[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. CBS has announced that it will move struggling freshman drama series Harper's Island to Saturday nights at 9 pm ET/PT, beginning May 2nd. What saved the series from outright cancellation are its strong DVR numbers and the fact that all thirteen episodes of Harper's Island 's limited run were already in the can, making it much easier for the Eye to just burn off the episodes. "This move gives us an opportunity to improve the time period on Thursday while experimenting with more original programming on Saturday," said CBS senior exec VP Kelly Kahl of the network's decision. Harper's Island won't be alone on Saturday nights, which the networks have been increasingly using as a dumping ground for series with small but loyal viewers; Kings, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone , and Dirty Sexy Money will all air episodes on Saturdays this summer. ( Variety ) J.J. Abrams is confident that freshman drama series Fr...

I was all excited to watch MI-5 tonight. While it's on at 11 pm and, though preceded by two and a half hours of Doctor Who tonight, I couldn't wait to catch up on those daring Brit spies and whatever dastardly plot they're foiling this week. Hell, I even wrote about the espionage drama this morning. And then A&E had to go and mess up all of my carefully laid TiVo plans. The cabler, better known for reality fare like Dog the Bounty Hunter and Criss Angel, Mindfreak than top-notch quality programming from across the pond, has decided in its infinite wisdom to pull tonight's episode of MI-5 --and all subsequent episodes--and burn off the fourth series on Saturday, October 21st, airing the remaining episodes (um, that would be all of them other than the two-part premiere) in a single eight-hour block during the day. Um, wow. Really, thanks, A&E, for depriving the American audience of a quality drama like MI-5 and relegating it to burn-off status on a weekend a ...

No one ever said that the spy trade was a particularly easy or, um, long-lived profession to go into. The pay isn't great, the hours are long (particularly if you're Jack Bauer, there isn't even time for a bathroom break), the conditions are downright dangerous, and the survival rate is pretty bleak. Especially, that is, for the operatives on the smart and sleek British import MI-5 (or as it's know on the other side of the pond, Spooks ). Their life expectancy is somewhere around 1 or 2 seasons of the show, if they're lucky. Their lives are nasty, brutish (and British), and short and it goes without saying that on a show like MI-5 , no one is safe. Part of the excitement of the show is the danger that accompanies it. Any one of the characters can be killed off at any time, without warning and without sentiment from the series' producers. I realized this quite early on in the series' second episode when a female spy (Lisa Faulkner) whom I believed to be a se...

Fans of BBC's Spooks --or MI-5 as it's known here in the States--need not wait any longer to find out what happened with their favorite British spy group after this long hiatus. A&E has announced that it will premiere MI-5's fourth season beginning with a two-part special kicking off on 15 September at 11 pm ET/PT that will deal head on with agent Danny Hunter's, um, untimely end at the conclusion of last season. So set your TiVos and catch up with Adam Carter & Co... because it might be another few years before you get your next chance.