TVSquad

Last night, USA Network invited some of their favorite advertisers -- and a few reporters -- to their upfront presentation, held at The Modern, a sleek restaurant and lounge located at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was an opportunity for USA and NBC Universal executives to crow about the network's continued success as well as let advertisers know what's coming up in 2008 and how they can combine their advertising message with the unique "characters" that USA offers.

All that's well and good -- be ready for more product placement and ad pods that other networks have recently adopted -- but the best part about an upfront presentation are the stars that the network drags out to schmooze and booze with those advertisers. And USA brought the big guns, including Tony Shalhoub from Monk, Debra Messing from The Starter Wife, Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell from Burn Notice, Dulé Hill, James Roday, and Corbin Bernsen from Psych, Kathryn Erbe and Chris Noth from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the WWE's Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and Mary McCormack from the network's new show In Plain Sight. I got to speak to a few of them; audio of those interviews is after the jump.

Good news for Debra Messing and all of the others involved in the miniseries The Starter Wife. After garnering some pretty decent ratings and several Emmy nominations, USA Networks has given a full series order to the comedy-drama based on the successful novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer.

Former Will & Grace star Messing will return as Molly Kagan, the former Hollywood wife who is now experiencing a second chance at life after her recent divorce. Also returning will be the executive production team of Grazer, Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott. There is no information as to when filming will begin for the premiere season of The Starter Wife or when the first episode will air.

Summertime and TV in my house means three things: Watching new summer programming, catching up on TV shows I missed during the conventional September-through-May TV season and baseball, specifically Boston Red Sox baseball.

In fact, on summer evenings, my TV is most likely tuned in to a baseball game. But when the Sox are not playing -- or when they're getting clobbered or if they're playing a really late west coast game -- I turn on other shows such as:

1. Entourage. Yes, they're spoiled adolescents. They're narcissistic. They play video games all day and party all night as if they're entitled to live lives of luxury. But the guys from Entourage greatly amuse me and I love hating Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold.