TVSquad

Michael Rosenbaum's departure from Smallville in season seven should have been a heavy blow to a series already suffering from flagging ratings and a bad batch of still-born stories. But the following season turned out to be one of Smallville's best, introducing a fine female successor to Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor and edging us closer into Superman territory.

With season nine on the horizon, and the show getting its best reviews and ratings in years, the big question is coming up again: Will Rosenbaum return to Smallville?

Last season we watched a disfigured Lex, played by a different actor whose face was hidden, apparently die in an explosion. Of course, fans knew instantly that Superman's nemesis was still kicking somewhere (as confirmed by exec producer Brian Peterson at Comic-Con).

It's CW day at the TCAs, and network honcho Dawn Ostroff presented her executive session in the middle of the day, after a parade of panels that included one pretty face after another, including Ashton Kutcher, Elle Macpherson, the cast of Vampire Diaries and a few alumni from the original Melrose Place. Ostroff fully admitted that the network is courting 35-and-under women with their shows, trying to build on the "one tweet per minute" success of shows like One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, and 90210.

But what about two of the network's more veteran and male-oriented shows, Smallville and Supernatural? Does the network still believe in them? Ostroff tried to give a definitive "yes," but the rest of her panel, and the promos shown before she appeared, say otherwise.

As I said in my post about the 90210 panel, CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff doesn't like to give us definitive answers. For some reason, she doesn't feel she has to. Problem is, that doesn't make the critics very happy. We don't like it when someone isn't being forthright with us, and we can sense it.

In her executive session, Ostroff avoided saying anything definitive on two major topics: the lack of "urban" shows on the schedule and the mechanics of the network's deal with Media Rights Capital to produce the network's entire Sunday block of shows.

Those of you who have been diligently sending Mars candy bars to Dawn Ostroff, head of CW programming to save Veronica Mars from permanent cancellation may want to hold off on the next shipment when you hear what creator Rob Thomas has to say. In a recent newspaper interview Thomas pretty much said that VM is over for good as a television series.

Oh, he's not upset with the fans for trying. In fact, according to the interview, he loves that the fans have been making this all-out effort to renew the show. It's just that the CW's Ostroff doesn't get to make the final call if the show stays or not. That call is made by sister company CBS. Thomas believes that head honcho Les Moonves doesn't want to continue the show.

By now I'm sure you've heard of how the amazingly successful "Nuts for Jericho" campaign went over the past few weeks. I could practically hear television network execs country-wide brace themselves for truckloads of other odd foods and trinkets from die-hard fans of shows they'd taken a hatchet to in the past year. First up: Dawn Ostroff of The CW for putting Veronica Mars on the chopping block. I sure hope for her sake that she has a sweet tooth.

A rather large band of Veronica Mars fans, who won't take the news of the show's death lying down, have started a campaign to ship as many Mars Bars to the person in charge of CW programming, Dawn Ostroff, in hopes that the gesture will force her hand not to sign the final cancellation papers for the show. How many have they sent so far? Put it this way: they've located every last remaining Mars Bar in the country and have moved onto whatever the heck left they can find that's even remotely related to the show.

In case you didn't know, the drop-dead date for any show cancellation decisions at The CW is June 15th, just five days away. Read the organizing party's website for more info on how to help.

[Thanks to the multitude of people who sent in this tip!]