[Televisionary]

Happy Festivus, everyone! To celebrate today (in addition to the feats of strength and airing of grievances), I rounded up the top 10 nontraditional Holiday television episodes over at The Daily Beast , from Community and Seinfeld to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who . (And, yes, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 's direct-to-DVD special--which just aired on FX for the first time this month--made the list, naturally.) An aside, I could have filled the entire list with just British television shows, from The Vicar of Dibley and Doctor Who (which both made the list) to Gavin & Stacey, Blackadder, Catherine Tate, Absolutely Fabulous , and about a zillion others. But I am curious to know: what is your favorite nontraditional holiday episode/special? Putting aside the traditional Rudolph and Charlie Brown Christmas , what are some of the more out there holiday episodes or specials that add that extra spike to the eggnog? Or make that Festivus aluminum pole shine a li...

Just a little while after I posted my "Who's In?" post about this year's San Diego Comic-Con International (along with details of the V panel I'll be moderating), I got an email from 20th Century Fox Television in which they spill the details about the eleven series they're bringing to Comic-Con this year. Those series will include Bones, Glee, Sons of Anarchy, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Terra Nova, Futurama, The Cleveland Show, American Dad, Bob's Burgers , and Neighbors From Hell , all of which will present panels in San Diego next month. And, yes, dates and times for the above are included. Intriguingly, both Glee and Sons of Anarchy will be held on Sunday, traditionally a less hectic and relatively more quiet day of programming... while Bones will hold court on Friday afternoon in Ballroom 20 (along with Terra Nova , which is heading to the smaller Ballroom 6A). The full press release from 20th Century Fox Television can be found below. TWENTIETH C...

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I promise no April Fool's Day jokes here, just real TV-related headlines this morning. IFC and Lionsgate Television are developing telepic Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter , based on Hamilton's best-selling Anita Blake novels about the female vampire hunter who also works as a police consultant on supernatural crimes. The movie, which will be produced by Lionsgate and After Dark Films, was written/executive produced by Glen Morgan ( The X-Files ) and will be shot this summer. ( Variety ) SCI FI Wire has an exclusive interview with Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller about his return to NBC's Heroes , what went wrong with the series, and how he intends to fix it. "After I finished watching [the "Villains" episodes the producers sent over], I wasn't sure I could do this," said Fuller. "I didn't recognize the show anymore. It had become something else entirely. My fav...

AMC to Get "Mad" Cabler AMC has greenlit its first original one-hour drama, Mad Men , about the professional and personal lives of Madison Avenue advertising execs in the early 1960s, ordering 13 episodes from executive producer/writer Matthew Weiner (The Sopranos) and studio Lionsgate ( Weeds ). According to an article in Variety , production begins in April in New York City. Series will star Jon Hamm ( We Were Soldiers ), January Jones ( American Wedding ), Elisabeth Moss ( The West Wing ), Vincent Kartheiser ( Angel ), Christina Hendricks ( Kevin Hill ), and John Slattery ( K Street ). " Mad Men centers on thirty-something Don Draper, creative director for the Sterling Cooper ad agency, which hawks everything from cigarettes to political candidates. Pilot episode centers on Don's fight to keep a major tobacco account from leaving the agency while juggling his increasingly complicated romantic life." Weiner wrote the script when he was on staff on the CBS s...

It seems the Simpsons rumors were true after all and not an April Fool's Day prank, as many has thought... though the fact that Nelson Munz could be heard laughing didn't make it easy to believe. Variety is (again) reporting that periennial animated series The Simpsons is heading to the big-screen, after a trailer for the film--due in 2007--began airing in theatres on Friday and popped up last night during a new (albeit pretty lame) episode of the series on FOX. The feature film, set to open worldwide on 27 July 2007, will feature regular castmembers Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardly Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille. Also supplying voices for the film are Albert Brooks, Minnie Driver, and Erin Brockovitch, which could give some hints to the feature film's plotline. The official announcement comes after a leak in 2001, when it became known that the actors' contract renegotiations contained a clause for a fea...

Variety is reporting today that FOX has given an early two-season pick up to long-running animated series The Simpsons , keeping the show--about a certain yellow-toned family who never seem to age and their doughnut-obsessed dad--on the air at least through 2008. The order takes The Simpsons into its 18th and 19th seasons, easily making it the longest-running sitcom in Fox's checkered history (it only seemed as though Herman's Head was on for that long). The order also means that The Simpsons will reach its landmark 400th episode, which will air in the show's 18th season. According to Variety, that milestone is tentatively scheduled to air on 20 May, 2007. I've had my ups and downs with the series and still manage to watch it (when they actually air a new episode) each Sunday, though the quality has been rather sub-par in recent years. Gone now are the classic episodes that you could watch over and over again (and which are shown about 18 times a day in syndication)...