TVSquad

Are you anxiously awaiting news of who was in that SUV that exploded? Still fraught with worry over how Gibbs is going to get his team back together? Or maybe you are just excited that Survivor is finally going to be beamed into your living room in glorious HD. Well, you can start making plans for your fall scheduling now. The eye network has released the schedule of premieres for their new and returning shows.

I'm a little concerned about two things on the schedule. First, The New Adventures Of Old Christine and Project Gary lead into Criminal Minds on Wednesday nights. That's an odd pairing, and I don't think bodes well for either of the comedies. And second, The Unit gets shuffled off to Sunday at 10? NCIS and The Unit have done remarkably well paired up on Tuesdays. Good for The Mentalist, not so much for The Unit. The whole thing kicks off with Survivor on September 18th. The rest of the schedule is after the jump.

The Emmy Awards voting is different than it used to be (more steps in the voting process and a special panel watches episodes and votes after that), and last year the list of the semifinalists was leaked online before it was officially announced. Well, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences don't really want that to happen again, so they've decided to just announce the finalist list itself.

After the jump, the ten comedies and ten dramas that are semifinalists for the Emmy award this year. The list will be knocked down to five (more if there's a tie) once another round of voting is done. The nominees will be announced live on July 17, and we'll have coverage here at TV Squad.

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

A little behind the scenes info about the making of this post. When I started to type the #16 entry, my eye drifted to the #17 entry and I actually started to type Are You Smarter Than The Bachelorette? Which got me thinking that we could probably create other TV shows from this list, if the networks are looking for new ideas. How about America's Got Bones? Two and Half 60 Million? CSI: So You Think You Can Dance?

1. NBA Finals - Game 6 (ABC)
2. America's Got Talent (NBC)

TV syndication upfront ad sales are brisk, with syndicators expected to sell higher levels of ad inventory, similar to the broadcast networks.

Sales are more than 50% complete, with one syndicator, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, more than 70% sold out of its 2008-09 ad inventory, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

What's it all mean? It means that syndication upfront totals are expected to be around $2.4 billion, up 4.5% from last year.

Maybe one reason is that syndicators are incorporating more product integration into their packages, especially with talk and entertainment shows. Strong categories include packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, movies, and fast food.

Hmmm ... I wonder what they're saying. That TV viewers sit around eating Big Macs, doing drugs, and woofing down Cheetos? Yeah, that can't be right.

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

Summer is a funny time for TV ratings. You're not quite sure what's going to be in the mix, just that's it's going to be a mix of new shows and repeats. This isn't a big surprise, but it which repeats that make the list. CBS seems to be dominating the summer, with repeats of CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Two and a Half Men, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, Rules of Engagement, and 60 Minutes taking up many spots in the top 20. The top show with new episodes is also a CBS show, Million Dollar Password.

1. NBA Finals - Game 5 (ABC)
2. NBA Finals - Game 3 (ABC)
3. NBA Finals - Game 4 (ABC)

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

While ABC is probably happy with the NBA Finals games (predictably) grabbing the top slots, CBS has to be happy with the way two of their new shows fared. Million Dollar Password was number 6 this week (number three last week) and the debut of Swingtown hit number 12. Actually, CBS has to be happy in general, as they grabbed 13 of the top 20 shows, though I'm kinda surprised that 60 Minutes continues to do so well in the off season, considering the episodes are all repeat segments.

1. NBA Finals - Game 1 (ABC)
2. NBA Finals - Game 2 (ABC)

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

Um, OK, I had to do a double take (or maybe a triple) when I saw these ratings for Lost. Number 1 for the week?? I knew it would do better since it was the season finale, but the top spot, up 18 spots from last week? That's pretty cool.

The new edition of Password took the number 3 spot. Meanwhile, the number 18 show really kinda baffles me.

1. Lost (ABC)
2. Two and a Half Men (CBS)
3. Million Dollar Password (CBS)

Charlie Sheen has married Wife #3. The 42 year old television star married real estate investor Brooke Mueller this past Friday night. The couple have been engaged since last summer.

Sheen has starred in several movies and is currently starring in the Nielsen top-10 rated show Two and a Half Men. "She's just easy, and loving, and smart, and if everybody was just as happy to see me when I walk through a door as her, my life would be perfect," he said soon after the couple got engaged.

He is currently involved in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife and soon-to-be-reality TV star of the E! show It's Complicated, Denise Richards. They got married in 2002 and divorced in 2006. Sheen was also briefly married to model Donna Peele in 1995.

All I can say is congratulations and best of luck to Sheen and Mueller. It's difficult to make marriages work, and even more difficult with Hollywood marriages.

