TVSquad

It's not too surprising when similar shows or movies suddenly appear at the same time, seemingly without one party knowing that the other project was even in the works. In fact, in the pilot for NBC's Lipstick Jungle -- which looks like ABC's Cashmere Mafia's twin sister -- the Brooke Shields character is a movie executive who learns that her company, which has been developing a Galileo biography for Leonardo DiCaprio, is competing with a rival studio that's also making a movie about the famous astronomer. In other words, these things happen all the time in show business! That's the case on cable TV now with not one, but two shows about a professional matchmaker.

The shows A&E's Confessions of a Matchmaker and Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker couldn't be more dissimilar in style. They're like different sides of the same coin: heads you're schmoozing in a hot tub with a Malibu millionaire, tails you're riding a Zamboni with a guy who works at a suburban ice-skating rink. That's how diametrically different these matchmaking yentas are! Aside from their passionate desire to make matches that work, the only other factor linking the Confessions' matchmaker to Millionaire's is that they share the same name, Patti!

That's right, A&E has a new reality series, Confessions of a Matchmaker, set to debut on June 16 at 10:00 p.m. that is all about the art of making matches. Starting with the lumberjacks who chop down the trees for the matches and ending with the factory workers who create the match heads out of phosphorus sesquisulfide and potassium chlorate.

Hang on, someone just told me that's not what this series is about at all. It's actually about Patti Novak, a professional matchmaker who helps her clients find that special someone by using her own brand of "tough love." I'm guessing Novak's approach doesn't involve a lot of potassium chlorate, but maybe it should. I'm just saying.

The producers of Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist are developing a new animated series for A&E, Hollywood DMV. This will be the first animated series for the network, and will feature animated versions of stand-up comics as they stand in line at the DMV. The main focus of the animated series, however, will be the employees.

If it were anyone else but the producers of Dr. Katz behind this, I'd probably dismiss the series without even watching it, but Dr. Katz managed to find that balance between recycled stand-up material and multi-dimensional main characters, so I'm optimistic.