[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. TV Guide Magazine 's Will Keck is reporting that Bones producers have turned lemons into lemonade with their upcoming Jersey Shore -inspired episode, following the breakdown in talks with The Situation. Instead, Bones has recruited Antonio Sabato Jr. to play a "guido bouncer at a Jersey Shore club that Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) visit to question someone involved with a murder." ( TV Guide Magazine ) Mad Men 's Sam Page is heading to the Upper East Side, according to Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello, who reports that Page has been cast in a multiple-episode story arc on the CW's Gossip Girl , where he will play a new love interest for Blake Lively's Serena. He's first expected to turn up in an episode slated to air in October. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) The Chicago Tribune 's Maureen Ryan--soon to be AOL's chief television critic--has an ...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Following yesterday's brutal cancellation of Party Down , Hitfix's Alan Sepinwall talks to Party Down executive producer Rob Thomas about the cancellation of the Starz comedy. "No one on our side is particularly shocked by the news," Thomas told Sepinwall about the cancellation. "Frankly, the waiting has been excruciating, and there's a certain amount of relief in knowing and being able to move on." Thomas indicated that the series was heading towards a third season renewal before newly installed entertainment czar Chris Albrecht was brought in. "There's little to no doubt that we were going to get one until Chris came in," said Thomas. "But I do think if we had done better numbers, Chris would've kept us. I don't think Chris wanted to come in and clean house. I just don't think he had quite the emotional attachment that people who had been at Starz through the birth of...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Cynthia Nixon ( Sex and the City ) has signed on to appear in four episodes of Showtime's upcoming dark comedy The Big C , which stars Laura Linney as Cathy, a suburban teacher whose life is thrown off track by a terminal cancer diagnosis. Nixon will play Rebecca, Cathy's "flaky, long-lost college roommate who re-enters her life and shakes things up in a wild way," according to the official press release from Showtime. Nixon's casting follows on the heels of that of ex- Wire co-star Idris Elba. The series, created by Darlene Hunt, stars Linney, Oliver Platt, and Gabourey Sidibe. (via press release) Wondering why none of the main cast members of FOX's Glee will be heading to Comic-Con next month despite 20th Century Fox Television's announcement that there will be a Glee panel at San Diego Comic-Con? Entertainment Weekly 's Andy Patrick is reporting that half of the Glee cast wasn't asked to ...

There's a term in mystery writing called a "locked room mystery." You know the sort, a crime--typically a murder--is discovered in which the deed occurred behind a locked door. Unless the killer is still in the room, there is seemingly no means of egress from this chamber, resulting in a baffling and impossible situation. NBC's new summertime mystery-drama series Persons Unknown , from executive producers Chrisopher McQuarrie ( The Usual Suspects ), Heather McQuarrie, and Remi Aubuchon, aims to be the television version of such a locked room mystery, revolving not around a singular crime but rather a central mystery: how did a group of seven strangers find themselves taken from their ordinary lives and deposited into a seemingly deserted town? And why is it impossible to leave this place? The premise alone warrants comparisons both to Lost and to the seminal 1960s British television series The Prisoner , with its use of inescapable and remote scenery, head-scratching...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. NBC has acquired Fox Television Studio's international co-production Persons Unknown , written and executive produced by Chris McQuarrie ( Valkyrie ). Series, which stars Jason Wiles ( Zodiac ), Chadwick Boseman ( Lincoln Heights ), Daisy Betts ( Out of the Blue ), Tina Holmes ( Six Feet Under ), and Alan Ruck ( Drive ), revolves around a group of strangers who are seemingly kidnapped and taken to a deserted ghost town from which they cannot leave and where they are watched by omnipresent security cameras. McQuarrie is executive producing with Remi Aubuchon and Heather McQuarrie. No US launch date was announced for Persons Unknown , which has already produced thirteen installments with Italy's RAI and Mexico's Televisa. ( Variety ) Lost 's Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were surprised by the ABC drama series getting an outstanding drama series Emmy nod yesterday following this past season's heavily serialized time...

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...

Good morning and welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I ended up making it a fashion-fueled night last night with new episodes of Top Model and Project Runway and threw on the ABC pilot Single with Parents (starring Alyssa Milano) just for good measure. What's up first today? Dollhouse , natch. Everyone is talking about the production shutdown on the set of the new Joss Whedon action drama, slated to kick off in January 2009. 20th Century Fox Television has shut down shooting on Dollhouse beginning tomorrow through September 25th so that Whedon can oversee a rewrite of the fourth script and get ahead on the next few scripts. News comes after FOX rejiggered the running order in July: Dollhouse 's originally filmed pilot will now bow second, after a newly constructed pilot episode (which I hope to see soon). Does this bode ill for the series? No one can say but it does at least point to the reassuring fact that Whedon does seem to be involved with the decisi...