[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend (I'm still full from two Thanksgiving dinners' worth of turkey and all the trimmings) and is at least somewhat happy to be back at work today. Rome creator Bruno Heller--who happens to also be the creator of this season's only certifiable network ratings hit, The Mentalist --has expressed interest in producing a feature film version of Rome . "There is talk of doing a movie version," said Heller. "It's moving along. It's not there until it is there. I would love to round that show off." HBO quietly admitted recently that it was likely a mistake that they canceled the series before its well-received second season. Meanwhile, Heller says that he had a road map for five seasons of the series: "I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end," Heller said. "The second was going to end with death of ...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I hope everyone watched the season premiere of Bravo's Top Chef , which nearly made up for yet another week without a new Pushing Daisies ... though from what I gather, there's going to be quite a lot of those come soon. Sigh. NBC has canceled freshman drama My Own Worst Enemy , which starred Christian Slater in the dual role of Edward/Henry. Series will wrap production after shooting its current episode, the ninth of the initial 13-episode order. No word yet on what NBC will substitute in the Monday 10 pm timeslot. ( Variety ) As for the fate of sophomore drama Lipstick Jungle , NBC has also given the drama the sack as well. Ouch. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Should Pushing Daisies be canceled tomorrow, creator Bryan Fuller says that the series' storylines will be wrapped up in comic book form. "The idea would be to finish out the season's story arcs in comic books," said Fuller, "to satisfy the fans and o...

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Wondering where the frak BSG is? Battlestar Galactica will return with the back half of Season Four, the series' final installment, on January 16th at 10 pm. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) NBC has given a put pilot commitment to Jason and the Argonauts , a green-screen drama based on the Greek myth about the quest for the golden fleece from writer/executive producers Josh and Jonas Pate ( Surface ) and Media Rights Capital. (NBC previously aired a mini based on the myth in 2000.) I'm not quite sure that they should have done so until after they see the numbers from the premiere of Crusoe later this week but there you go. The Peacock landed the project after a fierce bidding war, apparently with FOX. (In other news, MRC received an order for seven additional scripts for its animated ABC comedy The Goode Family and three additional scripts for Lifetime comedy Rita Rocks .) ( Variety ) In other NBC news, M...

By now you've read my advance review of NBC's new Christian Slater spy drama My Own Worst Enemy and had the opportunity to watch it yourself. I'm curious to see what you thought about the series premiere of My Own Worst Enemy ("Breakdown"), which introduced the audience to Slater's Henry Spivey/Edward Albright; one is the consummate career-driven family man, the other is a deadly intelligence operative with a penchant for fast cars and faster women. Were you as bothered by the episode's incongruities and sloppy plotting as I was? Did you think that Slater himself was pretty darn underwhelming? And did you care at all about Henry's family or Fainburg's Marbles? Do you care why Henry and Edward seem to be emerging at inopportune times? And, most importantly, will you be tuning in again next week? Talk back here. Missed the series premiere of My Own Worst Enemy ? No worries. You can watch it after the jump...

When I read Jason Smilovic's original script for My Own Worst Enemy , the NBC action spy series starring Christian Slater which launches tonight, I thought that it showed enormous promise and potential. Sure, I was confused why NBC would schedule two series that both dealt with takes on the spy genre on the same night ( Chuck , of course, airs two hours earlier) but I figured that, since they had managed to snag Christian Slater as the lead on a network television series, they had to be doing something right. And then I saw the premiere episode of My Own Worst Enemy ("Breakdown") a few weeks back and I began to question everything that I had originally thought about the series, especially as the Peacock had secured the showrunning services of John Eisendrath, an Alias veteran who replaced series creator Jason Smilovic at the helm, and done some major recasts and reshooting. My Own Worst Enemy isn't bad, per se, but it could have been a hell of a lot better and the r...

Good morning and welcome to your Monday television briefing. Steven Moffat, who has taken over the reins at Doctor Who from Russell T. Davies , has said that he wouldn't rule out a feature film spin-off of Doctor Who so long as it didn't interfere with production on the series itself. "It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it was great and fantastic," said Moffat, speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. "But a film is on [for] 90 minutes and that is not as important as the series. But so long as it doesn't get in the way of the show we could do it. If it got in the way of the show that would be appalling." The series itself has already had two feature spin-offs in the 1960s: Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD , both of which starred Peter Cushing as the Doctor. ( The Guardian 's Organ Grinder ) There's a fantastic interview with J.J. Abrams about his new FOX drama Fringe and about ...

Good morning (on what appears to be a spectacularly grey day here in LA) and welcome to your early morning television briefing. Hungry for more Torchwood ? The official Torchwood magazine, published by Titan, has the details for the third season's story arc... or at least the title of the five-part story. Creator Russell T. Davies has revealed the title to be "Torchwood: Children Of Earth." The series' third outing is set to air over the course of one week on BBC1 in Spring 2009. "I usually give you all one or two tone words when we have a meeting like this," Davies told the production team during his tone meeting last month, "But if I were to give you two words this time, they would be 'Euros Lyn'. More than ever before, this series of Torchwood will be director-led, and it will look absolutely amazing." Euros Lyn directed such Doctor Who episodes as "The End Of The World," "The Girl In The Fireplace," and the two-pa...

More behind-the-scenes drama at NBC. Following the departure a few months back of showrunner Tom Fontana on upcoming midseason drama The Philanthropist (which BSG co-creator David Eick was brought in to oversee), yet another behind-the-scenes change is occuring on another new drama series. Jason Smilovic ( Kidnapped, Bionic Woman ) will be stepping down as showrunner on the upcoming fall drama series My Own Worst Enemy , starring Christian Slater, Alfre Woodard, Saffron Burrows, Yara Martinez, and Mike O'Malley, though the Peacock is quick to say that he'll still be involved with the series and will, according to The Hollywood Reporter "continue to be the creative force behind the series and will navigate it with" his replacement, John Eisendrath. Eisendrath ( K-Ville, Alias ), a co-executive producer on My Own Worst Enemy , is said to be in talks with NBC brass about becoming the series' new executive producer/showrunner. The move comes as production is about ...

Just a day before network upfront presentations are scheduled to kick off, there has been a flurry of casting activity here in Hollywood. Boston Legal 's Saffron Burrows has joined the cast of NBC's drama series My Own Worst Enemy , starring Christian Slater and Mike O'Malley about a well-mannered family man Henry, whose alter ego Edward is a spy and all-around international man of mystery. Burrows will play Norah, Edward's girlfriend and Henry's psychiatrist. Production on the first episode is slated to get under way soon. My Own Worst Enemy , from Universal Media Studios and writer/executive producer Jason Smilovic ( Kidnapped ), was ordered to series in April off of the pilot script; no pilot was shot. Frances Fisher ( In the Valley of Elah ) has come aboard an eight-episode arc on the next season of Sci Fi's drama Eureka , where she will play Samantha Thorne, a corporate fixer assigned to clean up the mess at Global. In a major casting coup, indie actor extr...