually gone to the old WB offices! As she puts it, "no one will see them but some security guard and an unhappy mail carrier." She also gives the correct address to send your socks to:

While Project Runway may be switching to Lifetime next year, the creators of the show are staying put. Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz have given first look to any new projects of theirs to NBC Universal. As a result, the duo had a choice of either going to Lifetime or staying with NBC.

Last year, the Weinstein Company made a deal with Lifetime for $150 million to broadcast five years of the hit reality show. Culforth and Lipsitz, whose production company is called Magical Elves, acknowledged the tough choice they had to make.

Former NY District Attorney Jeanine Pirro will be getting her own television show on the CW network. Judge Jeanine Pirro will be broadcast weekday afternoons starting September 22nd.

Pirro, 56, has already had television experience as a legal commentator. Before that, she was a Westchester County judge and a rising star in New York's Republican Party. She was once seen in People magazine's "most beautiful" issue.

Pirro has had a history of interesting problems that have held her back in one way or another. When she challenged Hillary Clinton for the Senate, she lost a page of her announcement and was speechless for 32 seconds. There are also the issues she's had with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Albert Pirro (who has been hit with both a paternity suit and a tax fraud conviction).

Daytime television judges have been around since Judge Wapner and The People's Court. A few months ago, TV Squad judged nine of them. I guess we have one more to add to the mix.

The reverberations caused by the writers' strike continue to affect how the networks are doing business. Case in point: according to The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd, the networks may be more generous with renewals than they have in the past, due to the fact that even hit shows have been returning to diminished ratings. My guess is that, after a three-month break, most people realized they didn't give two craps about things like Meredith and McDreamy's latest breakup. But it may just be that the weather's nice outside.

Anyway, Hibberd goes on to mention the current status of some of the most prominent "bubble" shows. The good news: Reaper, Old Christine, and HIMYM and Moonlight have shifted over towards the "likely to certain" end of the spectrum, and Boston Legal will likely survive for another year. The bad news: Shark, Men In Trees (which is already gone, according to reports), Cashmere Mafia, and October Road are likely gone. And there's still no real feel for what's going to happen with Eli Stone or Women's Murder Club.

Do you love Tracey Ullman? Yeah, who doesn't? The lady's a riot. Showtime is so enamored of the Brit-com-queen that they've ordered a second season -- seven fresh episodes -- of Tracey Ullman's State of the Union. The network has also lined up another English artist for 2009. Comedy star Marc Wootton is locked in for six episodes.

"I won't hold it against them that both are from the U.K.," laughed Showtime prez Robert Greenblatt. "Tracey Ullman is the veteran genius who continues to impress us with her versatility, while Marc Wootton is the up-and-comer who will surprise our audience with his own unique voice. This is an embarrassment of riches for us in the comedy department."

Allison told you a couple of months ago about the possibility of Family Guy's Cleveland getting his own spinoff show. Well now it looks like that's going to be a reality (not a reality show, but a cartoon ... oh, you know what I mean).

The show, titled Cleveland, is expected to get a 13 episode order when FOX announces its fall schedule at its upfront in a couple of weeks (TV Squad will have complete coverage of all of the upfronts, of course). No word on whether or not the character will stay on Family Guy too. I wonder if the show will be set in the same town as Family Guy? Maybe they'll even have epic two part shows, with each part on a different show.

In other FOX news, the network could also pick up two other animated shows: Sit Down, Shut Up and The Pitts. Wait, wasn't The Pitts a live action show that FOX had a few years ago?

Yes. Yes it was.

Why have one outlaw biker show when you can have two? I always find it a little odd when you see two movies or television shows pop up at the same time that share strikingly similar premises. And that's what we have here. Sons Of Anarchy, from The Shield writer/executive producer Kurt Sutter, centers on an outlaw motorcycle club in Charming, CA. Clearly much different than HBO's 1%, which tells the story of an outlaw motorcycle club in Carefree, AZ. They're two completely different states after all.

