TVSquad

We can add Laura Dern to the long list of big-time movie actresses who've moved into TV roles. Her comedy project with Mike White is moving forward with a pilot order from HBO.

Tentatively titled Enlightened, the single-camera comedy stars Dern as a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and decides to live an enlightened life. Of course, this creates all sorts of turmoil at home and work.

Dern's knock-out performance as Katherine Harris in 2008's Recount got the attention of HBO. White, her director on the 2007 feature film Year of the Dog, says he's "stoked," noting, "The only thing I can think of cooler than making a show at HBO is doing it with Laura Dern."

HBO continues to be a favorite of mine, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this show fares. I've been a fan of Dern's dating back to her roles in Rambling Rose and Wild at Heart, and with her involvement in this project, I can't imagine it will be anything less than fantastic.

The Golden Globes really is one of the more interesting award shows. Oscar has mostly movie people, Grammy has mostly music people, and Emmy has mostly TV people. It's rather fun and a different dynamic to have the movie and TV people all mixing together on one place. That's how we can have an E! red carpet scene like The Dark Knight's Aaron Eckhart asking Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria if she's been drinking. TV-wise, it was also great to see Miley Cyrus come up to talk to Ryan Seacrest right after that Jonas kid and see them not talk to each other. Funny to see dad Billy Ray talk to him though. I think he said "stay away from my daughter."

The awards show is over. I'm sure the drinking and eating and dancing and fornicating is still going on as I type this, but the show itself is now history. Here's a list of the major TV winners, some notes on who got snubbed, as well as a few observations on what went down tonight.

One of the biggest victims in last year's Writers Guild strike was the Golden Globe awards. Fortunately, the SAG threats of a strike remain just that -- threats -- so the Globes are on and the nominations were announced this morning.

Unfortunately, there were few surprises among the TV noms. In fact, it's kind of worrisome that these nominations are way too similar to the Emmy nominations. Among the new network shows from this season, and last, very little.

NBC will broadcast the Golden Globes on January 11. For the complete list of the Globe noms, click here, and for some instant impressions on said noms, read on after the jump:

After the first 15 minutes of the HBO movie Recount, I was so upset, so filled with rage that I wondered if I wanted to watch the rest of the movie. Did I want to relive the events of November 7, 2000? Did I want to watch what happened, the craziest election fiasco in the last 25 years? I was compelled to stick with it because I had lived through it and I was dying to know what I didn't know when it unfolded in real time. I thought the HBO movie might teach me something, and, in fact, it did.

For those who don't want to know what happened in Recount, I won't reveal any spoilers until after the jump. Of course, if you don't already know how the election turned out, you've either been in a coma or are woefully out of touch. Suffice to say that Recount doesn't rewrite history. The ending is exactly as it was in 2000.

• FOX has the NASCAR Spring Cup: Coca-Cola 600 race all night.
• TV Land has an Andy Griffith Show marathon all night.
• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes.
• NBC has a new, two hour Dateline at 7.
• At 8, TNT has the NBA Playoffs, Lakers vs. Spurs.
• Food Network has a new Challenge at 8, followed by new episodes of Iron Chef America and Throwdown with Bobby Flay.
• Hallmark has the new movie Shark Swarm at 8.
• At 9, HBO has the new movie Recount.
• There's a new episode of The Tudors on Showtime at 9, then a new This American Life.
• At midnight, Cartoon Network has a new Metalocalypse, followed by new episodes of Squidbillies and Assy McGee.

Check your local TV listings for more.

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• Doc Jensen has some new theories concerning Lost over at Entertainment Weekly.
• Time's James Poniewozik weights in on Recount and The Andromeda Strain (he liked one and hated the other).
• Oh, for Pete's sake, it was a person's voice!
• Ausiello over at TV Guide has some info about Supernatural.
• Here's the latest on that possible strike (yes, another one).
• Will Al Franken's past come back to haunt him in his Senate race?
• And now, the music of Katie Couric.

So, John Edwards finally made his endorsement announcement and it looks like he is a Barack Obama type of guy. In other news, I have, once again, managed to out-geek myself. As soon as Jon made that joke about Wolverine, I groaned and thought to myself, "Oh, come on. Daily Show, you've totally lost cool points. Wolverine's skeleton is definitely adamantium." And then that geeky guy came out and corrected Jon. And then I lost cool points. And then I lost extra cool points for using "cool points."

Last April I told you Sydney Pollack was attached to direct HBO's "dramatic re-imagining" of the 2000 election kerfuffle in Florida.

Pollack has stepped away from the director's chair for personal reasons, and Austin Powers director Jay Roach has stepped in. Pollack will remain as an executive producer, however.

If you don't remember the presidential election debacle in Florida in 2000, here's a brief summary of what happened:

First, networks declared Gore the winner, then they declared Bush the winner, then they decided it was too close to call, then they decided no one was the winner, then they decided Bush and Gore were figments of our imagination, then James K. Polk was posthumously re-elected and immediately impeached within a six-minute time frame, and then after that it just got really confusing.