TVSquad

E!'s Watch With Kristen is reporting that Zac Efron will be joining the Entourage gang for season six. Well, maybe not exactly joining the gang, but at least making a cameo on the HBO show.

Ok, so the question is, will he be playing himself? One of Ari Gold's newest It-Guys? An excitable young actor who tussles with Johnny Drama? My guess is that Efron will be playing himself, because he's becoming the Next Big Thing in Hollywood -- if he isn't already there.

And it just makes sense, because so many other stars have appeared as themselves on the show; notably, James Woods, though I've always wondered if he's as hot-headed as they make him out to be on the show. If so, he has quite the sense of humor about himself.

The failure of Secret Talents of the Stars has had ripple effects on the CBS prime time schedule. With Big Brother coming to an end and Secret Talents unable to make it past one episode, the return of Shark, which was going to come back on Tuesdays at 10 p.m., will now return on Tuesday at 9 p.m. for three broadcasts beginning April 29. Had Secret Talents worked, CBS wouldn't be scrambling on Tuesdays.

The CBS Tuesday lineup for next Tuesday, therefore, will be NCIS, Shark and a rerun of CSI. Then on May 6, it'll be NCIS, Shark and a CSI: Miami rerun. On May 13, NCIS, Shark and a Criminal Minds rerun.

What'll be interesting for Shark fans -- and TV geeks in general like us -- will be to see exactly how well the James Woods legal drama performs with a strong lead in like NCIS. Even the reruns scheduled to follow the three episodes are all strong support. Will this Tuesday hammock experiment be advantageous to Shark, securing the kind of Nielsen numbers that will be a deciding factor in the show's renewal for next season?

Shark will swim again -- at least for the rest of this season. The future, however, remains unclear. CBS today announced that Shark will return on April 29 in a new timeslot. The network is switching the L.A. legal drama from Sundays at nine to Tuesdays at nine, where it may benefit from the strong lead-in of NCIS. Chances are that if Shark holds NCIS's ratings -- or improves on them -- that could mean more Shark for fall. If the show stumbles, CBS will likely pull the plug.

Fans of Shark may need to get more militant if they want to keep the show on the air. In a recent story we did about CBS renewals, there was fervent outcries for bringing back Moonlight and The Unit, even Cane. Out of 40 comments, only two came to Shark's defense. It may be a small sample, but still...

Yeah, I'm repeating myself, but the only two words that come to mind about today's Family Guy table read/lunch session are: freakin' sweet!

And I'm not just talking about the FG swag (pens, notebooks, inflatable Brian dolls) either. The cast of FG is doing a live table read of the show's 100th episode titled "Stewie Kills Lois." The title says it all!

A FOX publicist advises anyone of the faint of heart and all non-Quagmire-types to consider making their way to the exit door. I don't see anyone leave.

After the executive session, CBS continued immediately with its jam-packed day of press tour, introducing four new shows and taking a look at returning hits Shark and How I Met Your Mother.

First up, the all-star cast of Cane, a prime time soap that's been compared to The Sopranos and Dallas, starring Jimmy Smits, Hector Elizondo and Rita Moreno, takes the platform.

Smits, who also serves as co-executive producer, stars as Alex, a man who's married to his "sister" (Alex is adopted), prompting executive producer and perpetual funnyman Jonathan Prince to call creator/e.p. Cynthia Cidre -- "Woody."

Full disclosure: as a former CBS page, I always have a soft spot for the Eye network's TCA day.

Whenever I see the CBS pages at the press tour in their bright red sports coats, I always think -- why couldn't we have had sharp navy blue ones like the NBC ushers?

Today's lineup includes an executive session with CBS president Nina Tassler. While she may not have to answer the question about the finale of The Sopranos (that round-up inquiry has faded from sessions) she won't likely get off the hook completely. Usually, one journalist asks her about bringing back Joan of Arcadia.

(S01E22) Billy Campbell is back as Wayne the serial-killer, now in the middle of an O.J., If I Did It, -style book tour. Larry King, playing himself for the umpteenth time in a crime drama, interviews Wayne, albeit with eyes glued to cue-cards. Larry asks the kind of pointed challenging questions here that only the fictional Larry King is even know to ask. This cameo affords the most fun moment of the night, however: Stark after arresting Wayne during a commercial break in the interview, and never one to pass by a camera, sits down to join Larry for the final segment.

(S01E21) One of the more interesting episodes this season. Stark mostly handles this week's prosecution alone. This is a good thing. Madeleine and Raina find themselves just about taken in at one point by the kidnapper's implausible defense that he had "rescued" the boy from his own parents which were the so-called "real abusers."

