Channel Surfing: ABC Picks Up Tab for "Private Practice," Showtime Keeps "Dexter" Killing, Bomer and DeKay Try On "White Collar," Tony Hale, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I'm still on cloud nine after last night's perfect combination of sweet and tart on BBC America's Gavin & Stacey. Could that series be any funnier or any more genuinely emotional? It's well lush.

Looks like Kate Walsh won't be returning to Seattle Grace any time soon. ABC has picked up Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice for a full season of 22 episodes. Series, which had its freshman season truncated due to the writers strike, has averaged 3.2/8 in adults 18-49 and 8.3 million viewers across two original episodes this fall. (Variety)

Showtime wants more Dexter: the pay cabler announced that it had renewed the serial killer drama for two additional seasons (that would be Season Four and Season Five) of twelve episodes each. Production on Season Four will begin in Los Angeles next spring. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS has ordered two additional scripts for freshman comedy Worst Week, which--after premiering to some dismal numbers--has remained steady in the ratings with a 3.2/7 among adults 18-49 and 9.9 million viewers overall. (Yep, Worst Week is doing better than Private Practice, folks.) (TV Week)

Tim DeKay (Carnivale, Tell Me You Love Me) has been cast as the lead of USA's 90-minute drama pilot White Collar, opposite Matthew Bomer. DeKay's attachment lifts the cast contingency on the project, which will be directed by Bronwen Hughes (Burn Notice) and comes from Fox TV Studios and writer/executive producer Jeff Eastin. (Hollywood Reporter)

In other casting news, Gina Torres (Standoff, Dirty Sexy Money), Brett Davern (American Summer), Scott Cohen (The Return of Jezebel James), Sammi Hanratty (American Girl), and Jen Drohan have been cast in Lifetime's drama pilot The Amazing Mrs. Novak. (Hollywood Reporter)

Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Chuck) and newcomer Ben Koldyke (Thirteen Days) have been cast in FOX comedy pilot Boldly Going Nowhere, from the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia boys. Koldyke will play a rogue spaceship captain in this high-concept comedy that looks at the lives of the ship's crewmembers between intergalactic missions. Hale will play the ship's put-upon robot. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS Paramount has signed a first-look deal with comedy troupe Second City Entertainment; under the deal, the studio will have a crack at the troupe's performer/writers who will workshop potential projects for pilot consideration. (Variety)

Rosie O'Donnell will star in and executive produce telepic America for Lifetime, about a 16-year-old boy who struggles within the foster care system. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

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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