Channel Surfing: "Friday Night Lights" Renewed for Two Seasons, Lucy Lawless Dons Sandals for "Spartacus," Dustin Milligan to Leave "90210," and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

NBC and DirecTV have reached a deal to renew drama series Friday Night Lights for two more seasons of 13 episodes each. Following the same model as the air structure this season, DirecTV will get the first window of the fourth and fifth seasons of Friday Night Lights before NBC airs them. Look for current cast members Taylor Kitsch, Matt Gilford, and Adrianne Palicki, who all play seniors, to potentially leave the series but the trio may reprise their roles on a recurring basis in order to wrap up their characters' storylines. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files, E! Online)

Lucy Lawless will star in Starz' upcoming gladiator series Spactacus: Blood and Sand, from executive producers Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, and Josh Donen. She'll play gladiator camp owner Lucretia, opposite Aussie series lead Andy Whitfield (The Strip). Project, which start shooting next month, is expected to air in January 2010. (Variety, Entertainment Weekly)

Dustin Milligan, who plays jock Ethan, won't be returning as a series regular for Season Two of CW's 90210, reports Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. Milligan's option for a second season has not been picked up but there is a possibility that he could reprise his role to wrap up some storylines this fall. Conversely, Matt Lanter--who plays bad boy Liam--has been upgraded to series regular next season. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Pilot casting alert: James D'Arcy (Virtuality) will star in CBS drama pilot The Eastmans; Nick Kroll (Cavemen) and Nora Zehetner (Heroes) have joined the cast of FOX comedy pilot Cop House; and Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights) will co-star in FOX drama pilot Masterwork, where he will play an FBI agent on the trail of some international art thieves who works closely with Matt Passmore's character. (Hollywood Reporter)

E! Online's Watch with Kristin has a first look at Season Two of HBO's True Blood, which kicks off on June 14th and will follow the second Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris and feature vampiric Viking Eric. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

MTV has renewed reality mainstay Real World for another four cycles, bringing the total number of seasons that the series has aired to a staggering 26. The cabler also ordered another four cycles of reality competition series Real World/Road Rules Challenge, bringing that series' total to 21 cycles. "MTV is proud to continue our relationship with Bunim-Murray that stretches back over 15 years," said MTV programming president Tony DiSanto. "With each new season, the Real World franchise continues to evolve and captivate our ever-changing audience." (Hollywood Reporter)

Former Angel star Andy Hallett, who played Lorne on the WB series, passed away Sunday evening in Los Angeles after a five-year-long battle with heart disease. He was 33 years old. (E! Online)

Mark Burnett Prods. and Lionsgate TV will team up to produce a US version of Italian reality format Parenti talenti, which pits family against one another as they perform song and dance numbers and comedy sketches after spending a week with pro coaches. The companies will jointly pitch the project to networks, while Lionsgate will retain format rights in English-language territories and distribute the US version worldwide. (Variety)

ABC has acquired mini-series Diamonds, starring Judy Davis, James Purefoy, Derek Jacobi, Louise Rose, and Joanne Kelly, from Alchemy TV and Films and plans to air the project, originally developed and produced for CBC, in May. (Variety)

Nikki Finke is reporting that CBS has allegedly "demanded that each existing TV show -- even the hit ones -- reduce their budgets for next year, if renewed." Which she believes could lead to smaller writing staffs next season. (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

Sony Pictures Television has signed a deal with RelativityReal, the reality television arm of Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity, to co-distribute projects from the shingle, said to have 20 series and pilots in development, outside of the US. (Variety)

44 Blue is development a reality series following party planner Jes Gordon, whose clients include the likes of the Golden Globes, Sting, and Bono, as she puts together successful soirees. (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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