TVSquad

I attended the TCA Cable Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton yesterday where I learned about the following shows:

Whale Wars on Animal Planet
Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy on Discovery
Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust on TLC
Ricky Gervais Comedy Special on HBO
Little Britain, USA on HBO
Generation Kill on HBO

And there's more. Believe me, there's more.

Okay, you've got whale pirates, mummies, bikinis, Ricky Gervais, vampires, and Marines. Unfortunately, none of those shows combine all six of those things / people. After the jump, find out about these new shows and the people who make them...

TLC has a new docu-series (that's a fancy name for "reality show") called Must Love Kids. On this show, TLC will follow three moms as they enter the daunting world of dating as a single mother. The three mothers who currently balance their careers and raising their children will step out of their comfort zones to date and maybe even find a lifelong partner.

Not so sure about this show. According to the press release, "With an estimated 10.4 million single mothers in the U.S., these three single moms will undoubtedly inspire others to take the initiative and focus on their own happiness." I don't like the assumption here. All single moms are miserable and don't focus on their own happiness? Therefore, all single moms need to learn to be happy so they can secure another mate? Maybe I'm being too harsh though. I generally like TLC's programming. (I changed dinner reservations once while vacationing in Hawaii with my husband because American Choppers wasn't over yet.)

What do you think? Would you watch this show?

Must Love Kids premieres July 15th at 9:00 p.m. ET / PT on TLC.

When I look at some of the people who have emerged as today's biggest stars on TV, I scratch my head and wonder, "how did that happen?" There are a few stars who have completely exceeded my expectations -- and I bet yours, too. In fact, after you read my five (no cell phone pun intended), I'm betting that you'll have a few more overachievers to add to the list.

1) Ty Pennington
I'm not ashamed to admit that for a couple of years I was hooking on TLC's Trading Spaces. It may have been the perky Paige Davis, the home improvement on a $1,000, the cool things that the designers did in just 24 hours -- whatever it was, I was a regular viewer. Oh, yes, there was also a carpenter on the show named Ty Pennington.

If you thought The Singing Bee was bad, wait till you get a load of this. TLC is premiering it's new show The Singing Office at the end of June. The show will be hosted by ex-*NSYNCer Joey Fatone and ex-Spice Girl Mel B. Each week, Joey and Mel B. will surprise a different office and hold an impromptu audition. From each location, they will recruit a team of five for the next round of competiton. Once formed, the teams will go to "boot camp" as the hosts coach the teams on both their performance quality and their singing. Finally, the teams will compete on stage for a shot at $50,000.

Well, the Daytime Emmy nominations were not exactly soul-stirring -- lots of repeat nominees, the same old, same old -- so the producers of the Emmy broadcast are trying to inject something new: that means new hosts. Call them the newest odd couple. Cameron Mathison will team up with Sherri Shepherd to co-host the ABC broadcast of the 35th Annunal Daytime Emmy Awards on June 20. Not coincidentally, Cameron and Sherri are ABC stars. He's Ryan Lavery on All My Children (and a former contestant on Dancing with the Stars); she's one of the five talkers on The View. And if you think they didn't ask Whoopi Goldberg first, you don't know TV.

TLC has a new competition series called Master of Dance (worst title ever). The show will test dancers' skills by changing the song mid-performance to measure the breadth of their repertoire and the level of their creativity. This sounds a little too much like Freezedance but for prize money. The grand prise is $50,000 to be exact.

Joey Lawrence will host and there will be three judges: Lucinda Dickey (Solid Gold, Breakin'), Tyce Diorio (choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance), and Loni Love (comedienne voted one of Comedy Central's Top 20 Comics to Watch in 2008).

He's an actor, a pin-up hunk, he's tried Dancing With the Stars, and now he'll see what it's like to be a Jim Lange or Wink Martindale. Cameron Mathison has been tapped to host TLC's new game show Your Place or Mine? Looking at those eyes, I'd let him redecorate my abode!

"I'm thrilled to be a part of TLC's first game show, and extremely excited about the fun concept," said Mathison. "I think both men and women, of all ages, are really going to enjoy the show because there's a little something in it for everyone." Yeah, TLC is pitching this as a family show. Hmm...we'll see. If it can capture the Trading Spaces vibe, they may be on the right track.

Jennifer Lopez is lame. It turns out, her new TLC "reality" series will not be about her life as a new mom or a superstar. She just wants the cameras on when she's working on launching her new fragrance. How is that interesting? Do we get to watch her sniff things? Is it going to be in Smell-O-Vision. It just sounds like one big commercial for her damn perfume.

