TVSquad

Now this is a TV tour I can get behind: According to Entertainment Weekly, the cast of Glee could be going on a music tour, playing concerts across the country. While it's only in the discussion phase right now, it looks like we could be seeing the cast belting out "Don't Stop Believing" in person as early as spring of next year, when filming on their first season wraps.

It sounds like FOX boss Kevin Reilly has seen the moneymaking potential of his cast of moppets for a while, telling EW back in July, "Certainly if these kids become stars in their own right, who knows? Live appearances. Albums. There's lots of things that could happen." Can't you just picture him sitting in a tall chair in a richly paneled office somewhere, steepling his fingers and saying, "excellent," a la Mr. Burns?

The title of this post seems far-fetched: How could a big TV star like Kelsey Grammer think that Kevin Reilly, the programming head of FOX, had something to do with the heart attack he suffered a year ago?

If you heard Grammer speak about it during the panel for his new ABC comedy Hank, it's not hard to connect the dots. "I had an event they thought was stress related. You can make of that what you will. It was a rough year," said Grammer, whose FOX sitcom Back to You was cancelled after its first season.

His beef was that he pitched the show to Reilly when the exec was still at NBC, and he passed. Then Reilly got the position at FOX after they bought Back to You. So, basically, the show was airing on a network whose entertainment head already passed on it somewhere else. That, according to Grammer, caused conflict between the network and the writers of the show.

Believe it or not, FOX execs Kevin Reilly and Peter Rice did field questions that didn't have the words "Idol" our "Paula" in them. But there weren't many. Here are the highlights:

• When Reilly was asked about the "Save Dollhouse" campaigns out there, he joked, "you mean the campaign that started before we starting making episodes?" He cited the solid cumulative numbers the show put up (which included DVR numbers) as to why it was brought back, and the fact that "the fans were there every week. We were there with Joss, and he delivered." While Whedon "wasn't having a lot of fun" in the first half of the season because of the struggles he and the network had to focus on what the vision of the show would be, in the "second half of year he found his voice on the show and had a lot of fun," according to Reilly.
• On Futurama and the option the show has to do a first run on the network level: The show will "do its run on Comedy Central first and we'll see what happens. If we see a renaissance of that show, sure. It's not out of the question." But right now, there are no talks to air it on Fox.

As you might expect, most of the questions for Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly and chairman Peter Rice this morning were Idol -centric. Here are the salient points:

According to Rice, Paula Abdul was the only member of Idol whose contract was up. They were talking to her about it for months, and they very much wanted her to return. In past few weeks, "negotiations came to conclusion, as Rice put it. "We made a fair offer with a substantial raise. Paula decided not to return. It was not our choice. We wanted her to return to the show."

They are most likely looking to keep the number of judges at four, but Rice feels they have between now and January's live shows to find a judge. "We're looking to bring different element and energy to the season." There will be guest judges during the audition process, including Victoria Beckham and Katy Perry. Rice and Reilly wouldn't announce who else, but they said that these would be mostly female singers, artists, and performers.

More from the exec session coming up.

Starting tonight, everyone's favorite group of misanthropes from the City of Brotherly Love are back to invoke mayhem and generally make the lives of everyone around them miserable. And I can't wait.

Yes, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is back for its fourth season on FX, and they're going to be around awhile, as the network picked them up for 39 additional episodes after this season's run of 13 are over. In addition, series creators Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney will be working on a comedy for FOX called Boldly Going Nowhere, which is described as "Star Trek meets The Office." Imagine that: these guys are building an empire, all on episodes like this season's opener, where Mac and Dennis hunt down Cricket and Charlie and Dee become cannibals. You'll just have to watch it to get what I'm talking about.

I talked with Day, Howerton, and McElhenney about the upcoming season, the popularity of "Day Man / Night Man," their new show, and how co-star (and Rob's fiancee) Kaitlin Olson broke her back. Interview is after the jump.

Can you write? Do you think you know what makes people laugh? Have you ever tried banging out a sitcom script? If the answer to these questions is yes, yes, and yes, you might want to read on. Fox TV is teaming with the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) in creating a Comedy Script Contest. Wannabe writers are invited -- hell, encouraged! -- to enter an original comedy pilot for a potential Fox sitcom series. The winner (or winning team if you collaborate with someone) will be awarded $25,000 and a development deal with Fox to turn the pilot into real, honest-to-God TV show.

Considering the pitiful pros passing as live action comedy on Fox these days -- Til Death, Back to You, Unhitched -- you might think this contest was an act of desperation. It's not.

Recently, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly dropped a little nugget regarding Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that should make fans of the show sigh a little more in relief.

In the interview, Reilly mentions that Sarah Connor and Back to You are the "lead candidates" for returning for a new season, adding that they've "already started staffing" the show.

We already mentioned the high likelihood that the show would be returning before; several times, even. Is it because of Fox's track record with canceling shows, seemingly so quickly, that's got everyone so nervous about Sarah Connor's return? At this point, after hearing all of the rumors and mumblings that the show's safe, it would be extremely cruel for them to bring the axe down during the upfronts next month. Die hard fans are probably already planning a backup plan, thinking of what kind of crap they're going to send Fox studios to beg for the show to return. Any suggestions?

Production of one of the more highly anticipated shows on the NBC schedule, Heroes: Origins, has been put on hold. Apparently, due to fears of a pending writers' strike. Or, maybe not.

According to The Hollywood Reporter the Heroes spin-off will not be receiving its six-episode run, which was to begin in April of 2008. While NBC hasn't officially said that the series is canceled producers have not been given a date when it would be put on the schedule. During the network upfronts held last May it was mentioned that Origins would be spelling its older sibling during a late-season hiatus.

Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, Co-chairs of NBC Enterainment and Universal Media Studios, start off their first TCA executive sessoin by reading some programming changes.

Deal or No Deal is moving to Friday night at 8, providing a nice lead in for critically acclaimed Friday Night Lights and Las Vegas, which has Tom Selleck joining its cast.

Isaiah Washington is going to join The Bionic Woman. He'll be in five of the first eight shows.

Not even two months after NBC booted Kevin Reilly out of his job as entertainment president, Fox has picked him up and placed him in the exact same position for that network. During Reilly's time at NBC, ratings didn't budge much, but he was also a champion for quality programs like Friday Night Lights.

Reilly is reuniting with former co-worker, Peter Liguori, who has been promoted to entertainment chairman at Fox. The two teamed up when they worked at FX and brought edgy shows such as The Shield and Nip/Tuck to that network. Fox evidently wants some of that mojo.

Reilly's first challenge is to get people to watch some of Fox's new shows, none of which he chose. I'm hoping he'll give a little love to Unhitched, the Farrelly brothers comedy that is by far the best thing Fox has going for it in the fall.

Following this spring's upfronts presentation and lackluster response from advertisers, NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker fired entertainment president Kevin Reilly. But, it appears Reilly will not be out of work for long. Various reports today say that he is in final negotiations to join Fox, under his former FX boss Peter Liguori.

This is a smart pairing for Fox. Liguori and Reilly brought mega-hits to FX including The Shield and Nip/Tuck. And, judging from this spring's upfronts presentation from Fox, the network could use some edgier programming. There's no doubt that Reilly has an eye for quality programming (Friday Night Lights), but his downfall with NBC was his inability to bring the network out of fourth place.

So, NBC's fall schedule sucks. At least, that's the message I'm getting today with the news that president of NBC entertainment, Kevin Reilly, has lost his job.

I'm trying to understand why NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker would hold on to Reilly for the crucial planning of the fall schedule after his lackluster performance with last fall's expensive-but-low-rated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Kidnapped, etc. And this spring, NBC once again came in last in the ratings among the big four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX).

After NBC's upfronts presentation earlier this month, advertisers didn't really leap at any of the offerings on the new fall lineup (because they're boring). That's an obvious reason to get rid of Reilly, but it also doesn't put a lot of confidence in the fall schedule.

You know, our readers are very good at pointing out our mistakes. Many of them are small: copy edits, grammar issues, etc. Some are bigger: we miss some important part of an episode we're reviewing. Hey, we're human.

But we (and by "we" I mean "me") were deservedly taken to the woodshed last fall when we made one of our biggest whoppers, reporting that NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly was about to be fired. Of course, not only did he not get fired, but rumors started swirling about that he was going to sign a new contract. Well, those are the rumors that actually came true, as he signed a multiyear deal to stay at the network.

Besides announcing the renewal of four shows, NBC Entertainment Kevin Reilly spent his executive session talking about "tent posts" and spewing sports analogies. But all of it said that he was pretty optimistic about the future of his network.

He definitely thinks being patient with shows is imperative, especially when you're working from behind as his network is. "Vision is a word that gets thrown around a lot but is in short supply," he spoke of shows like The Office, that started out slow and built audience. "When you got it, grab it." Among his new "vision" shows are 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, and Studio 60.

NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly started his network's portion of the TCA press tour by announcing full-season renewals for four shows: My Name Is Earl, Heroes, Law & Order: SVU, and The Office. This means all four shows will be back for new seasons in the fall. Reilly called those shows, and a number of others, "tent posts" that he thinks will bring the network back to a much stronger position than it has been in recent years.

In other news, Reilly announced the pickup of a new improv pilot called Thank God You're Here, where improv comics will don a costume unknown to them, enter a scene, and attempt to improvise through it. It will be hosted by David Alan Grier, and the improv comic's skills will be "judged" by Dave Foley. Where does the name of the show come from? Well, when the comic enters with his costume on, the other comics in the scene will say, "Thank God You're Here!" Clever, ain't it?

More on the executive session later today.