Channel Surfing: Alex O'Loughlin Dips Toe into "Three Rivers," Season Three is Last of "Gavin & Stacey," No Ricky Gervais on "The Office," and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing on a glorious day that sees the premiere of an all-new episode of ABC's Lost tonight. (I can't wait!)

Former Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is said to be in talks to topline CBS medical drama pilot Three Rivers, told from the multiple POVs of transplant doctors, organ donors, and organ recipients. Project, from CBS Paramount Network Television, is written/executive produced by Carol Barbee (Jericho) and executive produced by Curtis Hanson and Carol Fenelon. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Co-creator/star James Corden has said that Gavin & Stacey's upcoming third season, set to air in the UK later this year, will be the series' last. "This is it. This will definitely be the last series," said Corden of the series' third season, set to film this summer. "We have a point to which we are working to and that will be the end. It will be sad but it has been a great time for everyone involved." Corden also indicated that any future specials, like 2008's Christmas Special, are highly unlikely. (Sky News, Digital Spy)

Don't get excited about those rumors that The Office creator Ricky Gervais would be making a cameo in the season finale... because they're not true. "We love Ricky, but have not had any discussions about an appearance on the U.S. show," executive producer Paul Lieberstein told E! Online's Kristin dos Santos. "And we haven't given any thought to the final show because it is probably a zillion episodes away." However, Amy Ryan and Idris Elba are slated to appear in the episode. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Jessica Lucas (Cloverfield) has been cast in CW's revival of Melrose Place, where she will play Riley Richmond, a 24-year-old inner-city elementary school teacher from a wealthy family who is engaged to Jonah (Michael Rady) but has cold feet. She joins the already cast Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Katie Cassidy. (Hollywood Reporter)

Pilot casting alert: Melinda McGraw (Mad Men) has snagged the female lead opposite Kelsey Grammer in his untitled ABC comedy pilot; Alfre Woodard (My Own Worst Enemy) has been cast in FOX drama pilot Maggie Hill; Kyle Bornheimer (Worst Week) will play one of the leads on the untitled Ricky Blitt comedy pilot for ABC opposite Eric Christian Olsen and Alyssa Milano (also cast: Kelly Stables and Brad Small); Reiko Aylesworth (Lost) has joined the cast of ABC's untitled Jerry Bruckheimer drama; Jon Foster (Windfall) will star opposite Jenna Elfman in ABC comedy pilot Accidentally on Purpose; Arielle Kebbel (The Uninvited) will star in ABC comedy pilot No Heroics, a US remake of the UK series; Katherine Moennig (The L Word) and Daniel Henney (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) will star in CBS medical drama pilot Three Rivers; Elisabeth Harnois (One Tree Hill) will star in CBS medical drama pilot, Miami Trauma; DB Woodside (24) has landed a role in CBS drama pilot Back; and Gail O'Grady (Hidden Palms) has been added to the cast of ABC drama pilot Empire State. (Hollywood Reporter)

Nikki Finke is reporting that Ben Silverman's predecessor at NBC, Kevin Reilly (now the president of entertainment at FOX) passed on new drama series Kings, which allegedly cost a whopping $10 million to produce the pilot and a staggering $4 million price tag per additional episode. It's particularly shocking given the low ratings that Kings managed in its first outing, luring only 6 million viewers overall and a 1.6/4 in adults 18-49. "I hear that Ben Silverman was hands-on," writes Finke. "Remember, please, that Ben's predecessor at NBC Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, passed on it. But Ben picked up the script and ran with it. Some thought it should have been a mini-series, but Ben said no. Others thought the modernized Bible retelling should have had more backstory, and at one point Silverman ordered the writers to make it 'more real world.' So he told them to work up a cockamamie scenario whereby the Allies never won World War II, and America went bankrupt afterwards, which meant no oil out of the Middle East, so Mexico got rich, and then..." (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

Gloria LeRoy (All in the Family) is set to join the cast of ABC's Desperate Housewives, around the time that Nicholette Sheridan departs the series. The 77-year-old LeRoy will play Rose. Michael Ausiello has learned from an unknown source that Rose " will figure into Edie's exit in a surprising way" and Ausiello says it's "one that involves an increasingly cuckoo Orson, a violent act, and a touch of dementia. And not necessarily in that order." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

