TVSquad

If all of the people who watched the first two episodes of The Beautiful Life signed this petition...well, the show would still be canceled (if you had TBL in the office "which show will get canceled first" pool, congrats!).

Cancellations + the web = instant petitions. A TV show used to just die and then that would be it. Oh, sometimes something happens where a show gets a second chance (exec taking a chance, summer reruns getting good ratings, the show doing well on DVD, buzz, etc), but it's a long shot. And now, whenever a show is canceled the web gives us the opportunity to create and/or sign a petition to get the show renewed.

The cancel hammer fell faster this season than I expected. After only two episodes, even The CW's lower ratings expectations couldn't save The Beautiful Life. The real reason The CW canceled The Beautiful Life: TBL is right there in the title. How pretentious do you have to be to put your acronym in your title?

Acronyms are earned. Acronyms like OTH, VD and MP. Those stand for shows that are doing much better for The CW. The network has tossed a full season order to the veteran One Tree Hill. They came a little short of that with The Vampire Diaries, ordering nine more scripts, but a full-season pick-up can't be far behind. While TBL slipped to one million, VD achieved 3.8 million and growing.

As for Melrose Place, it's not doing nearly as well, but The CW is maybe hoping that Heather Locklear can save this iteration the way she did the original. I'm not so sure, but they've got six more scripts to prove their case.

• At 8, ABC has a new Dancing with the Stars, followed by the series premieres of Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Eastwick.
• CBS has the season premiere of Old Christine at 8, then the season premieres of Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, and CSI: NY.
• NBC has the series premiere of Mercy at 8, followed by the season premiere of Law and Order: SVU and a new Jay Leno Show.
• FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance and a new Glee.
• There's a new America's Next Top Model on The CW at 8, then a new The Beautiful Life.
• Cartoon Network has a new Bobb'e Says at 8, followed by a new Dude, What Would Happen?
• At 9, Discovery has a new Man vs. Wild.
• Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 9.
• History Channel has a new Nostradamus Effect at 9, followed by a new MysteryQuest.
• Also at 9: Syfy has a new Ghost Hunters, then a new Destination Truth.
• At 10, Bravo has a new Top Chef: Las Vegas.
• Travel Channel has a new Man vs. Food at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

• ESPN2 has WNBA Basketball Playoffs all night.
• At 8, ABC has a new Wipeout, followed by new episodes of Crash Course and Primetime: The Outsiders.
• NBC has a new, two-hour America's Got Talent at 8, then a new Jay Leno Show.
• FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance at 8, followed by a new Glee.
• The CW has a new America's Next Top Model at 8, then the series premiere of The Beautiful Life.
• There's a new Live From Lincoln Center on PBS at 8, with the New York Philharmonic.
• Spike has a new, two-hour UFC Fight Night at 8, followed by a new Ultimate Fighter.
• Cartoon Network has a new Bobb'e Says at 8, then a new Dude, What Would Happen?
• At 9, TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns.
• Syfy has a new Ghost Hunters at 9, followed by a new Destination Truth.
• History Channel has a new Nostradamus Effect at 9, then a new MysteryQuest.
• BBC America has a new Gordon Ramsay's F Word at 9.
• At 10, TNT has the season finale of Dark Blue.
• Bravo has a new Top Chef: Las Vegas at 10.
• MTV has a new Real World at 10.
• Travel Channel has a new Man vs. Food at 10.
• TruTV has a new Black Gold at 10.
• Also at 10: Food Network has a new Dinner: Impossible.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Like most people in this world, I often turn to master geek musician Jonathan Coulton when I'm trying to figure out how I should feel about something (you can smell hair burning when I try to think for myself).

So imagine my horror when the Fall schedule started filling out and Mr. Coulton was still dealing with strictly music-related matters. Well, I can finally have a restful night of sleep, because John Sellers of True Slant has gotten Jonathan Coulton's take on Fall TV.

Each year, as the new fall season approaches, I go through all the magazine and online sources talking about the various shows to try and figure out which ones I'm going to be excited about, and which I'm going to avoid like the plague.

