TVSquad

If you enjoyed the Yo Teach ... ! clips Jason Schwartzman did to promote Judd Apatow's Funny People, then you'll dig the following teaser for HBO's Bored to Death. The upcoming comedy stars Schwartzman as a struggling writer who moonlights as a detective.



Writer Jonathan Ames is the man behind the series, which features an amazing cast including Zach Galifianakis (still riding a buzz from The Hangover), Ted Danson, Parker Posey and Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig.

I just finished watching season one of FX's Damages and, wow! What a gripping, twisty-turny show that had me hooked the whole way. Glenn Close acts the socks off anyone in close range, but the rest of the cast are no slouches either.

I've gained new respect for Ted Danson in his role as Arthur Frobisher, a high-stakes entrepreneur who's gotten himself into some pretty deep doo-doo. And Rose Byrne as the young-pup attorney Ellen is like watching a steely-eyed carp in the making.

I can't wait for season two to start on Jan. 7 at 10 PM, but until then I'll have to appease myself with Jonathan's early look and this poster.

All this month, AOL TV is publishing their list of TV's hottest hunks of all time. That's a lot of hunks, but probably they won't all be memorable to you -- or to me.

Because when were you swooning over TV hunks? When you were a teenager, of course. Unless you are really, really immature. But seriously, I am guessing that beyond the age of 16 or so, you probably didn't plaster any Teen Magazine pin-ups on your bedroom walls.

As a teenager of the '80s, I surely had my favorite TV hunks. Yep, they were plastered on my bedroom walls, too: imagine hunk wallpaper and you've got the idea. So who on TV mingled amongst the movie actors of the Brat Pack?

Ted Danson is one of those actors who just keeps chugging along through the years. He could have easily disappeared after Cheers, but he's been working steadily in both movies and TV.

Becker sort of flew under the radar, but aired from 1998 to 2004. There was the short-lived Help Me Help You in 2006. Danson even voiced a part on King of the Hill (Tom Hammond in "The Accidental Tourist" episode).

But it's his stint as the sinister Arthur Frobisher in Damages that's brought him into the forefront again. It also helped to catapult him into his next gig -- a lead role in HBO's comedy pilot Bored to Death.

The FX panels on Tuesday were pretty uneventful, aside from the news from network president John Landgraf. There was supposed to be a panel for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but that was mysteriously dropped from the schedule. I'm guessing that the boys figured they'd get too hammered at the FOX party the night before to handle questions from the reporters. Indeed, I witnessed Rob McElhenny and Glenn Howerton try to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Santa Monica pier right after they pounded a couple of beers. Maybe canceling the panel was a smart idea.

Anyway, the three shows that paneled were Damages, Sons of Anarchy, and The Shield. More on what transpired after the jump.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

Even when it isn't at its greatest (which, for many fans, hasn't been since season 10) The Simpsons has still provided some great parodies of classic movies and television programs. For instance, in the season four episode "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie" they did a great parody of the Star Trek movie franchise with Star Trek XII: So Very Tired. I still crack up everytime I see the scene where the severely obese Scotty is telling an aged Captain Kirk that he can't push the warp engines any further.

As the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences tries to whittle the submissions down to actual nominees, it's interesting to take a look at who has made it to the semifinals. It's not a nomination, but it's one step away. Today comes word of the finalists for best comedy actress and best supporting drama actor. There are some surprises.

Chief among those for me is Sarah Silverman. I honestly hadn't even considered her in the running. I'm not much of a fan, but I do like that she is being considered for the simple fact that the base the nominees are drawn from can always use some expansion. And if she is the most surprising inclusion, the most surprising snub just might be Teri Hatcher. Eva Longoria, Marcia Cross, and Felicity Huffman all made the cut, but not Hatcher. Ouch. The rest of the finalists, and the supporting actors from a drama, after the jump.

I was looking over a "Where are they now?" feature our friends at AOL put together on the cast of Cheers, and a few of the mysteries of the long-running sitcom classic came to mind. These were head-scratchers big and small that made me wonder if the writers are the most clever geniuses ever to man a word processor (it was the '80s, after all) or, like in most sitcoms, consistency of story was the first thing to go if a good joke came up in the writers' room.

