TVSquad

Oh, Cupid remake, we hardly knew ye.

So the show is dead and gone. It won't be renewed by ABC and it's not going to be saved by another network. At this rate, with Cupid and Studio 60, some people are going to start calling Sarah Paulson a "show killer." That's silly, of course.

So why didn't this Cupid make it further? Just not good enough? Did it pale in comparison to the Jeremy Piven original? Too many quirky, light shows already on TV? Nothing to grab viewers? The cast?

• At 8, TCM has Citizen Kane.
• At 9, FOX has a new Mental.
• The CW has a new Hitched or Ditched at 9.
• PBS has a new Frontline at 9.
• TNT has the series premiere of Hawthorne at 9, then a new Saving Grace.
• Discovery has a new Deadliest Catch at 9.
• CMT has the CMT Music Awards at 9.
• At 10, ABC has the series finale of Cupid.
• FX has a new Rescue Me at 10.
• Food Network has a new Chopped at 10.
• Bravo has the season finale of Real Housewives of New Jersey at 10.
• History Channel has a new Life After People at 10.
• MTV has a new Paris Hilton's My New BFF.
• Also at 10: Spike has a new ECW.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

ABC has given an air date to Samantha Who?'s swan song. The network will begin burning off the seven remaining episodes of the show Thursdays at 8 p.m. starting June 25.

As we mentioned last week, even a petition set up by star Christina Applegate couldn't save Samantha Who? from the axe. It's a shame. Applegate has turned into such a magnetic and charming comedic actor. Here's hoping she gets another shot at her own show or, like Jason already suggested, a long-running guest stint on HIMYM or maybe The Big Bang Theory.

ABC is also making room on its summer schedule for the final eps of Cupid and In the Motherhood. The sole remaining ep of Cupid, which shared the same fate as the 1998 show it was based on, will air June 16 -- if the NBA Finals don't make it to Game 6! (That's another slap in the face from the network to Cupid creator Rob Thomas). In the Motherhood's final three eps will begin airing June 25 at 8:30 p.m.

When a Cupid remake (the original starred Jeremy Piven) was announced months ago, a lot of fans wondered if an update was even necessary. So here we are after the season finale, so I have to ask...was an update even necessary? How did it compare to the original? Should the series come back for another season?

(S01E03) This episode really lacked the charm and spirit of the first two. We did get to see the kooky Julie Hagerty as Claire's kooky mom. That was a plus. But you know a show isn't winning you over when the star's designer T-shirts are more interesting than the plot.

Only three episodes in and the Cupid cancellation rumors are swirling. According to some sites, the show is already dead. I might have been upset about Cupid going bye bye two weeks ago. Today, not so much.

I won't weep for a show that delivers warmed over fluff instead of compelling stories and interesting characters week after week. The first two episodes weren't amazing, but the charming cast, some great guest stars and the show's optimistic spirit managed to make them watchable. Tonight's ep dragged, the story and the couple of the week were straight outta dullsville, and Trevor and Claire's banter is getting old fast.

(S01E02) Like I wrote last week, the success of Cupid 2.0 will hinge heavily on the guest stars. Luckily, this week's guest stars were great.

Erik Palladino and Julie Ann Emery (as Mick and Riley) gave me the warm fuzzies as Cupid's latest couple of the week. I enjoyed their chemistry so much that I was able to forgive the stock "surprise twist" that reared its witless head in the third act.

(S01E01) Call me a hopeless romantic, but I was charmed by the series premiere of Cupid 2.0.

ABC's original Cupid from 10 years ago, also headed up by executive producer Rob Thomas, was a smart, playful and quirky hour of television that looked and felt like nothing else on the air at the time. ABC's promos for Thomas' remake made this new show look silly and the quirkiness look forced. Thankfully, that's not the case – for the most part.

Bobby Cannavale plays Trevor (played by Jeremy Piven in the original), a New York City bartender who claims he's Cupid, the god of romantic love. Expelled from Olympus, he's given the task of bringing one hundred couples together here on Earth. Trevor goes about his plan under the watchful eye of Sarah Paulson's Dr. Claire McCrae (Claire Allen in the original), a psychiatrist and best-selling self-help book author assigned to monitor Trevor's release from a psychiatric hospital.

Ten years after ABC prematurely cancelled Rob Thomas' dramedy Cupid, the alphabet net has decided to give it another go. The new version of the show, which premieres Tuesday at 10 PM ET, now stars Sarah Paulson and Bobby Cannavale in the roles originated by Paula Marshall and Jeremy Piven, respectively.

The premise is the same: Trevor Pierce claims to be Cupid, exiled from Mt. Olympus, and he needs to find true love for 100 couples before he is allowed back home. After Trevor is arrested for one of his stunts and sent to a psychological hospital, singles self-help guru Dr. Claire McCrae is assigned to keep track of him as he makes his way in the outside world. This time around, the show is set in the fast paced and cynical world of New York, complete with all the modern touches of dating in the late '00s (Maybe Cupid will have a Twitter account).

