TVSquad

Michael Ausiello has an odd bit of news about the Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom, The New Adventures of Old Christine. In a blind item he posted a few days ago, Ausiello alluded to a crazy curveball that writers were planning to throw on a "sort-of hit" comedy. The twist is supposed to be so huge that it will completely change the direction of the show in question. He reveals the blind item in this week's Ask Ausiello, and if it's true, it's a doozy.

(Warning: Potential spoilers ahead!)

A lot of you probably read that headline and got confused, because the first season DVD set for Seinfeld has already been released - twice, once as a separate set and once as part of the mega, collectible complete series set. But it's true, another version of the first season is coming out on September 16.

Actually, this will be the first time that the first season is released on its own. The first set released was a combination of season one and season two, because season one was only five episodes long. Now Sony wants to release the first set on its own at a cheap price (around $15.00) so TV fans who are thinking about getting the later full season sets can sample the DVDs. You get all the extras from the season one set (gag real, deleted scenes, commentary, etc) and a $5.00 rebate for one of the larger sets.

Eh, I'm just going to buy the complete series set.

The list of qualities that made Arrested Development such a great show is quite long, but somewhere near the top, right after the cast, is the list of recurring characters who were so hilarious. Here my ten favorite acquaintances of the Bluth family.

1. Barry Zuckercorn (Henry Winkler)
It is a credit to the brilliance of Arrested Development that an actor like Henry Winkler, who will forever be identified with the role of Fonzie, can be identified with a character who could not be more different. The hilarity that comes from Barry's sexual deviancy and complete legal ineptitude is reason enough to watch.

CBS doesn't announce its new schedule till tomorrow, but the news is spilling out everywhere about what's in and what's out. The New Adventures of Old Christine has been given a 22-episode commitment for a third season; Shark has been sunk. For fans of the James Woods legal drama -- and I know there are lots of you out there because you've posted here -- my heart goes out to you. It was a good show, but it seems that CBS has four new dramas on deck for next season (that we have heard they're announcing tomorrow), so something had to give. It's likely that the choice came down between The Unit and Shark, with The Unit getting the renewal.

As for Christine, I say "Yeah!" I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hamish Linklater (Matthew, her brother on the show) and would have been really upset if CBS let the show get away. If the network had passed on the sitcom, ABC was reportedly very, very interested in taking it on. They had visions of pairing Samantha Who? with Christine for an all-girl sitcom hour. That's not going to happen now because Julia is staying put on CBS.

Whether the show remains on Monday nights, however, is still to be determined. For the past year, it has mostly shared the 9:30 slot with Rules of Engagement, which has also been renewed. Some reporters are suggesting that CBS could be launching a second sitcom night.

This must be Short-Lived Sitcom week. Yesterday I told you about Married People, and today it's Day By Day.

This was a short-lived show on NBC (ran for 33 episodes in 1988-89). It was about Brian and Kate Harper, a professional couple (Doug Sheehan from Knot's Landing played stockbroker Brian, and Linda Kelsey from Lou Grant played lawyer Kate) who decided to open an in-home day care center. Their teen son Ross was played by C.B. Barnes, who played Greg in the Brady Bunch movies and starred in the Starman TV series and Malcolm and Eddie.

But I'd like to talk to you about the two other females in the cast. Two that went on to much bigger things later in their careers.

I didn't want to like Rules of Engagement. I like The New Adventures of Old Christine, and I thought that if I watched and liked Rules of Engagement (which has pushed Old Christine to the back burner at CBS for now) it would be like endorsing that show over Old Christine. It would almost be like cheating on Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and I did that once before years ago and she has never forgiven me.

But this past Monday I found myself wanting to watch a comedy at 9:30, so I turned it on. You know what? It's actually a good show.

As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 30-21, we here at TV Squad are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the numerous stand-up comedians who became sitcom stars. In this installment we look at one particular TV comedy that made stars out of a number of actors and actresses.

I'm talking about NBC's Saturday Night Live. Since its premiere in 1975, the late-night sketch show has given us a slew of actors and actresses who have made the move onto both the big and small screen. Sometimes the move was towards more comedy, sometimes it was a switch to more serious roles, other times it was a little bit of both. And, while many of those who made it are still in the public eye these days, some of the greatest of those who came from Studio 8H had their careers snuffed out way too early.

