Channel Surfing: J.J. Abrams Compares "Lost" to Dickens, Emily Deschanel Dishes on "Bones" Action, "Cold Case" Unearths Ratings Surge, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams tells The Guardian that the writing staff on the ABC series, which airs its fifth season finale next week, approach the series a bit like Charles Dickens approached his own serialized storytelling. "It's a leap of faith doing any serialized storytelling," said Abrams in a new interview. "We had an idea early on, but certain things we thought would work well didn't. We couldn't have told you which characters would be in which seasons. We couldn't tell you who would even survive. You feel that electricity. It's almost like live TV. We don't quite know what might happen. I'm sure when Charles Dickens was writing, he had a sense of where he was going - but he would make adjustments as he went along. You jump into it, knowing there's something great out there to find." (Guardian)

(SPOILER) Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello talks with Bones star Emily Deschanel about next week's Brennan and Booth-based plot twist on netx week's episode of the FOX drama. "It definitely changes the dynamic between the characters," said Deschanel of the hook-up between Booth and Brennan. "But it's done in a very clever way. [Series creator] Hart Hanson wrote the episode in a way that gets these two characters together -- which a lot of the audience was waiting for -- but doesn't dissipate the sexual tension between them and, therefore, ruin the show... Let's just say there's definitely a twist. It's not a dream, but there are twists. And there are [other] twists at the end of the episode that will be shocking as well. [...] It's not a matter of life or death, but it's kind of huge. There's a cliffhanger and it has to do with Booth and Brennan's relationship. It puts their relationship in jeopardy." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Things are looking up for CBS' Cold Case, currently on the bubble for a renewal for next season. Sunday night's episode showed a 38 percent uptick in the ratings with 12.9 million viewers overall, the series' best performance in six weeks. No decision has yet been made about Cold Case's ultimate fate but the ratings surge does point strongly in its favor and rumors are swirling that the crime procedural will get another shot next season. (Hollywood Reporter)

Adult Swim has given a nine-episode order to stop-motion animated comedy Titan Maximum from executive producers Tom Root, Matthew Seinreich, and Seth Green, creators of the network's Robot Chicken. Titan Maximum, which will feature the voices of Green, Breckin Meyer, Rachael Leigh Cook, Dan Milano, and Eden Espinosa, will parody 1980s Japanese animated series such as Voltron as it follows a group of fighter pilots whose spaceships combine to form a gigantic robot named... Titan Maximum. Additionally, "because of budget cuts, the team has been disbanded but must hastily reassemble when a former team member turns rogue and tries to conquer the solar system." The writing staff is said to include comic book writers Geoff Johns and Zeb Wells. (Hollywood Reporter)

Dominic West (The Wire) will star opposite Joe Armstrong (Robin Hood), Denis Lawson (Jekyll), and John Sessions (Oliver Twist) in BBC Four drama Breaking the Mould, which recounts the true story of Professor Howard Florey who, along with his team of researchers at Oxford University, were behind the discovery of penicillin during WWII. (BBC)

Kiefer Sutherland's latest brush with the law could find him in violation of his parole... and delay production on Day Eight of FOX's 24, set to begin filming at the end of the month. The latest charges stem from an altercation on Monday evening in which Sutherland allegely head-butted a fashion designer while Sutherland was talking with actress Brooke Shields at an event. Whether Sutherland was intoxicated at the time of the altercation may effect any parole violation discussions and could land the actor back in jail or performing community service. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Nicktoons has ordered 26 additional episodes of animated series Wolverine and the X-Men from Marvel Animation, bringing the series' episodic total to 52 installments. New episodes of the series will kick off on Nicktoons on May 22nd. (Hollywood Reporter)

Tribune Broadcasting stations have purchased off-network syndication rights to HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage from HBO and will begin airing episodes of both series in fall 2010, when it will be able to broadcast repeats between 4:30 pm and 12:30 am Monday to Friday, along with one weekend slot. Content will be edited for language and content. (Variety)

TNT has confirmed earlier reports about its summer lineup, with Mondays playing host to The Closer and Raising the Bar beginning June 8th, Tuesdays the home of Wedding Day, Hawthorne, and Saving Grace beginning June 16th, and Wednesdays the berth for Leverage and Dark Blue starting July 15th. (via press release)

Lauren Holly and Rob Lowe will star in Lifetime Movie Network telepic Too Late to Say Goodbye, based on Ann Rule's novel about a woman who discovers her husband's infidelity and has an affair with a man she meets online and then turns up dead, the victim of an apparent suicide. Holly will play the woman's sister, who believes that she was murdered and that her husband (Lowe) is the prime suspect. (Hollywood Reporter)

Zoo Prods. is developing an untitled docusoap based on the live of Larry Ramos Gomez, a 31-year-old man who suffers from "wolfman syndrome" (hypertrichosis) as he looks for love. Executive producers Amy Rosenblum, Barry Poznick, and Charles Steenveld will pitch the project to networks next week. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Getting Animated with "Wolverine and the X-Men" and "Batman: The Brave and the Bold"

Most people don't realize that I am a sucker for a good cartoon, especially if it's based on a well-known superhero comic property. I still put on my DVDs of Batman: The Animated Series when I need a little pick-me-up and I thought X-Men: Evolution was canceled way before its time.

