TVSquad

One of my favorite parts of the summer press tour was the last day, mainly because a busload of critics got to go to the Warner Bros. lot and tour sets from ER, Chuck, and Pushing Daisies (we also saw the Dollhouse set on the Fox lot later that day).

On the Pie Hole set of Daisies, for instance, all the stars and producers were available for interviews. Kristin Chenoweth held court right outside the pie-shaped diner's entrance, sporting a splint on her right hand from a recent bat bite (I kid you not... wonder what scene they were shooting at the time). But I was there to ask her about how she felt about being the model for Harriet Hayes on Studio 60 two years ago. And she was very candid about the situation,especially in light of the fact that her former (and current?) boyfriend, S60 creator Aaron Sorkin, never was.

First, though, a question about Jeff Probst; Chenoweth dropped the tidbit that the two of them dated when she announced his Emmy nomination the week before. Audio is after the jump.

Joss Whedon fans, take note ... you may have competition from the fans of ABC's Pushing Daises. That's the way it seemed at their Comic-Con panel on Saturday afternoon. They were so loud and applauded so frequently that it made an audience of Whedon fans seem like a group of cloistered monks taking a vow of silence.

But, that really isn't surprising since the show (whose first season comes out on standard DVD and Blu-Ray on September 16th) has such a wealth of talent both on and off screen. The audience at the Pushing Daises panel had an opportunity to see all that talent in one place as the entire cast joined creator Bryan Fuller and executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld in answering questions about season two. The tantalizing morsels appear after the jump.

Given that you've made the wise choice to visit tvsquad.com, I feel pretty safe jumping to the conclusion that you are a fan of television. With that in mind, you should really enjoy the round table Hollywood Reporter recently put together with Damon Lindelof (Lost), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), David Shore (House), Matthew Weiner (Mad Men), and Craig Thomas (How I Met Your Mother).

The group got together to talk about a number of different topics. Among them, the strike and what could be the cause of the lowered numbers as shows came back. They also share some amusing examples of they hypocrisy that is network standards and practices. The Emmys come up as well, with the group sharing their thoughts about who is deserving of consideration. It all makes for an interesting look behind the scenes and is definitely worth your click. And if all that isn't enough, the story also includes a video where Damon Lindelof manages to reference both Nash Bridges and Remington Steele. Who can pass up Nash Bridges?

(S01E06) Up until now, we've only seen Emerson as a gruff P.I. whose role was to throw a sprinkle of cynicism on the decidedly sprightly environment around the Pie Hole. But you knew that eventually we were going to either find out more about his past or see him get involved with one of the people he was investigating. Tonight we got the latter. And his dalliance did a nice job of throwing some needed darkness into what was an overly-sweet episode.

Some interesting news coming out of ABC today, one of which is a surprise, the other of which isn't:

First the non-surprise: Both TV Week and Kristin Dos Santos at E! Online are reporting that Pushing Daisies has been picked up for the rest of the season. That means 22 episodes of non-contact cuteness from Ned and Chuck. Ratings for the first three episodes have been solid, and -- at least based on the fun third episode -- worries about how the show might operate with budget restrictions have been so far unfounded.

The surprising ABC news: The former Ms. Veitch is also reporting that three more scripts have been ordered for Bruce McCulloch's Carpoolers, bringing the total order to 12 episodes. Despite the pedigree, the show hasn't been all that impressive so far either in quality or in the ratings. This makes me wonder if ABC is ordering more scripts in case there's a writers' strike.

I sometimes look around the internet and am amazed by the sheer volume of content. People can write about almost anything -- especially when they're obsessed with a specific topic. And a lot of people seem to be specifically obsessed with television.

Not that I can judge. I'm TV addict who writes for TV Squad. But I sometimes wonder if it all really matters. Is anyone listening to any of us? And more importantly, do we have any influence on the television world at large with our opinions and criticisms?

