TVSquad

The L Word will kick off its sixth, and final, season in January, with Elizabeth Berkley in tow. That's a pretty nice run for any show, cable or network. If you're experiencing preemptive disappointment over the thought of losing the show, rest easy. As we heard at the TCAs, Ilene Chaiken, creator and executive producer of the show, has been signed to write and produce a pilot for an L Word spinoff.

Even better, we now know that Leisha Hailey has been brought in to star. She plays Alice, and would have easily been my pick for the character to spin off. The Showtime press release doesn't contain any details about what Chaiken has planned for Alice in the new series. We do know that she will take a storyline from season six and continue it as internet-only content. If the pilot goes forward to series, the online component will segue into the new show. I would add, if there is any way to bring back Erica Cerra, I'd be all for that. You can never have too much Erica Cerra on your television. Showtime's press release is after the jump.

I can't decide if this is good news or bad news. Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is staying at CBS.

Unless you've been in another galaxy for the past year, you know that the Aussie actor cultivated an enormous fan base with his role as vampire P.I. Mick St. John on CBS' Moonlight. The uproar caused by the cancellation of the show in May can still be heard, well, in another galaxy.

At the Television Critics Association press tour in July, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler said the popularity of Moonlight was due in large part to O'Loughlin's fan base. So I can appreciate the fact that CBS wants to keep him around. But it's what they'll do with him that has me worried.

So I've been back from LA for a couple of days, watching Rich and Keith file frantic reports from Comic-Con. It just makes me shake my head in sympathy. Though CC is a different animal from the TCAs, in both structure and in sheer volume of people and activities, I still know exactly how they feel. It all starts to feel like a blur after awhile -- panels, reporter scrums, parties, meeting your favorite (and not-so-favorite) TV stars... When you get back to "normal life," it almost feels like it never happened.

Anyway, now that I have a day or two to reflect, I took a cue from our friends at AOL and came up with a list of things I learned on this press tour. But this list will involve both the network-related things I learned with what I learned about celebrities, my fellow critics, and myself.

When Drew Carey takes the stage later today to begin taping the 37th season of The Price is Right, he'll be seeing whatever changes they have in store for the first time. Why? Because he's just as much in the dark about it as everyone else is. "They don't tell me anything," he told me on Friday night at the CBS all-star party at the Boulevard3 club in Hollywood. When I asked him if he prefers it that way, he told me "No. It's disheartening. They don't tell me what they're thinking about doing or changing."

Drew also told me that he found out about longtime producer Roger Dobkowitz' dismissal the night before it happened. Executives at Fremantle told him about the change at a dinner near the Price studios. He felt bad for Dobkowitz, especially because of how well he got along with him. When asked if that put a damper on a fairly successful first season, he at first said it didn't, then he reconsidered. "Well, yeah it did, actually, because I really thought the world of him and I was sad that he let go. But like I said, I'm like an employee. They don't discuss their personnel changes with me."

The entire interview, including a response from CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler, is after the jump.

Tonight, the members of the Television Critics Association (including me) gathered at the Beverly Hilton to give out its annual awards. The membership voted on the awards in the month leading up to the press tour; we were given a number of candidates to choose from in various categories. The membership was also asked to choose recipients for an individual Career Achievement award and the Heritage Award, which recognizes a past show that had a big impact artistically and on the industry.

The members didn't reach back too far for the Heritage Award: it was given to The Wire. As for current shows, the members gave Mad Men a bushel of awards: Program of the Year, Outstanding New Program, and Outstanding Achievement in Drama. 30 Rock won for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, and Tina Fey won the Individual Achievement in Comedy award for her performance. John Adams won the mini-series award; its star, Paul Giamatti, won the Individual Achievement in Drama award. Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live received the Career Achievement award.

A complete list of winners is after the jump.

After the mid-day lunch/writing break, FOX jam-packed events into the rest of the afternoon and evening, not leaving much time to breathe, much less stop and type a blog post. One of the more noteworthy sessions after the break was for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Note that I said "noteworthy," not "interesting." Why? Because not much in the way of news came out of it. Still, a few things were thrown out by the producers and stars that may pique a fan's interest.

First of all: The show will have more self-contained episodes this year. Why? Executive producer John Wirth had a very succinct answer to that: "Because we wanted to."

Our Monday morning roundup of a half dozen things TV Squad readers - and TV fans in general - will be talking about this week.

1. Emmy nominations. If Moonlight and Jericho aren't nominated for every award, fans are gonna be pissed. (Thursday at 8:30am on E!, ABC, CBS, and NBC. We'll also have live blog coverage here!)

2. Season premieres of Monk, Psych, The Closer, and Saving Grace. Remember when summer was all about reruns? (The Closer and Saving Grace premiere tonight on TNT, while Monk and Psych premiere Friday on USA.)

3. The Gong Show. A remake of the classic show that has three judges choosing the very few talented performers out of dozens of terrible ones. Wait, that sounds like American Idol. (Thursday at 10 on Comedy Central.)

4. TV Squad reports from the TCA tour. Follow us here and on Twitter. All the hip kids are doing it!

5. It's Star Trek Week here at TV Squad. We'll all be dressed as our favorite character as we post reviews, lists, and essays about the original series.

6. Mad Men marathon. The second season starts on July 27, so grab your Lucky Strikes and some bourbon and settle in for an all-day season one marathon. (Sunday starting at noon on AMC.)

In an interesting move by one of the iconic astronauts, Buzz Aldrin blamed science fiction for the lack of space flight in modern society. Aldrin currenly hosts a show for the National Geographic Channel called Unseen Moon. According to him, sci-fi fed greater expectations than realistically possible and led to a lack of interest in the general public of promoting space travel.

