Spring into Fall: NBC Renews "Chuck," "Life," and "Heroes"

Good news, bad news for Chuck fans: the series will be returning to NBC, just not as early as those promos would have you believe.

NBC picked up second seasons of freshman dramas Chuck and Life, along with a third-season order for drama Heroes, but has no plans to return either series to their schedule before this fall. All three will have major re-launches next season.

Which means those of us hooked on the adventures of Chuck Bartowski and his gang of spies and retail clerks will have to wait quite a while for fresh installments.

"We are thrilled to be bringing back the high-energy dramas Chuck and Life for next season," said NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman Ben Silverman in a statement. "Additionally, we will be saving and re-launching our #1 drama and most successful franchise, Heroes, so that it will run in all original episodes in the fourth quarter."

"These pickups are a sign of our confidence in these quality series and will allow the respective producers to get a head start on their creative arc for next season," continued Co-Chairman Marc Graboff. "As a result, they give us a lot to build on as we point to next year's schedule."

While I am happy that Chuck didn't get a premature cancellation in the face of fallout from the writers strike, I was hoping to get my Monday night fix a little earlier than, say, September. Still, good news for the kids at the Buy More. I think it might just call for sizzling shrimp for everyone.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Survivor: Micronesia--Fans Vs. Favorites (CBS); Deal or No Deal (NBC); Smallville (CW); Lost (ABC); NAACP Image Awards (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); Celebrity Apprentice (NBC); Supernatural (CW); Lost (ABC)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); Lipstick Jungle (NBC); Eli Stone (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Lost.

Missed last week's episode which introduced four new strangers to the island? Here's your chance to catch it again before this season's third episode at 9 pm!

8 pm: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America.

Season Four of the original UK Kitchen Nightmares begins tonight. On this week's installment ("The Fish & Anchor"), Gordon Ramsay heads to rural Wales where he encounters a bar and restaurant owned by a former boxer and his combative wife. Can he save this sinking place before the owners end up in yet another row with the customers? And is it worth it? Find out tonight. (A hint to those with some major DVR conflicts: the episode also airs at 5 pm and 10 pm PT AND at 11 pm ET.)

9 pm: Lost.

On tonight's episode ("The Economist"), Kate and Sayid attempt to find Locke and negotiate with him into calling a truce when they learn that Charlotte may be the key to getting off of the island.

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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See You in Another Life: Thoughts on The Series Finale of Lost

"No one can tell you why you're here." I'm of two minds (and two hearts) about the two-and-a-half hour series finale of Lost ("The End"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender, which brought a finality to the story of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 and the characters with which we've spent six years. At its heart, Lost has been about the two bookends of the human existence, birth and death, and the choices we make in between. Do we choose to live together or die alone? Can we let go of our past traumas to become better people? When we have nothing else left to give, can we make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good? In that sense, the series finale of Lost brought to a close the stories of the crash survivors and those who joined them among the wreckage over the course of more than 100 days on the island (and their return), offering up a coda to their lives and their deaths, a sort of purgatory for found, r...

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