As a devoted TV addict, I headed out last week to cover the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) and listened in on a panel discussion which looked at the explosion of blogs and TV fan sites and questioned their impact (if any) on the industry.

Last Wednesday, Kim Masters of Slate.com wrote an interesting article about Pushing Daisies, one of the most highly-anticipated new fall shows. In the article, Masters reports that not only is the first post-pilot episode of Daisies over-budget, but the director of both the pilot and the first episode, Barry Sonnenfeld, has been punished for it; his "role as director was curtailed," as Masters put it.

When I was at the premiere for Daisies at the New York Television Festival last night, my main purpose on the event's red carpet (pictures of and text about the event will be posted on Tuesday) was to ask Sonnenfeld to reply to that article. Luckily, the director of Get Shorty, Men In Black, and The Addams Family wasn't reluctant to respond. "You know, the writer of the piece hasn't written a lot about Hollywood, I think," said Sonnenfeld. "Almost every show after the pilot is over-budget, whether it's Bionic Woman, Chuck, last year's Ugly Betty... I suspect they're all over-budget." More after the jump.

This morning marked the Comic-Con premiere of ABC pilot Pushing Daisies. Created by Bryan Fuller and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Pushing Daisies is the story of Ned, who has some complicated powers. He can bring people back from the dead by touching them, but only for one minute. He touches them again, and they go back to being dead. If he doesn't, they get to live, but a completely random person will die in their place. The set-up is a little convoluted, but once you see it, it makes sense.

A little over two months ago, I told you that a made-for-DVD movie was in the works for Showtime's Dead Like Me. Ellen Muth, star of the series, announced on her MySpace page that she's been informed the series could make a come back on TV if the movie sells well.

In her post, Muth mentions a new concept being featured in the movie and that fans should give it a chance. Does that mean reapers will not get Post Its anymore?

The Heroes controversy continues.

It has been reported that Thomas Dekker (who played Zach) and his management didn't want him to play a gay character, and that's why the character and the actor suddenly disappeared from the show. But now Dekker has said on his web site (horribly designed, and I can't find the posting) that it's absolutely untrue.

In fact, Dekker says that he has played a gay character three other times in his career, as a younger teen, and would have done it again. He says his leaving the show had nothing to do with the story arc for Zach, though he doesn't really get into why he did leave the show.

Producer Bryan Fuller said in an interview last month that Dekker left because the character was gay and they were going to explore that plot further in later episodes.

In an interview with Popgurls.com, Heroes producer Bryan Fuller discloses that, yes, the character of Zach on the show was indeed gay and they were going to follow the story through, but then negotiations with the actor's (Thomas Dekker) management got "ugly."

Fuller says that Zach was going to come out on the show and actually help Claire "come out" about her superpower, but then reps for Dekker said that they didn't want to make the character gay because it might hurt his chances of getting the role of John Connor in the new series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they took out a line that would have said that Zach was gay and never really got into it again, though in everyone's mind the character was still gay. Fuller, gay himself, says that he was hurt and insulted by the entire "debacle."

They had whole episodes revolving around Zach planned, but then his reps pulled him from the show completely.

Slap another "supernatural" series on the pile. Heroes writer and executive producer Bryan Fuller is creating a drama pilot for ABC called Pushing Daisies about a man who can bring people to life just by touching them. I'm pretty sure there was a book that used this same idea. Now what was it called? Oh, right, the New Testament. Damn, if only Jesus stuck around for the TV age he could be rolling in dough right now. I mean that literally: he would have so much money he could buy lots of cookie dough and roll around in it. You may think that's sacrilegious, but my God is a party animal.

iF Magazine quotes the dailies, which are calling the new series a "romance-tinged procedural." A procedural of what, exactly? Resurrection? Is this a common practice with an actual procedure that must be followed? Are there classes one has to take to learn to raise the dead? I assume all of these questions will be answered when the show debuts this pilot season.