TVSquad

You might think that after finally breaking through at the Daytime Emmys and winning the golden statuette in the category Outstanding Host(s), the folks at ABC's The View would be resting on their laurels. Not so. The View is shaking up their production effective immediately.

According to Bill Geddie, executive producer, they're going to try and make The View more interactive, which is code for using email and web cams and other newfangled Internet sort of things to reach out to the viewers.

I said I'd give Top Design three weeks, and I did. I watched - hoping the show would overcome its lackluster start, its disenchanted host, its odd judges and its warmed-over design challenges. It hasn't. Whether it's because the airwaves are saturated with home design shows or the constituent parts just don't make a very compelling whole, Top Design has turned out to be a labored, self-serious bore, which makes it all the more surprising that the show's accompanying blogs are candid, funny and, well, everything Top Design isn't.

Our favorite TV Guide scribe, Mike Ausiello, must have his moles working overtime this week (he should at least provide those moles with a free pizza or something; I'm sure they're all quite hungry); this week's "Ask Ausiello" has the usual set of scoops and spoilers (even one or two with those annoying asterisks he uses), but he also has this one tidbit about the best show no one's watching, Kidnapped:

According to Ausiello (look near the bottom of the page), the producers of the NBC serialized drama have been told to stop production after finishing the 13th episode. Considering they were shooting episode seven when I visited the set six weeks ago, that would mean that they are going to wrap up right... about... now. Anyway, there is an "early cancellation" contingency in place that will show the conclusion to the kidnapping mystery, so the writers won't leave whatever viewers they have left hanging like Reunion did last year. It's too bad; from everything I've seen, the show was one of the best of the fall season. But lack of promotion and a crappy time slot -- people didn't want to get started with this show when The Nine was coming two weeks later -- doomed Kidnapped from the start. Maybe NBC should just hold the show now and air all 13 episodes over the summer; I bet they'd get pretty good ratings then.

(UPDATE 10/5/06: Looks like the show is indeed done. Thanks for the link, dinges!)