This story doesn't ring true to Stark. He proceeds to rips it to shreds under cross-examination. This was a real treat to see. It's the kind of scene I once, so long ago, last fall, imagined a show starring James Woods as a legal superstar would excel in, and showcase often.

(S01E20) This was a straightforward episode concerning the murder of a computer whiz who gets mixed up with some shady characters when he tries to raise big bucks for his daughter's medical needs. Stark only wastes a few minutes chasing the obvious (therefore innocent) initial suspect before turning to an investigation of the evidently-notorious Lundy Brothers.

D.A. Devlin is especially concerned about Stark this time. Not only is she doubtful, as usual, that Stark's crazy tactics will convict (though they almost always do), she is sure that a failure to convict the Lundy Brothers will cost her next week's election. By my count, Stark and the High Profile Crimes Unit are something like 18 for 19, a 94% conviction rate, going into tonight's episode, but you never know, the electorate can be fickle.

(S01E19) It's the saint versus the pornographer, as someone in the episode says. An internet pornographer is murdered, ostensibly by a single man who also runs his very own shelter for wayward young women. That's handy. Apparently this particular shelter is the place in the Valley to find women with low self-esteem to lure into porn. By the way doesn't "internet pornographer" sound ever so much sleazier that just plain ol' pornographer? Evidently the Shark writers think so.

It's no surprise when "the saint" is eventually revealed to have done business with the porn king, then got out of business with him, then fell in love with one of the women he was "rehabilitating" in his shelter, who then became a porn actress, who then ... oh, who cares?

(S01E18) All in all, I enjoyed this hostage-crisis episode better than the previous hostage-crisis episode, "The Wrath of Khan", the one in which attorney Alexis Cruz got axed.

Evan Handler gives an enjoyable performance as the poor loser who claims he's innocent and is looking at his third strike. Handler played Hurley's probably imaginary friend Dave, the title character in a Lost episode last season and, more recently, one of the two hacky comedy writers on Studio 60, that Matthew Perry's character liked to bust on.

(S01E17) Just under the wire, Shark sneaks a new episode into the vast desolation of repeats that is March. This time, the plot concerns the racially-charged shooting of a drug dealer and his honor-student cousin by two cops. As usual, the true culprit is not the person who Stark initially charges with a crime, but rather the person who years and years of TV-watching has told us to expect it will be: the allegedly least-likely (and therefore, most likely) candidate. The actual mystery here is why Isaac backed off his opportunity with Raina in San Diego some episodes ago. Isaac's ready to explain that now, but Raina's not in the mood, initially, to listen. She's reasonably suspicious that Isaac might just amount to a whole sack of drama and what does she need with that noise?

This is one of the better episodes. The plot-reversals, double-reversals, and triple-bogie re-re-re-reversals are not so outrageous as to sink the whole enterprise, and this allows some room for good character interaction.

You've probably seen all of those CBS promos that say that Shark, the new James Woods legal drama, is the "most watched new show." Then how come the Nielsen numbers say that Heroes, the new drama over on NBC, averages 14.5 million viewers while Shark averages 13.4 million?

It's because CBS is using an odd little bit of ratings math. CBS released a statement to explain why they're saying that Shark is the most watched new show. Combined with the Washington Post's explanation of what CBS is talking about, it gives me the type of headache I used to get when trying to read chemistry textbooks back in high school.

(S01E15) Tim Matheson guest stars as a judge and charter member of the Los Angeles Stark-Haters Club, an evidently very large and influential organization. He's also a careerist and a hypocrite. Sebastian quickly realizes the judge is guilty of murdering his own wife, and with that you have your quintessential Shark ingredients. Matheson does a good job playing the self-righteously self-righteous judge, who early-on accuses Stark of going after him because of his tough law-and-order case rulings, and finishes-up accusing Stark of homophobia. Stark's consistent though. He goes after the judge, not because of any personal or political ax to grind, but, well, because of the whole murdering-his-spouse thing.

(S01E14) Yeesh. This episode was one silly drawn-out mess.

A Britney/Paris/Lindsay type starlet is run off the road and killed. Initially the paparazzi seem to be responsible, adding a touch of the Princess Di tragedy to the mix. There's a possible stalker angle. There is molestation by step-parent: a middle-aged man with an earring. An opportunistic kid sister. A fake celebrity feud started for "cross-promotional purposes." All this gives Stark and the rest of the High Profile Crime Unit plenty of beautiful people to sneer at, although, strangely, none of the guest performers cast as the various young celebrities are nearly as attractive as the gorgeous cast of series regulars.