TVSquad

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• Journalists and politicians react to the death of Tim Russert.
• Will NBC get The Weather Channel?
• Big melons on CNN...giggity-giggity!
• What's going on at The Hollywood Reporter?
• Ah, I knew those songs in Dunkin' Donuts commercials sounded like something from They Might Be Giants.
• Javier Grillo-Marxuach blogs about The Middleman.
• Naveen Andrews talks to E! about Lost.
• Is Rashida Jones going to be in that spinoff of The Office?
• Is there room on TV for two skateboarding dogs?
• Greek gets a new cast member.

The reverberations caused by the writers' strike continue to affect how the networks are doing business. Case in point: according to The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd, the networks may be more generous with renewals than they have in the past, due to the fact that even hit shows have been returning to diminished ratings. My guess is that, after a three-month break, most people realized they didn't give two craps about things like Meredith and McDreamy's latest breakup. But it may just be that the weather's nice outside.

Anyway, Hibberd goes on to mention the current status of some of the most prominent "bubble" shows. The good news: Reaper, Old Christine, and HIMYM and Moonlight have shifted over towards the "likely to certain" end of the spectrum, and Boston Legal will likely survive for another year. The bad news: Shark, Men In Trees (which is already gone, according to reports), Cashmere Mafia, and October Road are likely gone. And there's still no real feel for what's going to happen with Eli Stone or Women's Murder Club.

James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article about the low-key exit of Scrubs from NBC after seven seasons, and the show's even lower-key deal with ABC for an eighth season. Even the least-plugged-in fans of the show know by now that the show is crossing networks, and according to Hibberd, eighth season episodes are currently being produced under very hush-hush conditions (which is true; even the show's PR rep won't tell us exactly what's going on).

So... why all the secrecy, even though everyone seems to know what's what? It seems like there's a little cross-network courtesy going on. While ABC is waiting for its upfront presentation to officially announce that it's picked up the show, they're also waiting for the end of the show's run on NBC, which is either May 8 or 15, depending on your source (my guess is the 18th, considering only nine of the twelve produced episodes have aired). According to Hibberd, ABC is playing nice after ticking off NBC when the initial news about the show's move came out.

I've always been amazed at how analysts can project who's won the box office for the weekend before that weekend even ends. But I've never seen a box office champ predicted before the movie is even released. Apparently, though, that seems to be the case with the new movie from two of the funniest women on TV.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie Baby Mama, which stars SNL's Amy Poehler and 30 Rock's Tina Fey, will likely win the box office race this weekend. The film, which is being released today, has been garnering a lot of pre-release interest among 12-to-16 year-old girls, according to tracking surveys taken over the last few weeks. Huh? Didn't know stories about surrogacy were big with teenage girls. Is there something someone isn't telling me?

Recently, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly dropped a little nugget regarding Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that should make fans of the show sigh a little more in relief.

In the interview, Reilly mentions that Sarah Connor and Back to You are the "lead candidates" for returning for a new season, adding that they've "already started staffing" the show.

We already mentioned the high likelihood that the show would be returning before; several times, even. Is it because of Fox's track record with canceling shows, seemingly so quickly, that's got everyone so nervous about Sarah Connor's return? At this point, after hearing all of the rumors and mumblings that the show's safe, it would be extremely cruel for them to bring the axe down during the upfronts next month. Die hard fans are probably already planning a backup plan, thinking of what kind of crap they're going to send Fox studios to beg for the show to return. Any suggestions?

There's a new guy running the show for ABC's drama Dirty Sexy Money and his name is Daniel Cerone. Cerone replaces Josh Reims. As executive producer, Cerone will be working with creator Craig Wright (Lost), as well as Greg Berlanti (Brothers & Sisters), Matthew Gross and Bryan Singer (House) -- so the show's got lots of first-class pedigree. Now they have to put it all together for the show.

Fans of the Tiffany network can do the happy dance. CBS has renewed 11 scripted shows for the 2008-2009 TV season. The lucky 11 are: CSI; CSI: Miami; CSI: New York; NCIS; Criminal Minds; Cold Case; Without a Trace; Ghost Whisperer; Numb3rs; Two and a Half Men; and The Big Bang Theory.

There are not a lot of surprises in this bunch, although it's great news that The Big Bang Theory, CBS's rookie Monday-night sitcom from Chuck Lorre's stable, made the cut. Still in limbo, however, are three other Monday-night comedies from the network: How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. The story speculates that Mother will get the greenlight for a fourth season soon, but Rules and Christine seem to be in competition for the 9:30-10:00 half-hour slot.

