TVSquad

I've said it before, I'm a sucker for a series that casts actors from my favorite shows. It's really all it takes to get me to watch something at least once. I suppose that means I'm going to have to give Leverage at least a three episode run. Look at that cast photo. Christian Kane from Angel, Gina Bellman from Coupling, and Aldis Hodge from Friday Night Lights. And as a bonus, Timothy Hutton. That's a pretty good start.

If that's not enough, one of the executive producers is John Rogers. TNT lists him as being from Cosby, but I remember him for writing and producing one of the best pilots that didn't go to series that I've ever seen, Global Frequency.

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?

It'll be one more time around for a Wonder Years alumna and a Felicity fave. Fred Savage and Amy Smart have both been cast in CBS pilots. For Fred, who for me may have peaked as an actor as Kevin Arnold (although I did love him in Austin Powers in Goldmember playing Number Three -- the guy with the mole on his face), the new project on tap is Single White Millionaire. The sitcom is from the pen of writer Ricky Blitt, one of the Family Guy scribes, so that's a plus. The plot is described as the story of an unassuming, thirtysomething millionaire ready to settle down -- and obviously looking for the right lady to share his life (although I guess he could be looking for a significant other of either gender -- the project line leaves it open).

When the new fall schedules were announced last year, one of the shows that I was most looking forward to, ABC's mystery-drama Traveler, wasn't on the schedule. Which was sort of surprising since it got a lot of positive buzz in the upfront presentation that the network gave. And then we had all of the serialized dramas failing badly (The Nine, Smith, Daybreak, etc) and it seemed like Traveler would never premiere.

But ABC has announced that Traveler will indeed make it's debut on May 30, at 10pm. The number of episodes has been trimmed a little, and it looks like it's going to be one of those shows that will have a definite end, maybe like a long miniseries, so viewers won't feel cheated. Which is good news for TV fans these days, I guess.

I've held off reporting on the CBS executive session at the TCA press tour yesterday because there's not much to say. That's what happens when you're the number one network and there aren't many open spots on the schedule.

Unlike ABC and NBC, whose network programming heads went solo, CBS trotted out not only Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, but Nancy Tellem, the president of the CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group, and Kelly Kahl, CBS's EVP of programming operations.

The only thing that really concerned the trio was the presence of what NBC's Kevin Reilly called the "Death Star": American Idol. The concern was so great that the three of them used more science fiction terminology than you'd ever expect network executives to know.

In what looks to me to be a desperate attempt to gain viewers any way they can, What About Brian is adding Tiffani Thiessen (Saved By The Bell, 90210, Fastlane) to their cast. She will play Natasha Dylan, who is described as being sexy, manipulative, and a shrewd business woman. Natasha will join the show as Dave's new boss at KC Gaming.

I don't know if adding Thiessen is the best of decisions, but then, it really can't hurt. What About Brian is struggling to keep its head above water at this point. The last original episode finished last in the time slot with only 4.54 million viewers, and that was up against repeats of Studio 60 and CSI: Miami. To put that in perspective, the last episode of Six Degrees that aired before it was pulled had 7.59 million. And the last episode of Smith was good for 8.43 million. Total viewers isn't the be all end all of keeping a show on the air, but someone needs to ask, "What about those ratings, Brian?"

If you had told me a year ago that the top three shows on my "Best of" list would be on NBC, I would have said you were crazy. Then I would have asked you how you knew this. Are you psychic? Can you see into the future? You're the devil I say, the devil!

But that's what happened. Below is my list for the 5 best shows of the year and the 5 worst, along with various odd and ends. Yeah, let me have it in the comments about what I got wrong.

Update: After a few days of thinking about it, I've changed one of my "worst" picks. I'm sure you'll see why.

Sadly, that's the case over at ABC. Try as they might, and for reasons I don't quite get, people just don't want to watch this show. I've posted about the slide in the ratings before, and it continued this week. After garnering their lowest 18-49 numbers yet, ABC has pulled the show, with plans for the remaining episodes to be shown on ABC.com. Or, on DVD for those of you that are going to be screwed by that whole geography thing. To add insult to injury, the Wednesday schedule will be filled with repeats of George Lopez and According to Jim until the new schedule starts in January.

I think this has to signal a change at the networks. The big serial drama experiment is now officially a failure. With Surface and Invasion failing to get a second season, and now Smith, Kidnapped, The Nine, Six Degrees, and Day Break all failing to finish one, I think we can look for the networks to try something different next season. And hey, if Diggs really wants to be on a hit show, they're still casting for the next Dancing with the Stars, right?... Too soon?