The amount of those who rose to the top varied from cast to cast. Some casts, like the very first one, produced a whole slew of talent who went on to bigger and better things. Others, like the first casts from 1980-85 and the mid-1990s, produced very little in the way of big stars.

In a TV Guide exclusive, Michael Ausiello reports that The New Adventures of Old Christine could be moving to ABC if CBS doesn't give it a third season pick up. The way I see it, this is great news for ABC. They seem to do great at one-hour dramedies -- Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, Desperate Housewives -- but just swing and miss when developing good sitcoms. Only Samantha Who has been a winner this year; its most recent effort, Miss/Guided, has left me cold.

A note to TV show crews that are suffering during this writers strike: the shows feel your pain.

Nikki over at Deadline Hollywood Daily has learned that the crew of the CBS comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine got a nice surprise earlier this week: checks for $1000 (to go with the nice jackets they got for Christmas). The card attached to the checks said "To Our Old Christine friends: We miss you and hope we'll be together soon. Keep the faith. With love, from The Writers, The Actors, The Director." Awwwwwwww. A source close to the set says that the showrunner is being quite generous "even when her show has yet to become a big hit."

Ask Men has a list of 5 Things You Didn't Know about Seinfeld. I don't consider myself the biggest Seinfeld fan on the planet, but I do think I've seen every episode, and I didn't know any of this stuff. Maybe you die-hard fans will scoff at the list and proclaim your knowledge of all those little known facts and more.

For instance, did you realize that we never got to meet any of Jerry, George, or Elaine's siblings? We got to meet their parents, but each of them referenced siblings during several episodes and we never, ever saw or met them. That's actually a cool little insight to their characters--that they really don't want to see their siblings. In case you were wondering, Elaine has a sister (her nephew was the one who was obsessed with the nipple slip Christmas card), Jerry has a sister, and George has a brother.

About two years ago, I set out to list the hottest women on TV who are over 40, over 50, and over 60. There were a lot candidates to choose from, even in the over 60 category, making it a particularly tough set of list to compose.

But now that our friends at AOL have decided to compile a list of TV's 50 sexiest women of all time (starting today with Nos. 50-41), I'm going to take on an even greater challenge: making one master list of seventeen beauties over 40. It's not as easy as you think; the TV landscape has changed a bit, and a few new strong contenders have recently entered their 40s, and a few of the previous list members have left the TV landscape. To make this list, a woman has to have been a regular or significant guest on a TV series or news program in 2007. So, after the jump, a list -- in no particular order -- of fifteen beauties who combine looks, maturity and grace to make one compellingly sexy package.

Thumbnails are with the list, but you can click on the gallery below to get a much better view of these lovely women. Then add your own choices in the comments.

Earlier we heard about Tina Fey joining the picket line in New York City, and now more celebs are joining the picket lines on the west coast.

The New Adventures of Old Christine star Julia Louis-Dreyfus joined picketers in front of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, CA. She supports the writers and also knows that whatever happens with them might affect the Screen Actors Guild in the future (the union contract expires in 2008).

A lot of words and phrases from Seinfeld have made it into our everyday language. Yada yada yada, not that there's anything wrong with it, close talker, hipster doofus, to name just a few.

TBS has a contest at their site. They've created a poster that includes 38 references to the show. Can you find them all? The answers are available at a link just below the poster. Some of them are hard to figure out, but you can enlarge the poster.

Seinfeld's George Costanza and Elaine Benes are reunited after almost a decade apart! Okay, the characters won't be back together on the small screen (although I still dream of some sort of Seinfeld reunion special) but the actors will.

CBS announced today that Jason Alexander would be reunited with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an episode of CBS's The New Adventures of Old Christine. Spoilers after the jump!

Well, you knew this would happen sooner or later. I'm just glad I haven't gone crazy buying the single season sets.

On the same day that the ninth and final season of Seinfeld is released (November 6), Sony will also release Seinfeld: The Complete Series. Not only will the set contain every single episode, there will be tons of extras for fans too. One of the more intriguing extras is a 226 page coffee table book ("a coffee table book about coffee tables!") that will come in the box, with cast memories, photos, trivia, yada, yada, yada.