Channel Surfing: Ian Somerhalder Sinks Teeth into "Vampire Diaries," Sutherland Finds Home with "Eastmans," Jeri Ryan Briefs "SVU," and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

Ian Somerhalder (Lost) has joined the cast of CW's supernatural drama pilot Vampire Diaries, from writer/executive producer Kevin Williamson. Somerhalder will play Damon, a "smug vampire who can go from playful to evil in a split second." Also cast: Zach Roerig (Friday Night Lights), who will play jock Matt, and Kayla Ewell (Entourage), who will play Matt's sister. The trio joins the previously announced Michael Trevino, Katerina Graham, Nina Bobrev, Steven R. McQueen, Sarah Carey, and Candice Accola in the Warner Bros. Television-produced pilot, based on a series of Ally Entertainment novels. (Variety)

Dirty Sexy Money's Donald Sutherland will star in CBS drama pilot The Eastmans, about a clan of physicians. He'll play the family's wealthy patriarch, a rogueish cardiologist. Project, from Warner Bros. Television, stars Jesse Bradford, Jacqueline Bisset, Saffron Burrows, David Wilson Barnes, and Gaby Hoffman and will be directed by Jason Ensler. (Hollywood Reporter)

Jeri Ryan (Boston Public) has been cast as attorney Patrice Larue in a multiple-episode story arc on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Ryan will appear in at least three episodes as Larue, beginning with the series' April 7th episode, entitled "Baggage," about the murder of an artist that is linked to a series of unsolved serial murders. "Jeri Ryan's the real deal," executive producer Neal Baer told TV Guide. "She brings a compelling intensity to her roles and we're lucky to have her as a kick-butt attorney on SVU." (TV Guide)

Pilot casting alert: Allison Munn (Carpoolers) been cast as one of the leads in NBC's untitled Justin Adler comedy pilot, where she will play the girlfriend of Nick D'Agosto's character; Joy Suprano (Law & Order) has joined the cast of NBC comedy pilot 100 Questions for Charlotte Payne, where she will play Charlotte's best friend; and Joaquim de Almeida (Crusoe) has landed a recurring role in CBS drama pilot Three Rivers, where he will play the director of the transplant medicine institute. (Hollywood Reporter)

24 co-creator Joel Surnow will write The Kennedys, a ten-hour mini-series about the Kennedy clan that is said to "unveil secrets" about the political family, including alleged conspiracy and fraud on their part in order to secure ascension to the White House and investigate the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, mob connections within "the context of personal, Kennedy-family dramas." Project, executive produced by Surnow, Stephen Kronish, Michael Prupas, Jonathan Koch, and Steven Michaels, will be shopped by Canadian distributor Muse Entertainment to networks this weekend. (Variety)

Logo has ordered a second season of drag queen competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, just a few days after the series' first season wrapped. The network has yet to comment on the renewal, which doesn't come as a surprise considering the series' strong showing in both the media and in the ratings. (TV Week)

Canadian Broadcasting Company will eliminate up to 800 jobs beginning in May, splitting the reductions among its English-language divisions and its French-language counterparts in both new media, TV, and radio, as well as cutting 70 corporate positions. (Hollywood Reporter)

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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