I spoke to the stars of the new Cupid last week. While I was on the phone, I asked Paulson about what happened on her previous series, Studio 60. I got a pretty interesting response...

Back when I was a kid, besides walking several miles in the snow to school, we never heard the insider-ish, behind the scenes details of what was going on behind the scenes of a TV show. We hardly knew that shows were even coming up, not until we got the super-duper fall preview issue of TV Guide. We didn't have any preconceived notions of the shows, we didn't know about any episode orders or set tension or anything like that. Shows just premiered, they stayed on or they didn't, and then we moved on.

That's not the case nowadays, of course. TV fans on the web (thanks to sites like, well, this one) know just about everything about a TV show months before it airs. And here's another little bit of information about a show before it airs: ABC has again dropped the number of episodes it wants for the Rob Thomas remake of Cupid.

Enough looking back already! Let's forget that 2008 was a mostly dismal year for TV and focus on the future. From sci-fi detectives to modern Mad Men, the 2009 TV season has a lot to offer. Here are ten new shows to keep on your radar (listed by premiere date).

With all this talk that the fall season not exactly thrilling TV viewers (old shows losing viewers, not many new shows catching on in a big way, quirky favorites being canceled), it's probably time to start talking about what shows we can expect after the new year, at least from two of the networks.

On ABC we have Castle, with Nathan Fillion as a mystery novelist who helps police solve crimes (of course he does). It starts Monday, March 9 at 10pm. ABC also has The Unusuals, with Amber Tamblyn as a cop transferred to a new precinct filled with odd characters. It starts Wednesday, April 8 at 10pm. And as we've already told you, the new version of Cupid is coming to ABC too. It starts on Tuesday, March 24 at 10pm.

The new season of Lost premieres on Wednesday, January 21 at 9pm, and Scrubs comes back on Tuesday, January 6 at 9pm.

Fans might remember the original TV show Cupid, which starred Jeremy Piven long before Entourage made him a household name and he won a bunch of Emmy awards. It was about a seemingly ordinary guy who might just have been the magical guy who gets lovers together (or maybe he was just crazy). There's a new version coming to ABC from Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, and the trailer for the show is after the jump.

This one stars Bobby Cannavale, and it seems to be...quirkier than the original? Not that the original wasn't quirky, but there was something very down to earth about it. This one seems like it might be forcing that quirkiness. I'm not sure if it's going to be a comedy, a drama, or the dreaded dramedy, so I'll throw it in both categories. It has a good cast though.

Studio 60 fans will recognize Sarah Paulson. I'm sure her character will be just as beloved in this show as she was in that one.

I am about to write something that I normally don't do when it comes to the way networks program their primetime schedules. It's something that will shake your foundations, rock the world, turn Republicans into Democrats (and vice-versa) and make Amy Winehouse finally get sober. Ready? ABC is being smart with its programming schedule.

There, it's done. Now to sit back and wait for the accolades.

Seriously, after years of relying on only a handful of shows to carry the schedule throughout the year, ABC has been filling out their schedules with a number of backup shows to fill those gaps that always appear when a fall premiere tanks. Granted, some of these mid-season replacements also tank, but at least the network is letting them try. Because of that we have been lucky to enjoy shows like Samantha Who? and Eli Stone. This time around, ABC has five new series - all scripted - that will be premiering during the 2008-09 season. You'll find a brief explanation of each after the jump.

I'm hesitant to get my hopes up, because there's always talk of TV shows making a leap to the big screen. Whether it's a great idea, as with Arrested Development, or a horrific one like Friends: The Movie, it seems that as soon as a show ends, the silver-screen talks begin. Regardless, I just about peed my pants when I read that a Veronica Mars movie may actually become a reality.

Even though Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has two pilots in the works (Cupid and Outrageous Fortune), he still hasn't forgotten the little detective show that is singlehandedly responsible for people no longer asking him if he's the dude from Matchbox Twenty. Apparently, Thomas's production office is located on the same lot where VM star Kristen Bell is currently shooting Heroes and the two sat down for a little chat.

Sometimes you come across a line in a column, an opinion, an observation, that is so mindblowingly wrong-headed that it leaves your mouth hanging open for a full 30 seconds. That's what happened to me when I read this list of the Shows That Died Too Young (great one season shows that shouldn't have been canceled) over at The New York Post. Talking about HBO's John From Cincinnati, the writer says this:

John [From Cincinnati] was not only the most creative program in the medium's sixty year history, but also some of the most mysterious.

Now, the second half of that quote is grammatically baffling, but we get the idea: JFC was the most creative show that has been on television in its 60 year history. Well, what do you think of that?