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

It will be interesting to see what the top shows are next week, since American Idol and Dancing with the Stars both had their season finales last week. And a lot of the scripted shows had their season finales too. I'm sure So You Think You Can Dance, at number 19 this week, will soar up in the ratings as spaces open up.

Hell's Kitchen finished a little higher than usual, and Ugly Betty a lot higher than usual.

1. American Idol - Weds (FOX)
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX)

We continue with our roundup of the season-ending ratings (here is the season winner and the May sweeps winner) with a list of the top 20 shows for the season. The first two shows aren't going to be a surprise to anyone (though the number of times one show shows up on the list might be surprising to some). How many shows on this list do you watch? I watch one show all the time and I watch another show a little bit. The other 18 1/2 shows I don't watch at all, which is odd because I watch a ton of television every week.

Only one sitcom made the top 20, and there was only one show from NBC. Do you know what those two shows are? Answer after the jump.

(Oh, I know The CW logo is in the pic above, but you won't find any of their shows on the list.)

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

Not many surprises this week, if any at all (maybe a slight surprise that Dancing with the Stars was broken up by the season finale of CSI), so I thought I'd open up the comments for you to answer two questions. One, what show do you watch that isn't on this list and surprises you that more people don't watch it? And two, what show on here makes you shake your head and say "how they hell can so many people watch that?!"

1. American Idol - Weds (FOX)
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX)

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

Last week I mentioned that Lost wasn't in the top 20. Well, this week it returns. Not to the highs it was earlier this year, but hey, I wouldn't mind almost 11 million people watching what I do each week (I'm talking about writing, not going to the bathroom or eating a sandwich). Survivor's finale and regular episode both made the top 20, even though it was the lowest-rated finale in the history of the show.

1. American Idol - Weds (FOX)
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX)

Recently, the AOL list of the 50 Best Sitcoms of all time got me thinking about ten all time great sitcom sidekicks. Working on that list inspired me to look at the best in sitcom siblings -- ADULTS ONLY. The brother/sister relationship, brothers, sisters, family dynamics are great fodder for comedy. For my collection of the best, I've limited it to grown-up siblings only because there are some truly funny things that happen only among adults brothers and sisters that are unique and universal at the same time. After all, unlike the childhood years when kids are controlled by parents, adult siblings remain close and in each other's lives by choice -- and that has made for some wonderful situation comedy.

Niles & Frasier Crane, Frasier
Two brothers, both psychiatrists, both opera buffs, both wine connoisseurs, both heterosexual despite evidence to the contrary. The Crane brothers were like two peas in a very funny pod, sparking each other in comedy, competitive and supportive at the same time. Making their brotherly friendship even funnier was the fact that their Dad, Martin, who was nothing like either one of them. What's even funnier is the fact that when Frasier was originally spun-off from Cheers, the writers didn't include the character of Niles. It was only after seeing an 8x10 of David Hyde Pierce, and how much he looked like Kelsey Grammer's brother, that they put him in the pilot. Frasier would not have been nearly the hit comedy it was without the brother angle.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• American Idol - Season 6 Finale
• The Chase - Season 1
• Drawn Together - Season 3 Uncensored
• Galaxy Rangers - The Collection: Vol. 1
• Garfield and His Friends - A Cat and His Nerd
• The Incredible Hulk Returns and The Trial of The Incredible Hulk
• Lovejoy - Season 3
• The Magnificent Seven - Complete Series
• Mission: Impossible - Season 4
• The Rat Patrol - Complete Series
• Saturday Night Live - Season 3
• Sinatra (mini-series)
• Stargate: Infinity - Complete Series
• Two and a Half Men - Season 3

The CSI/Two and a Half Men writers switch was a very clever promotion for CBS. Fortunately, the writers saw the opportunity to change places as more than just a publicity stunt. They really took the scripting seriously and came up with inventive episodes for each program. If this were a competition to see which team would deliver the better show, who would take on the task of writing winning TV in a genre not their own and succeed beyond expectations, the comedy scribes take the gold. Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn's CSI was pure genius, and if it were up to me, CSI should submit it for an Emmy.

But first there was Two and a Half Men. In an episode called "Fish in a Drawer" (and if somebody could explain what that title means, I'd be most appreciative), the story picked up after Evelyn married Teddy. In the teleplay by CSI regular writers Evan Dunsky and Sarah Goldfinger, Charlie and Courtney check out of the reception for a little romp in his room upstairs only to find Teddy's dead bod on the bed. Talk about spoiling the mood. Teddy wasn't only a corpse, he was a corpse with his pants pulled down around his ankles and lipstick stains on his hoo-ha. The cops were called in, a detective who was a dead ringer for Marg Helgenberger -- played by redhead Jamie Rose -- had the vaguely Bondian name of Jagov, Sloane Jagov. Naturally, Charlie had to make a move on her. He couldn't keep his eyes off her cleavage.