NBC is said to be close to a deal with Hat Trick Productions to develop a US format of UK news panel series Have I Got News For You. According to TV Week's Josef Adalian, the Peacock is said to be in advance talks for a pilot, in which "two teams of celebrities and newsmakers humorously [try] to answer questions about current events and politics." (TV Week)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan cornered Paula Malcolmson about her new series, Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel series that is slated to air on Sci Fi (or, rather Syfy) in 2010. "Battlestar has “come to an end, and it’s a beautiful end and [fans] should mourn that show," Malcolmson told Ryan. "You can’t just come along with another show that’s going to replicate it. That’s not what we want to do, we want to give them something else." Co-star Esai Morales said that Caprica is "about what it is to be human." In other news, the BSG telepic The Plan is likely airing on Sci Fi this fall, around November. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

SCI FI Wire also spoke to Paula Malcomson. "It's a complicated show," Malcolmson told SCI FI Wire. "It's hard to describe in a couple of sentences. It's about a couple of families that are in the wake of a tragedy and are sort of dealing with their lives. A lot of the technology, the sci-fi stuff comes in, and it's [about] how that can be a good or a bad thing." (SCI FI Wire)

FOX has pulled reality competition series Hole in the Wall yet again and will fill the series' Sunday 7 pm ET/PT timeslot with repeats of American Dad and King of the Hill effective immediately. Meanwhile, the network has shaved down variety series Osbournes: Reloaded from a one-hour debut to a 40-minute installment on March 31st now that it has expanded American Idol to an 80 minute edition. (Futon Critic)

Reality production company 495 Prods., which produces A Shot at Love, has renewed its deal with MTV, under which the cabler has committed to three new series from the company. (Variety)

Elsewhere at MTV, Audrina Patridge will leave The Hills after its upcoming fifth season and has signed a deal with Mark Burnett Prods. for an untitled docusoap series that will track Patridge's professional and personal life. The series will be pitched to networks beginning next week.
"We are truly pleased to have the chance to work with Audrina," said Mark Burnett. "She has already proved her star quality, and we can't wait to show her fans worldwide the next stage of her life and career." (Hollywood Reporter)

UK residents will be able to catch CBS procedural drama Eleventh Hour, from Warner Bros. Television, later this year. Living has acquired rights to the series and plans to launch it sometime in 2009. "Strong, compelling with hard hitting story lines and a great cast, including an amazing performance from Rufus Sewell, Eleventh Hour is a great addition to Living's drama line up," said Amy Barham, Virgin's head of acquisitions. (The Guardian)

While there are no dates set for SAG to begin official negotiating sessions with AMPTP, national interim exec director David White is trying to reassure guild members that progress is being made. "Our negotiators are active behind the scenes," wrote White in a message to members. "While the rigorous confidentiality required in negotiation settings prevents me from providing a full update here, I want to assure you that we are working deliberately, and with as much haste as possible, to conclude our talks and bring to you, the members, a deal for your ratification." (Variety)

Some bad news on the commercial contract negotation front, however: SAG and AFTRA leaders are said to be mulling whether to mail out strike-authorization ballots if negotiations with advertisers don't improve quickly. Issues on the table right now stem from ad industry asking for rollbacks, including ending the traditional pay structure on national ads and a proposal to increase the standard work day from eight to ten hours in order to reduce overtime. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

The Hour Is Getting Late: Clues, Betrayals, and Double-Crosses on "Battlestar Galactica"

I offered up my theories about Kara Thrace, the piano player, and Cylon projection last week before the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Someone to Watch Over Me") had aired but now that it has, I'm wondering what many of you thought of the episode and its clues about the true nature of Kara Thrace.

Written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, "Someone to Watch Over Me" offered an installment that was heavy on atmosphere and character development, delivering a slow burn that escalated in the last few minutes to become one of the most emotionally wrenching conclusions to a single episode of Battlestar Galactica to date... while also keeping our interest piqued for the last few episodes of this brilliant series.

