TVSquad

NBC isn't exactly engendering a lot of goodwill among people, with their cancellations of shows like Life and Medium, and My Name is Earl. The fact that they're replacing these shows with not one but two medical shows, isn't exactly a confidence booster. NBC hasn't sent screeners of all their pilots yet, hence the "Part 1" in the title. But I have gotten a taste of both their comedy and drama offerings with Community, a comedy starring The Soup's Joel McHale, and Trauma, one of the aforementioned medical dramas.

Going into this, I didn't have high hopes for Trauma, and while I wanted to like Community, I had a bad feeling that it wasn't going to be the vehicle that would change Joel McHale from cute host of a basic cable show to primetime star. Now, after seeing both of them, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by one.

Southland, the gritty new police drama from film producer Ann Biderman, puts the spotlight on the dark and grimy corners of Los Angeles as seen through the eyes of uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives. Unfortunately, the series premiere is mired in cop show clichés and forgets to deliver anything we haven't seen before.

The first episode – stream it now or watch it below, a week before it debuts on NBC – owes a lot to NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street and countless other cop shows that came before it. It's a procedural with a large cast about cops struggling to balance "the job" with their personal lives.

Let's get the bad/obvious news out of the way first: Despite what ER showrunner David Zabel told TV Guide in a recent interview, George Clooney will not -- repeat NOT -- be returning to the show for it's 15th and final season.

According to Clooney's publicist, "He is on record as saying he is not coming back. It is something he has already done. He is busy making movies." If you're an optimist, though, you can always hope for a surprise Clooney return a la the 2000 ER season finale, in which Georgie showed up at the very end of Julianna Margulies' farewell ep.

On a more positive note, there are plenty of actors who ARE joining popular existing series or are attached to promising upcoming projects. A rundown of these casting coups ensues.

I really wish Tom Everett Scott would find a great role he could sink his teeth into for a few years. He's so talented, and yet he keeps ending up in short-lived and dead-end roles.

The actor has signed for a two-episode guest stint on NBC's Law & Order, playing Governor Shalvoy, according to a Hollywood Reporter story. He'll be joined in one of the episodes by Alison Elliott, playing his wife, Rita Shalvoy.

Since breaking onto the Hollywood scene in 1996's That Thing You Do, Scott has floundered in short-lived series like 2002's Philly, playing Kim Delaney's love interest, and 2006's Saved, where he played a troubled paramedic. Most recently, he played Lucy Liu's estranged fiance on Cashmere Mafia.

(S01E01) In the beginning, about 2002, television gave us FX's The Shield, a police drama featuring corrupt but effective angst-ridden cops. Two years later the big picture box gave us FX's Rescue Me, a firefighter drama featuring cracked but effected angst-ridden firefighters. Both series have gone on to be critical and popular successes.  And now, the glorious TV has given us a new 'first response' drama on TNT called Saved, which features flawed but effective angst-ridden paramedics.

Television should have taken a rest after the first two shows because it didn't do very well on this one. You see, while both The Shield and Rescue Me have main characters that you can connect with, despite the fact they are so flawed,  you can't do that with Wyatt Cole, the main character on Saved. Why? Because he's so freakin selfish.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain after the jump. However, be warned of the spoilers ahead.

This one is about a troubled paramedic working in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. The execs at TNT really liked the pilot and have ordered 12 more episodes, to be shot this spring. Not sure if they actually shoot this thing in Portland but, if so, I'm totally going on a Tom Everett Scott hunt. He plays the lead character, described as "flawed' and "three-dimensional." Can't we all use those words to describe ourselves? The series, called Saved, made the cut among three new dramas that TNT was considering adding to its summer line-up. Saved is the third original drama for TNT, which found huge success last year with The Closer and Wanted.