TVSquad

Is Lifetime still "Television For Women?" I know that's not the official slogan anymore, but are the programs more geared towards people with female body parts than male body parts?

The network has grabbed the rights to CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine. They'll show all of the older episodes of the show as well as new episodes after they air on CBS. The show will start airing on the network starting in the fall of 2010.

You can count on season finales to have one of several plots: a death, a disappearance, an explosion, a reunion, or a wedding. The New Adventures of Old Christine had the latter last night, and a guest appearance by Scott Bakula! Of course, being a sitcom, the wedding couldn't go off without wacky problems. The show was renewed by CBS and will be back for a fifth season, even though ABC would have grabbed it if it had been canceled.

The New Adventures of Old Christine isn't even finished at CBS yet, and ABC is sniffing around already.

According to Michael Ausiello over at Entertainment Weekly, ABC is interested in picking up the Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom if CBS decides to cancel it. If you read our post about which shows are going to be renewed, which are going to be canceled, and which are on the bubble, Old Christine is in the latter category.

Are you anxiously awaiting news of who was in that SUV that exploded? Still fraught with worry over how Gibbs is going to get his team back together? Or maybe you are just excited that Survivor is finally going to be beamed into your living room in glorious HD. Well, you can start making plans for your fall scheduling now. The eye network has released the schedule of premieres for their new and returning shows.

I'm a little concerned about two things on the schedule. First, The New Adventures Of Old Christine and Project Gary lead into Criminal Minds on Wednesday nights. That's an odd pairing, and I don't think bodes well for either of the comedies. And second, The Unit gets shuffled off to Sunday at 10? NCIS and The Unit have done remarkably well paired up on Tuesdays. Good for The Mentalist, not so much for The Unit. The whole thing kicks off with Survivor on September 18th. The rest of the schedule is after the jump.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• The Big Easy - Season 1
• Criss Angel: Mindfreak - Best of Seasons 1 and 2
• Dogfights - Season 2 and Complete Series
• Early Edition - Season 1
• Futurama - Beast with a Billion Backs
• Hey Joel - Season 1
• Ice Road Truckers - On and Off the Ice
• The New Adventures of Old Christine - Season 2 (Amazon.com only)
• The Real McCoys - Season 3
• The Ruth Rendell Mysteries - Set 3
• That's My Boy - Complete Series

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.

Is it really a big surprise that television advertising isn't as effective as it used to be? As TV watchers -- okay, we're uber-watchers -- we know that with DVRs and TiVos we're zooming through ads, or we're channel surfing in between segments of our favorite shows, or renting/buying content in formats that allow us to avoid commercials altogether. Now, according to the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research's TV & Technology Survey, we learn that six out of 10 marketers believe that TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years. And it's getting worse.

• At 8, ABC has a new Dance War, followed by new episodes of Notes from the Underbelly and October Road.
• FOX has a new Prison Break at 8, then a new Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• NBC has a new, 90 minute American Gladiators and a new, 90 minute Deal Or No Deal.
• PBS has a new Antiques Roadshow at 8.
• USA has the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at 8.
• Also at 8: ABC Family has a new Kyle XY, then a new Wildfire.
• At 9, The CW has two new episodes of Girlfriends.
• There's a new Monday Night RAW on USA at 9.
• At 9:30, CBS has a new New Adventures of Old Christine.
• HBO has a new In Treatment at 9:30.
• At 10, Travel Channel has a new Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Now that the fall shows are drying up, those midseason replacements are becoming more and more essential. Zap2It tells us CBS has shifted the premieres of The Captain and The New Adventures of Old Christine from January 28 to February 4 (so as to not compete with the State of the Union Address). And furthermore, The Captain has been redubbed Welcome to the Captain.

In this new series, Fran Kranz plays a young man who moves into a legendary Hollywood apartment complex. His new neighbors are played by the likes of Raquel Welch, Jeffrey Tambor, Chris Klein and more. Which I guess means it's a show about a bunch of wacky neighbors, as opposed to the requisite one.

So is it yet another Star Trek alumnus coming on-screen, or a reunion of former Murphy Brown costars Candace Bergen and her on-screen amore Scott Bakula, as TV Guide says. Looks like it's both, as Bakula has signed on to join Bergen and William Shatner for an upcoming episode of Boston Legal. In it he will play one of Shirley Schmidt's (Bergen) exes who runs into her at a bar. No word on if his will be a multi-episode arc or a one-time appearance.

Bakula has shown himself to have a bit of comedic chops recently on The New Adventures of Old Christine, and with BL being a dramedy, he might do very well there. Either way, it is good to see Bakula back on the small screen. Quantum Leap remains one of my all-time favorite shows and I'm still mad they haven't found a way to bring it back (despite periodic rumors that they may), while Knight Rider gets a revival. It'd be great if they can get Bakula's character and Denny Crane (Shatner) together in a scene and have them salute one another or slip some other Trek teaser for the audience in the know.

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).

Did you get attached to the cute animation and humor of the new CBS summer series Creature Comforts? Sorry!

The network has pulled the summer series effective immediately. The most recent episode came in fourth place in its time slot. It will be replaced Monday at 8pm with reruns of The New Adventures of Old Christine.

No word on whether or not they'll show the other episodes online, but you can go to the CBS site and watch previous episodes, read the show's blog, check out other info, and remember what used to be (for now anyway). This show - a summer replacement - must have really been a disappointment to the network for it to be pulled so quickly.

[via BuzzSugar]

Here are AOL Television's top picks of the week.

The New Adventures of Old Christine (Mon., 8:30PM ET, CBS) 2nd season finale
A few months ago in Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens pondered, "Why Women Aren't Funny." We beg to differ. Week after week, Julia Louis-Dreyfus consistently knocks it out of the comedy park. And, of the three Seinfeld sidekicks, she (the only woman) is only one to break the "curse" and succeed in her own show. Tonight's finale has Christine fretting over a possible pregnancy -- and the end of any chance of dating hottie Mr. Harris (Blair Underwood). Hopefully, CBS will wake up, laugh and renew this sitcom for a third season.

(S32E15) Julia Louis Dreyfus hosted less than a year ago, so I was surprised to see her back so soon. She did an all right job last time, but I wonder what drove Saturday Night Live to have her return this quickly. It's not like she had anything new to promote. Hmm.

This episode was pretty boring. If I wasn't planning on writing this review, I probably would have tuned out a little after "Weekend Update". Yawn.

Yeah! Wanda Sykes! We've been seeing her in previews for Old Christine since before it launched and this week she finally made her first appearance. She played Christine's friend, Barb, of Barb and Pete. And she didn't have much of a role, did she? Well, hopefully she'll get some more appearances because she is one funny lady.

This episode, Christine let Barb set her up on a blind date. When she arrives at the restaurant, she meets a man she thinks is her date, and nervously admits to him that she got a Brazilian wax and it "feels like I slid down a sandpaper banister." Funny stuff. He admits that he got a salt scrub, ahem, down there. And then it turns out they're not set up with each other after all. Christine's real blind date ends up being a short man without any social skills, but with a phobia about eating food that other people have touched. The other guy's date is Barbie.