It had us learning something about Starbuck's parentage and Boomer's true allegiance, while also featuring Bear McCreary's gorgeous and haunting arrangement of "All Along the Watchtower."

As I correctly surmised last week, Slick, the mysterious piano player in Joe's Bar who connected with Kara, was (A) not actually there in the flesh and (B) was her father. Both of those things are exceptionally important to exploring just who and what Kara Thrace really is. The truth is that the piano player wasn't in Joe's Bar (as clearly shown by the fact that Kara is sitting alone at the piano) which points to the use of Cylon projection technology. Which means that either Kara is subconsciously using this technology herself... or someone is projecting onto her, much like the relationship between Gaius and Head Six or between that of Tyrol and Boomer in this week's episode. So who is projecting then? I don't think it's Kara sub-consciously; something is pulling her strings and it points to the man known as Dreilide Thrace.

It's worth noting that the world "dreilide" is German for third eyelid or third eye: the inner, hidden eye that is the gateway to the soul, the unknown, the higher powers that mere mortals can't perceive with their physical eyes. Daniel, as we know, was artistic and therefore in touch with higher powers of creativity, spirituality, and, based on the name, perception.

Via Cylon projection technology, Kara converses with this enigmatic figure and recalls her childhood and accesses part of herself that she had long closed off after her father left her and her mother (the part of her that was attuned to piano-playing and therefore the mysteries of the universe). Via her connection with her sensory memories and this figure, she is therefore able to play "All Along the Watchtower" on the old piano at the bar... a song which has significant meaning for the Final Five.

How does Kara do this? It's a song from her childhood, she explains to an incredulous Saul Tigh, and she's aided by the drawing that Hera gives her, a drawing that fills in the notes missing from her memory. So how did Kara learn this song? She was taught it by her father, Dreilide Thrace, a concert pianist whose best known work (which Helo returns to Kara) is entitled "Dreilide Thrace Live at the Helice Opera House." (Gee, could that be the same opera house we've seen in numerous visions?)

Which means that Dreilide is either a survivor of the holocaust on the planet Earth... or is so intimately familiar with the Final Five that he learned the song from them and passed it onto his daughter Kara. I posited last week that Dreilide was actually a Daniel, one of the Model Sevens who managed to escape Cavil's murderous rage and secreted himself among the humans in the Twelve Colonies and I absolutely stick by my theory after watching "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Kara is therefore extremely important for several reasons: for one, like Hera, she is a rare member of inter-species cross-breeding and could represented the blended future for the human and Cylon races. And, more interestingly, Simon knew this when he had her ovaries removed on Caprica... or her true parentage is actually unknown to Cavil's people, which could make Kara an ace in the hole when it comes to taking down Cavil once and for all.

Someone had to have known Kara's purpose and background: after all, they arranged for her download into a new body after her death in the nebula, even granting her a vision of her mother just so she could learn not to fear death. This person, I believe, was Dreilide/Daniel himself, who then recreated Kara's Viper, wiped her memories, and planted her back in the fleet.

(And if Kara were to conceive a child with Sam Anders--who, yes, will download to a new body, as I predicted--it could be the product of not one but three different races. Now wouldn't that be interesting?)

As for Boomer, she showed her true colors in this week's episode. Her rescue of Ellen Tigh was just a ploy to gain access to the Galactica... and, more specifically, to Hera Agathon. Boomer cleverly plays on Tyrol's deep romantic feelings for her in order to escape from the brig, even promising him a domestic future that could never be and sharing this fantasy with him via Cylon projection. It's a way to worm into his good graces, twist him round to a shared sympathy for her situation (vis-a-vis her imminent trial and likely execution for treason among the Cylons), and enable her to grab Hera... after having sex with Helo (while a bound and gagged Athena was forced to watch).

Does Boomer care for Tyrol? Perhaps somewhere in her damaged psyche, she does. But she's so filled with self-loathing and has been so corrupted by Cavil's warped view of the universe and their place in it, that there's no hope for redemption for Boomer. She made her choice the second she stepped on that Raptor with Ellen and managed to "escape" from Cavil's base ship. She engineered the circumstances for her escape from the brig, threw Hera in a box and even had Chief help her load it onto her ship... and then still managed to blast off while the pods were retracting and warped away dangerously close to the Galactica, knowing full well what the spatial disruption would do to the hull. (I'll also go so far as to say that she knew the structural integrity of the hull was compromised ahead of time.)

Does Boomer want to destroy everything that she believed in as "Boomer": love, loyalty, duty, home? Does she want to annihilate the very "human" essence of herself? Sadly, she'll learn that she's mistaken: in the end, no matter how much we might try, our pasts cannot be recovered nor recovered from.

What did you all think of this week's episode? What are your own theories about Kara and Dreilide? How does it all tie into the Opera House? And what is going to happen next? Discuss.

This week on Battlestar Galactica ("Islanded in a Stream of Stars"), Adama resists abandoning Galactica, despite the massive damages it received at the hands of Boomer, and encounters an unlikely voice of hope in the form of Gaius Baltar.

Starbuck Fix: Just What is Kara Thrace?

Cylon? Clone? Resurrected human? A ghost? A demon? Just what is Kara "Starbuck" Thrace since returning from the clutches of death last season?

Tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Someone to Watch Over Me") looks like it will finally answer that elusive question as Kara seeks some answers about her, er, condition and gains some shocking revelations about her true nature.

While I have no knowledge of the upcoming plot twists ahead on Battlestar Galactica, the promo for tonight's episode (which can be found below) had me pondering some theories of my own, building on that of my recent theory about Kara's parentage and what I know from the two-hour pilot for prequel series Caprica.

I posited a few weeks back that Kara is actually the offspring of a human mother and the Cylon Model Seven, named Daniel. Which is why she is so vital to the Cylon race... and why Simon went so far as to remove her ovaries back on Caprica (remember that dangling plot thread?). And that using the resurrection technology that was recreated by Ellen Tigh, Kara's memories were downloaded when her Viper exploded in the nebula.

As we've seen, Starbuck did die on Earth. She and Leoben encountered her body in the wreckage of her Viper on the surface of the blue planet. So what is Kara then? As I previously stated, I think that she is a resurrected Kara and that the puppet master pulling her strings had created a body for her using the DNA samples extracted from her genetic material in Simon's possession. As for why? I think it was the work of a rogue Model Seven who managed to escape Cavil's destruction of his entire line... and I believe that he is Kara's father and reached out to save his daughter, after appearing to her in a vision in the guise of "Leoben." (More information about this theory can be found in this post.)

On tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica, Kara is set to meet a piano player at Joe's Bar who offers her some knowledge about her past and what she really is. The notion of the piano player was introduced in last week's episode ("Deadlock") when Kara wondered when Joe's Bar had gotten a piano player. My theory: they never did.

I believe that Kara is visualizing this piano player though he doesn't actually exist in the reality perceived by everyone else around her; the barman's pointedly odd reaction to Kara's question would seem to support this as well. And we know that the Cylons can hear music--like "All Along the Watchtower"--that no one else can. So how is Kara perceiving things that aren't there? Using the same technology that the Cylons have to visualize other realities. As seen on the Cylon base ship in Season Three, the humanoid models can separate their perceptions: while we might see the stark white corridors of the techno-organic ship, they can see themselves surrounded by the trees of an ancient forest.

It's the same technology created by Daniel Greystone, the inventor of the Centurions, whose work is the basis for the BSG prequel series Caprica. Greystone previously invented a holoband, which grants the wearer to immerse themselves in a fully interactive virtual reality, a technology that I believe was essential in crafting the Centurions and the humanoid Cylon models. It's also this gift for perception, I believe, that grants Kara the ability to have that vision in "Maelstrom" and meet with the piano player in tonight's "Someone to Watch Over Me."