Inevitably, I wind up sampling plenty of shows from which I should have steered clear. At the same time, a few shows will slip between the cracks, and then I'm bashing my head against the wall because I missed out on the beginning of something special. I hate coming into things late.

This year, I decided to share my top and bottom five selections. I'm sure the rest of the Squadders and you will have differing opinions than mine, but that's what makes America great, right? Chime in with your own lists in the comments.

The networks have had a quiet summer, quietly introducing scripted bomb after scripted bomb, so they're certainly ready to jump into the new fall season. And It looks to be an interesting one. ABC is scheduling a two-hour block of new comedies on Wednesdays as the sitcom tries to make a comeback.

Even more risky is NBC handing 10:00 to Jay Leno every night of the week. Everyone's waiting to see how that one plays out. FOX is banking on huge positive buzz for Glee to make it a hit, while ABC is hoping FlashForward can pick up where Lost is leaving off when it wraps its run this season.

To help you with it all, TV Squad has put together a handy calendar of all the premieres so you can schedule responsibly in this busy time of TV watching. Some nights have as many as twelve premieres scheduled, so you might need to invest in a few more DVRs to catch all your favorites; Monday's still look grim. Bookmark this page and you'll have it handy to help see you through.

The CW is getting really good at this. First those OMFG ads for Gossip Girl and now this:

The cast for the upcoming drama The Beautiful Life is posing naked for the ad campaign in support of the show's launch on September 16th. Well... almost naked. And not the whole cast.

The drama, which seems to only have one premise based on the way The CW is pitching it, is apparently about really good looking people who happen to also be alive. It's not about unattractive zombies who look like they're dead. That may be why series regular Mischa Barton is conspicuously absent from the ad campaign. Ohhh... SNAP! Also sure to raise controversy? Corbin Bleu - the teenybopper from Disney's annoying High School Musical franchise - is one of the stars in the campaign. Hooray for role models.

Anyway, the tagline for the season is pretty funny too - "what are you looking at?" Why is it funny? Because the only answer I can come up with is "not much." Pictures after the jump...

When Ashton Kutcher, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, Elle Macpherson and the rest of the panel for Kutcher's CW show The Beautiful Life, I was figuring the panel would field nothing but questions about Mischa Barton, given the recent publicity over her hospitalization and other personal issues. Surprisingly, though, the critics actually wanted to focus on the show itself, which is about the lives of young models and how they deal with the various pressures of that lifestyle.

However, in the middle of the panel, a Barton question did come up. Kutcher was quick to defend the actress, saying she was "never unavailable for a day of work." With all the young people in the cast, he thinks the "good thing about Mischa is that she's done it before," and can provide guidance.

It's CW day at the TCAs, and network honcho Dawn Ostroff presented her executive session in the middle of the day, after a parade of panels that included one pretty face after another, including Ashton Kutcher, Elle Macpherson, the cast of Vampire Diaries and a few alumni from the original Melrose Place. Ostroff fully admitted that the network is courting 35-and-under women with their shows, trying to build on the "one tweet per minute" success of shows like One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, and 90210.

But what about two of the network's more veteran and male-oriented shows, Smallville and Supernatural? Does the network still believe in them? Ostroff tried to give a definitive "yes," but the rest of her panel, and the promos shown before she appeared, say otherwise.

There has been a delay on the new CW series The Beautiful Life, which is a new drama about a bunch of models sharing a house in New York. It sounds very much like the usual show found on the CW, doesn't it? Anyway, it is executive produced by Ashton Kutcher and stars Mischa Barton (formerly of The O.C.).

While Mischa Barton has been having some personal problems recently, the network claims that the reason behind the nine day delay of the start of production is that some of the sets were not completed on time. This is what they say.

I have nothing against Mischa Barton and I hope she solves whatever problems she is having and goes on to a long and prosperous career. However, I'd have to be pretty naive to think that Barton's emotional issues were not a factor in any delay of the start of her new show.