So imagine my surprise when I learned that not one but two fantastic new superhero-based animated series are currently running on Friday nights and they couldn't be more different from one another.

Nicktoons recently launched a third animated iteration of the X-Men franchise, this time entitled Wolverine and the X-Men, focusing on Marvel's band of misunderstood mutants with Wolverine front and center. (It makes sense, given the forthcoming release of feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman as the adamantium-clawed mutant.)

And Cartoon Network late last year launched Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which features the Dark Knight teaming up with various other superheroes--ranging from Blue Beetle and Green Arrow to Plastic Man and Red Tornado--to fight crime. It couldn't be more different, in terms of tone and visual style, than the previous animated Batman series, The Batman.

I'll admit that I had pretty low expectations for Wolverine and the X-Men going in. After all, Wolverine has a major tendency for overexposure and I couldn't quite put my finger on why him leading the X-Men just felt so... off. However, any trepidation I had about the plot twist was erased when I saw just how intrinsic the series' writers--once again Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson--made him to the overarching story.

Rather than serve up yet another origin story for the group sworn to protect those who fear and hate them, Kyle and Johnson concoct an intriguing plot that involves an attack on the Xavier Institute that destroys the school and results in telepaths Charles Xavier and Jean Grey vanishing. A year later, a solo Wolverine attempts to track down Charles and Jean and unmask the villain responsible for the attack, putting together a new team that reunites him with some of his former teammates including Beast, Shadowcat, Iceman, and Forge. They're joined by icy telepath Emma Frost and the mansion is rebuilt by the benevolence of former teammate Warren Worthington (a.k.a. Angel).

It's a convincing set-up for a series and gives the team a clear purpose and throughline: they have to try and save Xavier and Jean, battle a slew of evil mutants (including the mutant terrorist group The Brotherhood of Mutants), fight tyrrany and prejudice in the form of Senator Kelly's Mutant Response Division, which is detaining mutants, and prevent a dystopic future from coming to pass.

It's definitely a darker version of an animated X-Men cartoon than the relatively sunny 1990's animated mainstay or the more recent teen-oriented retelling of the X-Men story (X-Men: Evolution), which recast many of the familiar characters as teenagers at Xavier's school under the tutelage of more mature professors.

Wolverine and the X-Men definitely stands in its own category, aided by a gorgeous mix of 2D and 3D animation styles, fantastic voicework from the actors, and a story that features a wide array of characters in addition to the core cast (including lesser-known characters like Domino, Spiral, Polaris and Squidboy). While the story tends to lag a bit when it focuses too heavily on Wolverine as a solo character, the episodes that truly shine are those in which the full team plays a large role in the mission or those that focus on a supporting character, such as Storm or Nightcrawler.

Whereas Wolverine and the X-Men takes a darker approach to telling a superhero-based story, Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave and the Bold takes a vastly different tack, injecting the story of the World's Best Detective with a vintage retro feel that seems a throwback to a simpler time. It features Batman teaming up with an array of characters that are somewhat lesser known than his comperes in the Justice League. Don't look for Superman or Wonder Woman to turn up any time soon; instead, Batman often foils evil with the help of such superheroes as Green Lantern, Plastic Man, Blue Beetle, or Wildcat.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold has a delicious wink, wink, nudge, nudge kitschiness and seems to relish offering a witty and sly take on the Batman mythos, often depicting characters in fun and intriguing ways. (The series' take on the buffoonish and self-absorbed Aquaman often has me roaring with laughter.)

Unlike Wolverine and the X-Men's sophisticated mix of animation techniques, Batman: The Brave and the Bold has a distinct visual style that seems to recall the designs of 1940s and 1950s comic book artists like Jack Kirby: Batman is all square jaw and All-American brawn; there's none of the darkness that pervaded his character in the 1980s and later.

Both series are inherently fun while offering very different spins on some much beloved characters and both couldn't make me happier or more nostalgic for those old days reading a pile of comics as a kid.

Wolverine and the X-Men airs Friday evenings at 8 pm ET and 5 pm PT on Nicktoons. Batman: The Brave and the Bold airs Friday evenings at 8 pm ET/PT on Cartoon Network.