According to SFGate.com, Lopez has gone back on her original promise of complete access to her life. Her manager says, "Jennifer will appear in a creative, entrepreneurial capacity and will absolutely not feature her children and family life."

While I think it's admirable for her to keep her private life private and not raise her twins under the watchful eye of television cameras, it's a little disgusting that she misled her fans. And maybe even TLC, which boasted about their "reality" show with Lopez.

Jennifer Lopez continues her quest to rule the world with a new reality series on TLC.

The actress, singer, clothing and fragrance entrepreneur, and new mom of twins is partnering with actor-producers Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on a new unscripted series about Lopez's life with husband Mark Anthony, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lopez will also executive produce the show.

"I think it'll be something very exciting," she said earlier today at the Discovery Network's upfront presentation in Manhattan.

Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice, would have to go a long way to be compared to the foul-mouthed, in-your-face TV chef Gordon Ramsay, but that's what Fox TV is hoping for if they want her proposed new show, Fashion Nightmares, to ape Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The net is talking with the former Spice Girl and fashion "scion" with her dvb Style denim brand to do a show in the style of Kitchen Nightmares. In that US version of the BBC hit, the chef goes to troubled restaurants and diagnoses what's wrong and how they must fix it. Ramsay's way includes many expletives deleted and mucho histronics. Like the UK version, Fox's US variation has been a hit.

Do you remember coming back from your first semester at college and running into a kid you used to go to high school with who decided to use college as an excuse to totally reinvent him or herself? Like he was the class dork and in three months he's all of a sudden a death-metal anarchist? Or she dated the basketball team (the varsity, junior varsity, AND the freshmen) and now she dresses like Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman?

There was always something disturbing about it. Not so much that they had changed -- everyone has a right to change -- but because what they now were was different from the template you had made for them. When the universe doesn't act like you expect it to, you get uneasy; it's a natural reaction. I couldn't help but feel that way this week, when I watched A&E's new show Parking Wars.

Matt Roloff, patriarch to the Roloff family of the very popular TLC reality show Little People, Big World, was found not guilty of Driving Under the Influence by a Washington County, Oregon judge. He made this decision even though it was a jury trial. You see, a few of the jury members got into a bit of trouble. But first, more about Matt.

Back on June 19th of last year the 46-year-old Roloff was pulled over after a sheriff's deputy saw his van leaving a bar and weaving over lane lines. During testimony last week Roloff mentioned that he was only dropping off a friend at the bar and never left his car. He also testified that he was tired from a cross-country RV trip he took with his family and that the pedal extensions on the van he was driving (it was his wife Amy's van) were different than what he was used to.

Miss America is no longer homeless. The long-running pageant has found a new home on TLC, of all places, for the next three years. It's the first big programming move for TLC's new president and general manager, Angela Shapiro-Mathes. The pageant was at CMT for the last few years after ABC dropped it, but its ratings have been dismal.

TLC is giving the pageant its own treatment. The cable network is the king of the unscripted show, so it's creating a reality series about all 52 contestants as they prepare for the pageant.

If Miss America is going to survive on television (and I'm not saying it should), this TLC plan may be the only way it can happen. Ratings over the past few years have shown that Americans just aren't interested in beauty pageants. But, humanizing these women (and understanding why they do this?!?) could be enough to generate interest to see who wins the pageant.

What is the deal with television stars and their need to drive drunk? Of all people, Matt Roloff is charged with drunk driving. He's the father on the popular TLC reality series, Little People, Big World. The actual arrest happened back in mid-June but he made a court appearance on the charges yesterday. Deputies pulled him over at about midnight, and he failed a sobriety test.

I'd be interested to see how he handles this with his kids. I'm a fan of Little People, Big World and am especially entertained by Matt, who always seems to have some big project happening out on his farm. Even though the Roloffs have a tough time keeping their house clean, they seem to be raising good kids.

By the way, what do you think of Roloff's mug shot? The smile is a little creepy... almost like Tom DeLay, but not quite.

Street Customs, a new series for TLC set in West Coast Customs in Corona, California and starring owner Ryan Friedlinghaus, will hit TLC Thursdays this fall.

Friedlinghaus started West Coast Customs in 1993, and the business eventually became a phenomenon, raking in over ten million dollars and building custom cars for many famous people. The company is also opening shops in Moscow and Dubai.

TLC scheduled Street Customs for Thursday nights to fit in with similar fare like American Chopper, American Hotrod and Wrecks to Riches.

This sounds like it could be a good series, and given the success of the other shows aired during "Turbo on TLC," I'm sure it will do well.