Of course, I kid... a little bit. The shows do have different takes on the subject, and there is a rundown of the development time lines for both of them in the article at The Hollywood Reporter. Sons will focus on Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) and the conflict that develops as his loyalty to the club clashes with his trepidation where their lawlessness is concerned. Sutter's wife, Katey Sagal, is along for the ride as Teller's mother. The role of Jax's step-father was played by Scott Glenn in the pilot but will be recast in the series. I'm not sure if there is room for two biker shows on the television schedule, but with Sutter in charge of Sons, and Donal Logue signed on for 1%, I'll have to take a look at both of them.

Okay, so the second part of that headline isn't true. But still, this is terrible news. VH1's blog is reporting that Ambre Lake says there won't be a Rock of Love 3 (although Bret seemed to indicate otherwise a week ago). She's still dating Bret Michaels and seeing where their relationship goes. She's busy with auditions but she'll be attending some of Bret's shows coming up (Wait, he still performs? And people buy tickets to these performances? Just kiddin'. Shame on me for tarnishing the good name of Bret Michaels).

There was talk of this years ago but it looks like Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas are recreating their famous characters from SCTV in animated form. A preview trailer is available after the jump.

As someone who owns their comedy album Great White North (pictured) as well as their movie Strange Brew, this is exciting news. The characters are pretty much timeless since their humor never depended on a particular era. They only depended on Canadian clichés.

Dave Thomas talks live in the preview and notes that due to their advancing age, Bob and Doug work best nowadays in animated form. Based on the preview, the series looks like it would be perfect for Adult Swim (are you listening Cartoon Network?).

James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article about the low-key exit of Scrubs from NBC after seven seasons, and the show's even lower-key deal with ABC for an eighth season. Even the least-plugged-in fans of the show know by now that the show is crossing networks, and according to Hibberd, eighth season episodes are currently being produced under very hush-hush conditions (which is true; even the show's PR rep won't tell us exactly what's going on).

So... why all the secrecy, even though everyone seems to know what's what? It seems like there's a little cross-network courtesy going on. While ABC is waiting for its upfront presentation to officially announce that it's picked up the show, they're also waiting for the end of the show's run on NBC, which is either May 8 or 15, depending on your source (my guess is the 18th, considering only nine of the twelve produced episodes have aired). According to Hibberd, ABC is playing nice after ticking off NBC when the initial news about the show's move came out.

It seems that everything comes to HBO eventually, and now they're proving once and for all that size really does matter.

In development is Hung, a series revolving around a well-endowed guy who figures out a way to use his sizable assets. A former high school sports legend, now he's slogging through middle age as a dad and high school basketball coach. Things start looking, uh, up when he creates a scheme to add some zest into his life.

Although further details are sketchy at this point, I keep thinking about Weeds, only in this case, maybe it's about a dad who ventures into adult-oriented territory to keep food on the table and pay the bills. Anyone have further intel? It's HBO, so anything is possible.

Sky One plans to create a new version of the 70's BBC cult hit, Blake's 7. The original series was a creation of Terry Nation, who also created the famous Doctor Who aliens, the Daleks. The original concept centered around a group of rebels fighting against a totalitarian planetary Federation.

The original Blake's 7 was a great experiment and had two qualities that were unique for its time. First, it used a continuous storyline between episodes before such things were commonplace. Second, in its final episode the enemy seemingly killed all of the primary cast, including Roj Blake (the character for whom the show is named).

The program has far more of a cult status in England than America and the DVD set has yet to be released in Region 1.

Will the program be a continuation of the events of the 70's program or a complete reboot? In terms of quality, will it be more like Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica or more like Flash Gordon? I guess we'll see.

Back in February, when CBS announced a bunch of renewals for next season as well as which shows would be back with new shows this season, one that was in limbo was The Unit. That led to many emails and questions about the Dennis Haysbert drama and whether CBS was going to stick with the military drama. It's with some hope that I tell you that things are looking up.

Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan reported that while the decision has yet to be made, and won't be made for a few more weeks, Shawn Ryan, The Unit's executive producer, is "pretty optimistic." He and his staff of writers have presented an outline for the fourth season explaining where the storylines will be going and how it'll play out. CBS's reaction was very positive. Ryan said things couldn't have gone any better. That's great news for the fans of The Unit who feel like they've been twisting in the wind waiting for word about the show.