[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. NBC has exiled struggling freshman drama Kings to the dire Saturday night at 8 pm timeslot, where the network will burn off the remaining installments beginning April 18th. In its former Sunday night slot, the Peacock will air two-hour episodes of Dateline NBC from 7-9 pm ET/PT. In its last outing, Kings captures a lowly 1.1/3 among adults 18-49 and 3.6 million viewers overall. ( Variety ) Thomas Calabro will reprise his role as Dr. Michael Mancini in the CW's revival of Melrose Place in a recurring capacity. Casting marks the second former cast member from the original FOX series joining the cast of the updated Melrose Place as he'll join Laura Leighton, who will reprise her role as Sydney Andrews. Could these two have ended up unhappily-ever-after, after all? ( Entertainment Weekly ) Liza Weil ( Gilmore Girls ) and Debra Mooney ( Everwood ) will guest star in Grey's Anatomy 's two-hour season finale, set to a...

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing on a glorious day that sees the premiere of an all-new episode of ABC's Lost tonight. (I can't wait!) Former Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is said to be in talks to topline CBS medical drama pilot Three Rivers , told from the multiple POVs of transplant doctors, organ donors, and organ recipients. Project, from CBS Paramount Network Television, is written/executive produced by Carol Barbee ( Jericho ) and executive produced by Curtis Hanson and Carol Fenelon. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Co-creator/star James Corden has said that Gavin & Stacey 's upcoming third season, set to air in the UK later this year, will be the series' last. "This is it. This will definitely be the last series," said Corden of the series' third season, set to film this summer. "We have a point to which we are working to and that will be the end. It will be sad but it has been a great time for ev...

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown." By now, you've read my advance review for the first few episodes of NBC's newest drama offering, Kings , which launched last night with a two-hour pilot episode. But, now that Kings has aired, I am curious to know what you thought of the first episode. Did you like the alternate universe/vaguely futuristic setting of Shiloh City? Were you turned on or off by the pseudo-religious imagery, Biblical retelling of David's story, and the war-torn setting? Did you love Ian McShane as the morally corrupt King Silas Benjamin? Were you captivated by the story of David Shepherd? Or amused by the vaguely Shakespearean royal retainers? And most importantly: will you be watching Kings again next week? Talk back here.

I'm feeling very torn about NBC's new midseason offering Kings , a modern-day retelling of the Biblical story of David, here set in an alternate universe that's a dark mirror of our own. On the one hand, Kings , created by former Heroes writer Michael Green, is an ambitious series that fuses the Biblical with the Shakespearean and offers up a soapy look at the politics of war and the throne. Its cast, in particular the incomparable Ian McShane ( Deadwood ), is pretty damn top-notch and its production values are among the very best in television: the production design drips the pomp and circumstance of a self-proclaimed king. Yet for all of that, there's something cold and off-putting about the series. Perhaps that's due to its often glacial pace (the network didn't do any favors by allowing director Francis Lawrence to cut a two-hour pilot) or the fact that, rather than use the story of David as a metaphor for our own current war on terror and the current econo...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Looks like Ashes to Ashes isn't the only series heading back to the 1980s (well, except for Mitch Hurwitz's Lost in the '80s , that is): Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have announced that the untitled spinoff of CW's Gossip Girl will focus on a teenage Lily Rhodes van der Woodsen Bass (played in the original by Kelly Rutherford) as a wild child in 1980s Los Angeles who moves in with her sister in San Fernando Valley after a falling out with her parents and must adjust to life at a Valley public school and a nightlife on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Spinoff will be produced as a backdoor pilot that will air May 11th as part of Gossip Girl 's current season. ( Variety ) Chevy Chase has been cast in a three-episode story arc on NBC's Chuck , where he will play Ted Roark, the billionaire technology mogul and owner of Roark Instruments, a company that Chuck Bartowski has always dreamed of working for. But ...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Just a few quick headlines this morning as I've been called to perform my civic duty today and have to drive downtown for jury duty. Macaulay Culkin will appear in a multiple-episode arc on NBC's midseason drama Kings , where he will play the nephew of King Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane) who has been exiled from the kingdom of Shiloh for mysterious reasons. Also slated to appear in the series: Miguel Ferrer ( Crossing Jordan ), Leslie Bibb ( Popular ), Michael Stahl-David ( The Black Donnellys ), and the previously reported Brian Cox . ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) (Aside: I saw the pilot for Kings about two months back and while it was gorgeously directed, I thought that the pacing (it's currently scheduled to air as a two-hour) was glacially slow and could use significant tightening; I think it would be a hell of a lot more compelling at 60 or even 90 minutes.) Could Bravo be readying a Project Runway cl...