TVSquad

NBC and its various cable stations are making their presentations today and tomorrow. Since it is Sunday, the critics got a little bit of a break and didn't have to start until noon, when a lunch session was held for Friday Night Lights. This session had a little bit of added juice, due to the unique deal NBC struck to have DirecTV shoulder the cost of producing the series in exchange for the rights to air new episodes on the satellite service first, before they air on NBC. Thirteen episodes will be produced and will air in October on DirecTV's 101 Network, and they'll air in February on the Peacock network.

Not surprisingly, there were as many questions about the new arrangement as there were about the creative aspects of the show. Show-runner Jason Katims and DirecTV entertainment head Eric Shanks fielded most of those questions, and the cast of the show fielded the rest.

It's a question that popped up even before our pals in Dillon had their premiere. What are they going to do when these kids start graduating? Well, we have an answer now, and I'm not sure it's going to be embraced by everyone. EW's Michael Ausiello reports that Gaius Charles (Smash) and Scott Porter (Street) have been moved to recurring status.

Producer Jason Katims released a statement that says both characters will get four episode arcs to move them into the next chapter of their lives. Presumably, those would be chapters that won't be captured by the handheld Friday Night Lights cams. The cynic in me can't help thinking that this has as much to do with the shaky nature of the FNL renewal as it does with being able to work these characters into the show. After all, the idea of budget cuts after the strange Direct TV deal isn't an outlandish one. That being said, the explanation is reasonable. They were going to have to address the graduation dilemma eventually.

(S02E02) As I was watching the show tonight, thoughts on this post were running through my head. Initially I planned on doing like last week and pushing the Landry/Tyra stuff to the end of the post, after we go through the parts of the episode that actually make some sense. But then I typed out that episode title, "Bad Ideas", and I just can't get over how well that fits.

They may have intended that title as a reference to what is going on with many of the characters. Things like Tami's admission that her insistence that she and Julie stay in Dillon was a bad idea, how Buddy's own actions have created his situation, the experimental Mexican surgery proposed to Street, or even Antwone's trip to the Justin Timberlake concert. To me though, THE bad idea is nothing that any of the characters are doing. It is this Landry and Tyra story that the writers and producers have cooked up. So we'll get started there, after the jump.

NBC has brought in Friday Night Lights executive producer Jason Katims to consult on Bionic Woman, after Glen Morgan left over those curious 'creative differences.' It's certainly not a new story, a producer getting an extra iron in the fire even though they have a show already on the schedule. Although, usually we see this with producers who have established hits on their hands. This one comes as a bit of a surprise to me, given the tenuous nature of FNL's position.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as much in the bag for the show, and Katims, as anybody. But we have to be realistic and admit that the renewal did come as something of a surprise after the way the show performed in the ratings last season. Renewing it was a gamble for the network, so is pulling one of the people credited with giving it that quality away to work on another show really the best idea? I certainly think that Katims can be a help to the Bionic Woman team, but I hope that Friday Night Lights doesn't suffer for it.

[ via Ausiello Report ]

NBC's new lineup continued on day two of its press presentation with Chuck, a one-hour drama by Josh Schwartz and McG, the creative team that brought viewers The O.C. The new series stars Zachary Levi, best known for his four years on Less Than Perfect.

If we're supposed to like Chuck, Levi's well cast in the role. He has a self-effacing way about him, especially when asked if he's bulked up over the last few years. He jokes he's eaten a lot of pizza and doesn't work out as much as he should.

Co-star Adam Baldwin is asked a question pretty much everyone knows the answer to. No, he's not related to the famous acting Baldwin brothers of Long Island. Baldwin jokes he hopes to meet Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) now that they're both on NBC so they can settle this in person.

Sunday's edition of the Newark Star-Ledger had a good article about the relatively new phenomenon of online-viewable deleted scenes, and how show-runners have been utilizing them. Alan Sepinwall, the paper's TV critic, spoke to Greg Daniels of The Office, Jason Katims of Friday Night Lights, and Ronald D. Moore of Battlestar Galactica, about how they've been able to throw in little plot or character details in the deleted scenes, knowing that the fanatical viewers of each show will see them on the web.

Because the man didn't have enough to do with a sci-fi and legal drama in development, the hardest working man in showbiz will be producing The Wedding Store, an hour-long dramedy for Fox set to premiere mid-season. Along with Tim Minear's Drive, the two series represent Fox's big Spring offerings.

The show has a strange, but not unfamiliar history, to Hollywood watchers. The series is based on a similarly-themed 2004 pilot project that Kelley and co-producer Jason Katims, now the showrunner for Friday Night Lights, developed for ABC called DeMarco Affairs and a Fox project that was in the process of being redeveloped. That project was entitled The Wedding Album. The amalgamation we'll be seeing on TV this Spring is described by Kelley as "a romantic comedy about a group of wedding planners dedicated to having their clients live happily ever after, or at least until they get to the parking lot."

The wedding industry has never been more ripe for satire than now. Let's hope the great premise ends in great results.