I guess I should just go over to Ken Levine's blog and ask him, since he wrote for the show for many years. But if I did that, I wouldn't get paid for it. So, after the jump are the biggest Cheers mysteries, starting with the biggest and most obvious one:

... Six welcome returns.

Every fall season I get stoked about all the new shows, with cool new premises ("A guy travels through time trying to make right what once went wrong!"-- Journeyman not Quantum Leap), and all the big changes in store for existing shows. But it's equally exciting to see which beloved actors will be returning to television. Brad Garrett coming back to television in 'Til Death last year? Cool! Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer both coming back to television ... together? That's gotta be awesome, right? Jerry O'Connell on Carpoolers ... well ... ? I like the guy, but I'm not scheduling a 'Welcome Back' shindig for him.

Half the fun of a new television season is the return of great actors and actresses to the small screen. And while I could have easily done 10 or even 20 of these, I've narrowed it down to the six talents who were most welcome back in my house on a weekly basis this past year. I've even been so bold as to rank them. Feel free to agree, disagree and present your own lists in the comments.

Will Nip/Tuck have a season six? Why is James Gandolfini going back to HBO and will Larry David end Curb Your Enthusiasm?

These tidbits -- and a tons of swag -- came out at today's TCA press sessions at the Beverly Hilton hotel. I had to remind myself that today was a cable day because the roster of talent read like a major network.

Jason Priestly (Beverly Hills 90210) led the cast of Side Order of Life, a Lifetime series in which star Marisa Coughlan has second thoughts about marrying Priestly. But, hey, if Big dumped Natasha on Sex in the City then I suppose anything's possible.

I guess this means Help Me Help You is officially canceled (it has been on 'hiatus' since mid-December). Ted Danson has signed on to a legal thriller alongside Glenn Close. Danson will play a corporate executive "involved in a class-action lawsuit brought on by a high-stakes litigator", played by Close. If the untitled series gets picked up by FX, Danson has agreed to the entire first season.

Danson and Close have starred together in a drama before. They starred together in Something About Amelia, a 1984 made-for-TV movie that got them both nominated for Emmys and won Danson a Golden Globe.

When I was a bright, young journalism student back at Rutgers University (Go Scarlet Knights!) I remember a mantra that my professors bore into our brains each and every week: check your sources. If you verify your facts with at least two or three other sources you are good to go. Apparently, the news editors over at WJZ, Baltimore's CBS affiliate, missed that day in class. And, because they did they ended up in an extremely embarrassing situation.

Earlier this week they reported that Michael Richards appeared in blackface at a roast honoring Whoopi Goldberg. They reported this as breaking news not once, but twice, and attributed the story to the website Dateline:Hollywood. Well, it seems that the news department over at WJZ didn't realize that the site satirizes Hollywood. Needless to say, they were red-faced about the entire blackface situation (place groans here) and they ran a brief correction during their 11 p.m. newscast. What they should have really done was fired the staff member(s) who discovered that information and didn't read further about Britney's private areas wanting to talk to the press. They may have gotten and idea that it wasn't a legitimate news site then.

Oh, and someone's internal alarm should have gone off when they saw that story, since it is so familiar to something that happened back in 1993. That's when Ted Danson, who was dating Whoopi Goldberg at the time, appeared in blackface at a Friar's Club roast. Really, it wasn't that long ago, newsies.

While I've always enjoyed both Cheers and Becker, I've never quite been able to make up my mind about Ted Danson. Is he a good actor or just mediocre? I mean, he was good enough that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about him. C'mon, you all know the words:

You can’t start a fire you can’t start a fire without a spark
This gun’s for hire even if we’re just Danson in the dark....

Well, it's been two years since Becker was canceled, and now our pal Ted is planning yet another return to television, this time for an ABC comedy called Help Me Help You. Danson will play a therapist who leads a therapy group. The show will be about the people in the group, and Ted himself, who, (surprise) has issues of his own.