[Televisionary]

Is it just me or is nearly every other comedy pilot this season about the hijinx at a local newsroom? There's the 13-episode order for Action News , starring Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Paul Campbell, Aimee Garcia, and Fred Williard, about the friction between two local news co-anchors in Buffalo when one returns after a sojourn in the "big city." It will be airing this fall on FOX and has been generating a lot of buzz here in Hollywood. (It doesn't hurt that the script it pretty damn hilarious and the characters are engagingly witty.) Then there's the Rick Swartzlander comedy pilot The News , about the goings-on at, you guessed it, a local news station, this time set in Phoenix, Arizona. That project, up for contention for a fall slot at ABC, stars Amy Yasback, Jay Harrington, Rachel Boston, Tim Conlon and Veronica Mars ' Julie Gonzalo. So I was a little surprised when I woke up this morning to discover that FOX had ordered yet another newsroom-set comed...

Will Veronica be saying goodbye to Neptune? If Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has his way, that might be just what happens next year, if the struggling mystery series is picked up for a fourth season of noir-tinged intrigue. Despite reports yesterday that Veronica Mars had been cancelled , The Hollywood Reporter has indicated that Thomas has devised a plan to "fast-forward a couple of years and have [Veronica] studying at the FBI Academy." While the series' current season has layed the groundwork for this to occur at some point in the future (criminology professor/murderer Hank Landry has pushed Veronica to apply for an internship), the change would in fact significantly alter the series, propelling the timeline several years in the future and shifting the series' locale from sunny California to Quantico, Virginia. Thomas is said to be filming a trailer for an "alternative" fourth season and will be submitting it to the CW for consideration. Network ex...

Could Sharon Osbourne be replacing Brandy as a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent ? Inside sources connected to the production have told me that producers of America's Got Talent will be replacing beleaguered judge Brandy, currently embroiled in legal problems-- both criminal and civil--stemming from her involvement in a fatal car crash last year, with British reality TV veteran Sharon Osbourne. AGT 's producers are said to be disconcerted by the overwhelmingly negative publicity that Brandy's problems have generated and have decided that they no longer want her attached to the show, particularly given the criminal investigation going on into Brandy's, er, state of mind while driving. Sharon Osbourne is no stranger to the reality world, having come from her own docu-soap ( The Osbournes ) and her own eponymous daytime talk show. Additionally, she already has an ongoing relationship with America's Got Talent executive producer Simon Cowell from her days as...

Thank god. For a minute there, I was concerned that this week's episode of Lost ("Par Avion") was going to be about Claire learning that her mother really wasn't her mother (it was her aunt Lindsey! shock, horror!) but thankfully the writers didn't go in that direction, giving us instead what we've suspected for some time now. Namely, Claire and Jack are siblings. Does this change things on the island? Not really, unless Claire and Jack start making googly eyes at one another across the campfire. But for the moment, neither of them are aware of the fact that they're related and I love moments like these where the audience is more in the know about something than the characters themselves. Then again, at some point in time, this is liable to come out, once Claire and Jack start to, you know, actually talk about themselves. Sure, Claire might not know Christian's name, but she does know he's a doctor. And somewhere on the island is Christian's b...

Agent Mulder is returning to television. Showtime has ordered 12 episodes of a still untitled series (formerly known as Californication ) with former X-Files star David Duchovny playing divorced writer Hank Moody who tries to juggle his relationship with his daughter, his feelings for his ex, and certain, well, proclivities that come to light during the pilot episode. Series also stars Natascha McElhone, Evan Handler, Madeleine Martin, and Madeline Zima. The project, which will be produced by Showtime, was written by Tom Kapinos ( Dawson's Creek ) and directed by Stephen Hopkins ( 24 ); they'll executive produce the series with David Duchovny. The dark half-hour comedy will most likely be paired with the third season of Weeds for a late summer launch. The series pickup likely means that fellow Showtime comedy pilots Manchild and Insatiable will not be ordered to series. Having read the script for the untitled Duchovny series last year, I definitely thought it was the stro...

Longtime readers know that I am a relative America's Next Top Model newbie, so it's rather amusing that after the last cycle, I've become an obsessed convert to the ways of Tyra and these modeling tyros. Sure, Miss Jay might annoy me as much as humanly possible, but I try to put those ever increasingly "outrageous' antics out of my mind each week as we see Tyra take some pretty-if-average young women and transform them into top models. Or, well, semi-successful print models, anyway. I was worried that last week's Pussycat Dolls Presents The Search for the Next Doll would leave a sour taste in my mouth (Ken Mok is, after all, the executive producer on both reality series), but I have to say that I have all but forgotten that cheese fest. Somehow, Top Model manages to toe the line between seriousness and cheesiness but, unlike Doll , it hasn't fallen completely over the edge into ridiculousness. (And Top Model tends not to show its contestants repeatedly ...

Curious about the upcoming costume drama The Tudors , starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam, Henry Czerny, Henry Cavill, and Callum Blue? (Or just looking for your next historical fix with the conclusion of Rome nearly upon us?) Showtime has created a VIP preview of their new bodices-and-battles drama, The Tudors (premiering April 1 at 10 pm on the pay cabler), but you can catch a sneak peak at, not one, but two upcoming episodes from the luxe period drama now. The two-episode preview can be found here and, fittingly enough, the password is the word "king." Oh and a word to the wise: The Tudors features the kind of, er, atmosphere you might find on Rome or Deadwood , so I wouldn't try watching this at work. Unless of course, you happen to work in a Henry VIII-style workplace where anything goes and sex, betrayals, and beheadings are the watchwords of the day. In which case, go crazy.