TVSquad

Trey Parker and Matt Stone can't seem to keep themselves out of trouble. Paramount is now upset over the footage from their season premiere this past week of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas violently raping Indiana Jones.

For those who don't keep track, Viacom owns South Park. Viacom also owns Paramount which produces the Indiana Jones movies. See the problem?

A week from now, HBO will probably be one of the big stories from the Primetime Emmys thanks to the success of the John Adams mini-series. But it's not sitting on that success, the premium cable net is banking on it. HBO announced today a mini series based on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln called Manhunt. That news would be interesting enough because the series will deal with the 12 days after Lincoln was shot when the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was on the run. However, the guys that HBO have tapped to work on Manhunt are two of the best in television -- David Simon and Tom Fontana.

HBO knows Simon and Fontana's work really well. Simon was the creator of The Wire and Fontana's brainchild was Oz. This is also not a new collaboration. Fontana turned Simon's book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, into the Homicide: Life on the Streets TV series for NBC.

Some quickie news from Showtime, presented by entertainment president Bob Greenblatt:

• Ilene Chaiken is developing a spin-off for The L Word, which will feature a yet unspecified character from the original show, whose upcoming season will be its last. There will be an open-ended plot in the season finale that Chaiken will continue online, then pick up if the spin-off comes to pass.
• Two more 13-episode seasons of Weeds have been ordered.
• A seventh season of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! has been ordered, making it Showtime's longest-running show.
• A reality/documentary show called Lock 'N Load has been ordered; it's filmed in a gun shop, and it shows the various people who purchase guns and "exploit their right to bear arms," according to the press release.
• Two new pilots have been ordered and filmed. The United States of Tara, produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Diablo Cody, stars Toni Collette as a suburban mother with multiple-personality disorder. John Corbett stars as her husband (yes... it's a comedy). The other pilot is tentatively-titled Nurse Jackie. It stars Edie Falco as a New York City nurse with a painkiller addiction who sometimes crosses moral lines to help her patients (no... it's not a comedy). Tara will begin airing in winter 2009, and Jackie will begin airing in late spring or early summer.
  

Like most red-blooded Americans, I love lists. We do a lot of them here at TV Squad and you'll see them at many sites every single day of the week. But I think that sometimes the lists go too far. I mean, what's the point of listing the top 50 or top 100 of something? Isn't that a little bit too many spots? Instead of getting down to the nitty-gritty (say, a top 10 or top 25), you ended up not only listing the best, worst, most, least (or whatever the list's topic is), you're just listing all of them.

Case in point, this Forbes list of the 100 most powerful celebrities.

Showtime is bringing us a new comedy series. They've ordered twelve episodes of The United States of Tara which will star Toni Collette as a wife/mother who suffers from dissociative identity (multiple personality disorder). The half-hour comedy will follow Collette, her husband (played by John Corbett), and their children as Collette copes with her different identities. They never know which age, temperament or even gender Collette will be on any given day.

Oscar-winner Diablo Cody (Juno) wrote the pilot and will continue on as a writer and executive producer. She is joined by executive producers Steven Speilberg, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank and Alex Junge. The pilot was directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl).

This sounds like a promising new project: John Corbett as Toni Collette's leading man in the Showtime comedy pilot United States of Tara. The show comes from the pen of Diablo Cody, fresh off her Oscar win as the screenwriter of Juno, and the pilot's director is Craig Gillespie who received plaudits for the indie hit Lars and the Real Girl. Oh, and did I mention that Steven Spielberg is one of the producers? Considering this collection of talent and Showtime's recent programming successes, United States of Tara sounds like another ace for the cable net.

I'm disappointed by this list (I'm disappointed by most lists these days) because they're aren't many TV people on it. Oh, there are some TV execs and producers (J.J. Abrams) and plenty of former TV stars (George Clooney, Will Smith, Will Ferrell), but there's no Tina Fey? She's the first name that popped into my head, TV-wise. I know there are others (readers, that's your cue to comment!). Freaks and Geeks creator Judd Apatow is on the list, as is Tyler Perry. Sacha Baron Cohen is there too.

(S01E17) I'm praying that those of us still watching this show witnessed the series finale of On The Lot and not a season finale.

If this show ever gets a second season, I may be forced to boycott all future Burnett and Spielberg productions, and I really want to see the next Survivor and Jurassic Park IV. Well, maybe not so much Jurassic Park IV.

Anyhow, take all the things you disliked about this season and point the world's most powerful electron microscope at them. That's about what these last two episodes have been like.

(S01E16) Initially, I was opposed to the way they planned to do this finale. It just seemed natural that the final three directors should have had to complete some monumental 5-10 minute piece of work that truly exemplified their talents as a director. The prize is a million dollar deal with Dreamworks, after all, not a first place trophy at the local film festival.

Then, after thinking about it for a bit, it actually made some sense for them to do it this way.

To make the directors create a new piece of work, and totally neglect their previous body of work would have been unfair - particularly if they were having an off day. It'd have been nice to what these guys could do given something more than a couple of minutes, but I can see how that could be construed as a little unfair to the contestants who didn't make it to the final three.

(S01E15) It's a sad thing when the reveal of who's leaving a reality show is more interesting than the actual show.

Case in point, Zach went home this week and we were forced to hear his stifled crying while Adam, Jason, Will, and Sam were named the final four. I liked Zach, but his odes to such-and-such director were getting old and lacked any originality.

(S01E14) Throughout the season I've commented on how many of the director's films end up looking more like car commercials thanks to the heavy placement of Ford vehicles throughout their features.

This week the problem was exacerbated because everyone had to make films using "automobiles" as a loose theme. I find it a little suspect that "automobiles" was considered the theme since in previous weeks we had genres like comedy, horror, action, and romantic comedy.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• Best of Nicole Richie baby nicknames!
  
• The FCC assigned some interesting call letters to two new TV stations.
  
• Steven Spielberg is trying to use his role as art director for the 2008 Olympics for political leverage.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

(S01E12) The only romantic comedies my palette can tolerate are of the British variety. This may or may not make me a complete tool. I haven't quite decided.

These comedies usually star Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant and are full of witty banter, unlikely but enjoyable scenarios, and slightly tolerable romance.

Going with that criteria, none of tonight's films came close for me and that's pretty sad considering I've set a pretty low bar for the genre. For the most part, the judges disagreed with me.

(S01E11) I'm really surprised On The Lot has made it this long without getting yanked.

My suspicion is Fox doesn't quite have the guts to cancel a show produced by the venerable Steven Spielberg, but they're covertly doing everything in their power to get this stinker off the air. Hence, the double eliminations for the last two weeks.

By my calculations, if we continue cutting two people a week, we'll only be subjected to four or five more episodes tops.

I think this may be the first time I've ever consistently watched a show on a weekly basis while simultaneously wanting it to die.

(S01E10) I'm pretty sure the On the Lot studio audience is tricked into thinking they're at a "My Favorite Things" taping of an Oprah show each week.

The only way they could possibly be as enthusiastic as they let on is if they think they're getting a free iPhone, a fresh batch of crepes Fedexed in from Paris, or an early copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Seriously, the crowd is in such a frenzy each week, it's nearly impossible to hear Adriana Costa during her introduction. She practically has to shout and the funny part is, she's using a microphone.

There is no way a sane human being could like this show that much. It's against nature.