"Kath & Kim" Finds Lead in Selma Blair

While the town was abuzz today about which pilot projects had been gutted by CBS' recent announcement that they've pulled the plug on about twenty pilots (with other networks supposedly slated to follow suit), one pilot was moving ahead and had secured the second of its two series leads.

NBC's comedy pilot Kath & Kim, based on the Australian series about a woman's dysfunctional relationship with her adult daughter, has finally locked down the missing piece of its cast puzzle. Pilot, which was originally developed for the 2007-08 season, was pushed to summer when it couldn't cast its two leads in time.

Enter Molly Shannon, who was cast as Kath & Kim's abrasive Kath back in October, after a new writer--Michelle Nader (The King of Queens)--was brought in to rewrite the script. But since then, the project has languished as the search for the pilot's other female lead continued.

That search is over as Selma Blair (Hellboy) has now signed on to play Kim, opposite Shannon. Blair is no stranger to the small screen, having starred on the WB's Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane.

I haven't read the Nader's draft of the pilot script for Kath & Kim yet, but I do have to say that I am more intrigued now that both Shannon and Blair have signed on as the deliciously amoral mother/daughter double act.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Biggest Loser (NBC; 8-10 pm); Reaper (CW); Just for Laughs/Just for Laughs (ABC); American Idol (FOX)

9 pm: The Unit (CBS); One Tree Hill (CW); According to Jim/Carpoolers (ABC); House (FOX)

10 pm: 48 Hours Mystery (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

9 pm: Life on Mars on BBC America.

The brilliant UK import Life on Mars concludes tonight with its series finale. On tonight's installment, the team investigates the murder of a miner, with all fingers pointing towards a notorious cop killer. While Gene and Morgan both race to arrest the killer, Morgan makes Sam a tantalizing proposition in order to bring him home...

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

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In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj

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