[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Los Angeles Times ' Denise Martin is reporting that Party Down star Adam Scott is heading to NBC's Parks and Recreation , where he is slated to turn up in the final episodes of the season... alongside Rob Lowe, in fact. [Editor: could their sudden appearances in Pawnee be linked?] Scott, who will serve as as a series regular for Parks ' third season, has also signed a first-look deal with NBC and Universal Media Studios, under which he will develop new series projects. Parks and Recreation co-creator Mike Schur described Scott as "brilliant and funny -- and he's funny in a lot of different ways. There just aren't that many people with a comedic range that spans Step Brothers to Party Down ." As for Party Down fans worried that this would mean the end of Henry Pollard, Martin reports that "Scott said he'd be open to coming back to reprise his role should "Party Down" be renewed....

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Freddie Prinze Jr. ( Freddie ) has been cast as one of the leads in ABC's US remake of UK comedy series No Heroics . In the ABC Studios-produced pilot, Prinze will play Bradley (a.k.a. Ultimatum), a cocky celebrity superhero with no shortage of women, arrogance, or grade-school quips. He joins the already cast Paul Campbell, Eliza Coupe, and Arielle Kebbel. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Just days after announcing that Samantha Who? star Jennifer Esposito had been cast in USA's Burn Notice , the actress has dropped out of the role. No reason was given for Esposito's departure from the series, where she was to have played Miami police detective Michelle Paxon, a new adversary for Jeffrey Donovan's Michael Weston. Stepping in to replace Esposito: Moon Bloodgood ( Journeyman ), who will assume the role of Michelle. Production on Burn Notice 's third season is currently underway. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files...

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 ...

Sure, there are more than a few television mothers who are forces for good: paragons of maternal instincts, positive role-models whose children are well-behaved and look up to them or misunderstood martyrs who are just plain unappreciated. But let's be honest: the TV mothers that are the most memorable tend to play their roles in a no-wire-hangers Joan Crawford kind of way. These moms, sometimes as eeevil as can be, are usually a hell of a lot more fun than their Pollyanna counterparts. So who made my list of TV's most memorable meanie moms? Let's take a look. Name: Julie Cooper ( The O.C. ) Actress: Melinda Clarke Likes: Power, money, powerful men with money, decorating large mansions, blackmail, her daughter's cast-off boyfriends, manipulating everyone around her, Newport Living . Dislikes: Ryan Atwood, downsizing, no-fault divorces, getting jilted, being blackmailed, Chino. Acts of Treachery and Wanton Evil: Sleeping with daughter Marisa's high school sweetheart ...

With all the hubbub the other night with the season finale of Battlestar Galactica and a particularly fractious episode of The Amazing Race , I didn't want you to think that I'd forgotten about the series finale (sniffle) of Rome . If you haven't ever watched Rome , I'm sure the episode in question wouldn't have even caught your notice but for those of us who have obsessively followed the slow burn of Rome, with its intrigues, vendettas, and fractured brotherhoods, the series finale, which aired Sunday (to be repeated a zillion times this week and available on HBO On Demand), was the perfect ending to a near-perfect series, which rarely had a misstep in its two-season history. While I'm sad that this beloved series was drawn to a close sooner rather than later, I do have to admire HBO and BBC for acknowledging that it's far better to go out on a high note than draw out the inevitable with lackluster writing, subpar stories, and off-the-mark characterization...

I've been woefully lax in discussing the latest season of Rome , which kicked off on HBO a few weeks back and has completely captivated my Sunday nights (along with Battlestar Galactica , Extras , and Gordon Ramsay's F Word ). Deceit. Betrayal. Lust. Murder. Scandal. Welcome to Rome , capital of voracious backstabbing, sometimes quite literally. It's the second season of the beautiful and gripping HBO/BBC period series and also its last. Wait, what? You heard me. In perhaps a wise mood, HBO renewed the vastly expensive series under the condition that it would be the last and would tie up the storylines from Season One, creating a double-digit maxi-series spread over two seasons. While, on the one hand, I'm deeply saddened to know that there's only a few episodes left to tell the story of Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo and that of Rome itself, I do find it heartening that the series' producers (and creator Bruno Heller) had advance notice and could carve out the ...