"I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today," Aldrin said in an interview at the TCA. "All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It's not realistic."

There's such a thing as beating a dead horse and then there's beating a dead horse, chopping it up into tiny bits, and flinging it around like a monkey flings poo. The fact that we're still reading news items about Deadwood nearly two years after it aired its final episode just goes to show you how much it's missed. Well get this - as if we didn't already know - those two final "wrap-up the series with a neat little bow" movies are as dead as Wild Bill Hickok.

During the HBO's panel at the TCA Press Tour, executives Richard Plepler, Co-president, and Michael Lombardo, President of Programming and West Coast Operations, said they'd be interested in doing a Sopranos movie and a second Sex and the City movie. Plepler said that Warner Bros. and New Line are definitely interested in doing another Sex and the City movie. They are trying to put something together, but there's no timeline. "Everyone associated with the project was really heartened by the fans and by the new fans to the show," Plepler said.

As far as a Sopranos feature goes, Lombardo says HBO would be delighted to take part in it. He says that series creator David Chase is in France on vacation right now but, "If David wants to do it, we'd be delight to explore that."

When the executives were pressed about Mad Men (rumors are abound that HBO turned down the show and AMC snatched it up), Lombardo said only this, "Heres the bottom line, it's a wonderful show and I wish it were on HBO. Matt [Weiner is] an extraordinary talent and I hope that one day, he'll do something for us."

Would you see another Sex and the City movie? How about a Sopranos movie?

You might have noticed a few interesting items have come out that have the phrase "he/she said to a gathering of television critics." Well, that can only mean one thing... the Television Critics Association press tour is underway!

Because the writers' strike scuttled the winter edition of the twice-yearly tour earlier this year, this is the first time in a year that the various networks have had a chance to go though the painful process of peddling their wares in front of a group of cranky, jet-lagged, and hungry TV critics and journalists. This year should be interesting, since the broadcast networks don't really have much to offer in terms of new shows (and even fewer pilots for the shows they are picking up), and the whole nature and effectiveness of the press tour is being called into question by both the networks and the critics (more on that in a second).

All that being said, though, you can be sure that TV Squad will be at the Beverly Hilton to cover the dog-and-pony show. Kristin will attend selected cable presentations, and I'll be flying in Sunday, just in time for the broadcast networks to do their thing. Expect reports about executives and producers getting grilled, critics jostling each other out of the way to get a question in during post-press conference scrums, and tales of the unusual happenings at the all-star parties. Also keep an eye on our Twitter page, as I'll likely be throwing out silly dispatches (and maybe even breaking news) from the various events.

The 2008 Teen Choice Awards nominees are in and if you're a teen (that's between 13 and 19 years old for the math impaired among us), you can get your vote on once a day over at www.TeenChoiceAwards.com. If you've just put in a turkey to roast and have some time, you can follow the link to the complete list of Teen Choice Awards 2008 nominees, of which I can only say ... damn, that's a lot of categories. Do teens really have that kind of attention span anymore to make it through these categories and vote?

As reported earlier, Miley Cyrus has been signed to host with the show airing Monday, August 4 at 8pm ET. I've dropped in the TV-only categories and nominees after the jump, and there are a ton of categories covering a much wider range of television shows than really any of the major television awards do. There are oodles of reality show categories and more specifically, a category for "looking for love" reality shows. Really? And still only one category for animated shows?

Still haven't had enough of Hannah Montana? Well, you're in luck then because teen sensation Hannah Montana AKA Miley Cyrus has been slated to host the 2008 Teen Choice Awards. She's also up for three awards herself, which is nice and all, but pales in comparison to the CW's Gossip Girl with 14 and Chris Brown with nine. I've seen Cyrus in interviews and ad-libbing and she seems incredibly competent and comfortable so I expect she'll do a fine job hosting. The ceremony is set for Monday, August 4 at 8 ET on FOX.

I hate to say it, but do you think there's a legion of people out there just waiting for her to lose it the way many of the teen starlets eventually do. Maybe not as bad as Lindsay "You Really Don't Want to Mess With the" Lohan. But you know they've got the countdown clock for her eighteenth birthday, and they're all throwing little parties because of those Miley Cyrus naughty MySpace pics. The funny thing about all the scandal to me is that those pics aren't really all that big of a deal.

Hey, they're not the TV Squad Awards, but the TCAs are pretty cool too, and the nominees have been announced.

There are a lot of the usual suspects on the list, of course (though that doesn't mean they're not worthy - they are), including 30 Rock, The Office, Friday Night Lights, and The Wire. It's also great to see Mad Men get so many nominations, including Program of the Year, Best Drama, Best New Show, and a Best Individual Achievement nom for star Jon Hamm. It's interesting to see that Mad Men will go up against another AMC show, Breaking Bad, in the Best New Show category.

Lost is well represented, as are John Adams, Flight of the Conchords, and PBS' The War miniseries. As for The Wire, it's not only up for drama and acting awards, it has also been nominated for the Heritage Award, along with M*A*S*H, Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street, and Roots. Interesting to see such a recent show up for a lifetime award next to classics. The awards will be presented on July 19.

Anything missing from these nominations?

Maybe the strike's not all bad. That's what some studio executives are saying in this Variety article. The winter TCA Tour has been canceled already and upfronts are now in jeopardy. And just as it took the lead in pulling out of the TCA, NBC has already said they will forgo the multimillion dollar extravaganza the upfronts had turned into.

But from the network's point of view these are good things, as they'd been wanting to cut some of these expenses for years. What does that mean? The TCA Tours may be done for good, ditto the upfront "events." And that may just be the start of changes in the television landscape we've come to know and love.