Production of one of the more highly anticipated shows on the NBC schedule, Heroes: Origins, has been put on hold. Apparently, due to fears of a pending writers' strike. Or, maybe not.

According to The Hollywood Reporter the Heroes spin-off will not be receiving its six-episode run, which was to begin in April of 2008. While NBC hasn't officially said that the series is canceled producers have not been given a date when it would be put on the schedule. During the network upfronts held last May it was mentioned that Origins would be spelling its older sibling during a late-season hiatus.

On the heels of yesterday's news that Dana Delany may soon become a Desperate Housewife, is news that Nathan Fillion is also in talks to join the show. The Hollywood Reporter says that Fillion would play Delany's much younger husband. They'd be the new couple on the block at Wisteria Lane and would, no doubt, have some sort of mysterious past and secrets that they're hiding from the neighbors.

Rounding up the Fillion/Delany family is Lyndsy Fonseca, who may play the couple's daughter. Fonseca is currently the unnamed "daughter" that we occasionally see at the beginning of How I Met Your Mother.

It'll be interesting to see whether Fillion's addition to the show brings some Browncoats over to ABC on Sunday nights (probably not this Browncoat). Fillion had a lot of support from his fans when Drive launched this spring, but it was swiftly canceled by Fox.

Now that the May sweeps period is over, it's time to view the scorecard to see where your favorite TV show (or least favorite TV show, depending on what you're interested in seeing here) did in the overall ratings.

No surprise: American Idol has the first two spots, with the results show coming in number 1 and the performance show coming in number 2. Dancing With The Stars Season 3 has the third spot, while the same show's season 4 gets the number 5 slot. The rest of the top 10 are CSI (4), Grey's Anatomy (6), House (7), Dancing With The Stars 3 results (8), Dancing with the Stars 4 results (9), and Desperate Housewives at 10.

You would think that the early, painful demise of The Nine, Kidnapped, Smith, Six Degrees, and other new dramas this season that there would be more comedy pilots picked up for the 2007 season. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, that's not the case.

Except for some solid buzz from a handful of comedies, including ABC's Sam I Am, ABC's Cavemen and Miss/Guided, and several shows at CBS, it looks like more dramas will make the schedule, including NBC's Bionic Woman and Journeyman, ABC's Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies, CBS' Babylon Fields, The Man, and Viva Laughlin. The new Jimmy Smits drama might replace Close To Home on Fridays, while FOX has the much-hyped Sarah Connor Chronicles, K-Ville, and Them.

NBC just can't let a sleeping schedule lie, can they? They've decided to shuffle things around once again, stacking the deck with an all-reality Sunday lineup and an all-drama Wednesday lineup.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the three main moves are this: the Wednesday Deal or No Deal moves to Sundays at 9, and The Apprentice shifts to 10 to make room. Crossing Jordan move s from Sundays at 10 to Wednesdays at 9. All of this will take place starting on March 4.

So, as I said, Sundays will be all-reality, with Dateline, Grease, Deal, and The Apprentice. Wednesdays will start with Friday Night Lights, to be followed by Jordan and Medium. When you look at it, the schedule actually makes sense, though I'm not sure if fans of Jordan are going to be happy with its switch out of its longtime Sunday slot.

I think that at this point we can probably say that the two breakout stars of the 2006-2007 television season are America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) and Masi Oka (Heroes). And for Masi, that is starting to pay dividends. From The Hollywood Reporter comes word that he is in talks for a gig in the Robert Luketic film 21.

Based on the Ben Mezrich book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions," the movie will also star Jim Sturgess.

The book tells the story of the MIT Blackjack Team. Organized by a former math instructor, and backed by anonymous investors, the team used a system of card counting, disguises, and secret signals to take Vegas for nearly $4 million before they were found out.

The Hollywood Reporter is claiming that NBC execs plan to move Friday Night Lights to Sunday nights once the NFL season is over. The move is a strategic one-- to keep FNL out of the line of fire of Fox's unstoppable American Idol, which begins airing on Tuesday nights in mid-January. Last week, NBC ordered up a full season of FNL, which gets an average of 6.7 million viewers each Tuesday night.

This schedule change is reportedly one of many, as the New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter now both say that NBC is planning a major schedule overhaul for January (NYT says the new schedule will be announced this week). Also slated to move is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which currently festers at 10 pm on Monday nights.

The single-camera Showtime pilot Insatiable, which revolves around a small town in which everyone has an addiction, has added an impressive roster of actresses to its cast. Currently in negotiation to appear are Andie MacDowell, Laura Flynn Boyle and Andrea Martin.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the ensemble comedy emulates the tone of Twin Peaks. Alright, I have no idea what that means. So, let's move on.