...fiiiiiiiiiiiive canceled shooooooooows!

1. The Nine (ABC): Yeah, the network can say it's "on hiatus" and that "the remaining episodes will be shown in 2007," but we all know what it means. And the reason I picked this as #1 is because this show had more buzz and positive reviews than any other show before the season started. I think more critics picked it as a the "best" than any other show. Then the show kept losing viewers, even though it was on after Lost, so ABC pulled it from the schedule. That's really unfortunate. It was a good show, though I think that after the pilot viewers were expecting a different type of show than the straight drama with a twist that we got. Hopefully Tim Daly will have better luck with his new show next year.

No official word from CBS yet, but Broadcasting & Cable reports that it's all over for 3 lbs after only three airings. CBS launched the show, which many considered a rip-off of House, after it canceled Smith. The network actually hoped that House would provide some ratings for the show in the same way that Grey's Anatomy viewers have flipped over to ER on NBC. No such luck, though. 3 lbs actually did worse than its predecessor. Ratings for 3 lbs were 16% lower than Smith. Ouch!

I actually liked the premiere of 3 lbs, but I never remembered to watch the subsequent episodes. Starting next week, CBS will fill the 10 pm Tuesday time slot with reruns of one of its many procedural dramas.

All unaired episodes of Smith are now up on CBS' broadband channel, Innertube. The heist drama was canceled in early October, after only three episodes made air. The remaining four episodes are available on Innertube, but there is also a synopsis of how the story arc would have played out and what would have become of the characters had the show remained on the air. After episode 13, it would've been a hell of a cliffhanger.

I've read the synopses and I'll spoil it for you... after the jump:

As we've noted here before, and I'm sure you've noticed, Saturday night is the oddest night for television. It used to be great (remember CBS' lineup in the 70s?), but now it's just a night when no one watches much TV, and if they do, all they get is movies, repeats, and Cops.

But Tim Goodman over at The Bastard Machine has some ideas.

Joe Pantoliano is not letting the canceled CBS drama Waterfront die an anonymous death.

Pantoliano and other members of the Waterfront crew, including the girl who plays his daughter on the show, showed up at the Tazza Cafe in Providence, RI the other night to show two episodes of the series for the crowd. The show was about the mayor of Providence and a lot of it was filmed on location. CBS pulled the series without even showing a single episode, saying it was too expensive and that there were creative differences.

But Pantoliano says its more than that, and uses as an example CBS' decision to put 3 Lbs in the slot vacated by the now-canceled Smith. 3 Lbs is a Paramount show. Paramount is owned by the same company that owns CBS, Viacom. Waterfront is a Warner Brothers show, and Pantoliano thinks that CBS wants to air one of their own shows instead of another show.

He wants to finish the episodes they were working on and show them to the public and see if they like it or not.

[via TV Tattle]

CBS executives are looking to diversify their primetime line-up, and with good reason. From the three CSI franchises, to Without a Trace and Cold Case, the network has an awful lot of procedural dramas. Luckily, the execs recognize that and they've given themselves (and everyone else) an order to get creative. Already, they're working on a 1970s drama about wife swapping and the sexual revolution, a show about the women's movement, and a comedy from one of the Borat writers. The weirdest thing they have lined up is an American version of the U.K. hit, Viva Blackpool. Variety describes it as "a musical thriller featuring characters belting out top 40 songs." This fall season saw some unusual shows for CBS, including Jericho and Smith (which was already canceled). Last year's attempt to be different was Love Monkey, which was also canceled. CBS entertainment prez Nina Tassler says the hard part has been getting studios to pitch their edgier stuff to the network, which has always had a bit of a stuffy reputation.

With Kidnapped shuffled to a new night to finish out its run, and Smith pulled from the schedule completely, NBC and CBS have a couple slots to fill. The Emmy-winning Medium will return to NBC for its third season sometime in mid November, taking over the Wednesday at 10PM slot. CBS will fill Tuesday at 10PM with 3 Lbs starting on November 14th.

3 Lbs is about the relationship between a brilliant, but arrogant, neurosurgeon, and the rising star that works for him. Originally it was to star Dylan McDermott, but now will feature Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada, Murder One) and Mark Feuerstein (West Wing, Good Morning Miami). I'm not sure about Feuerstein in this role, we'll have to wait and see, but I'll give anything with Stanley Tucci in it a look. This character sounds like he could have a little Richard Cross in him, which would be a good thing.