So who is the person she's interacting with, who disguised himself as Leoben and now potentially as a pianist? I believe it's the mythical Daniel whom Kara will be speaking with tonight and who will take her on a path of personal awareness. The shot of Kara as a child sitting at a piano would seek to support this as well. Plus, we know from Ellen Tigh's description of Daniel that he is an artist: he painted and so does Kara. If Kara played the piano as a child, so too could Daniel have known how to play.

Kara therefore is, like Hera, an important symbol of the future of the both Cylon and human races, a blend of both genetic reproduction and technological resurrection. While some have pondered whether she is a Trojan Horse, designed to undo humanity and serve as a "harbinger of death" (as the the hybrid foresaw), I think Kara is instead a sign of how both of their races can survive: by blending with one another and taking the strengths and weaknesses of both their natures.



What do you think? Is Kara the offspring of Daniel? Does that make her the first Cylon-human offspring? Or is she something else altogether? Discuss.

Tonight on Battlestar Galactica ("Someone to Watch Over Me"), Kara befriends a piano player who helps her come to a shocking realization about her destiny and Galen and Boomer attempt to reignite their relationship while the Cylons attempt to try her for treason.

All This Has Happened Before: Universal Developing "Battlestar Galactica" Feature with Glen A. Larson

I am really, really disheartened by the recent news that Universal is developing a feature film version of Battlestar Galactica.

What's that you say? Shouldn't I be chuffed that Battlestar Galactica is heading to the big screen? Well, I would be if the version of BSG that was being developed as a feature was the current Sci Fi drama (which wraps its final season next month), executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, rather than the original, less dark 1970s version created by Glen A. Larson (Magnum, P.I.). (You know, the one in which Starbuck was a, well, man.)

And yet that's just what Universal is doing. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal has "quietly entered into negotiations with Glen A. Larson to write and produce a big-screen version of the property he created."

The original Battlestar Galactica series shares a similar premise with the current series: the human race, existing in a settlement of Twelve Colonies, is all but wiped out by an attack from robotic Cylons and embark on a quest to find a new home on Earth.

Of course, Moore and Eick updated this concept and gave it the feel of post-9/11 zeitgeist. Their Battlestar Galactica was a much darker and morally complex entity than the original inspiration and they layered the tale of human survival through the elaborate use of extended metaphors for the war in Iraq, Guantanamo, the use of torture, sleeper agents, religious extremism, free will, and the fear of the Other. They also introduced the notion of the humanoid Cylon models ("skinjobs") who looked like humans (and had infiltrated the human governmental structure) but were cut from the same robotic cloth as their Centurion brethren.

This feature film version of Battlestar Galactica would have zero influence from the award- winning Sci Fi series overseen by Moore and Eick: "The movie effort would have no connection to the series and would relaunch the story in a new medium," writes the Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit. "However, staples such as the characters Adama, Starbuck, and Baltar will remain."

Which leads me to question: why?

With Battlestar Galactica coming to an end in March, why would Universal seek to relaunch the franchise as a feature film but with different actors replacing Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, and James Callis... and a very different approach to the underlying material that has brought in a new legion of fans to the BSG mythos?

I understand that many fans of the original 1970s series were upset by some of the changes that Eick and Moore made, such as transforming Starbuck into a female character played by Sackhoff and making the franchise a very different beast, tonally, than it was originally. I wasn't a fan of the original series but I found Moore and Eick's reinvention of the franchise to be compelling, engaging, and wholly modern.

But to seemingly reboot Battlestar Galactica with Larson writing a new take on his original 1978 series seems to undo all of the successes of the current BSG series, which held up a dark mirror to our own society. My worry is that such a move will only dilute the Battlestar Galactica brand itself by offering up a throwback to a series that was a distinct indicator of its own time, just as Moore and Eick's Battlestar is a product of the post-9/11 era.

So where does that leave us? Moore and Eick's Battlestar Galactica is wrapping up next month and Sci Fi is readying another direct-to-DVD/telepic movie event based on the franchise entitled "The Plan," written by Jane Espenson and directed by Edward James Olmos; it's going to be set in the past so don't look for "The Plan" to reveal any further developments not covered in the series finale.

Is it that Universal wishes to play in the Battlestar sandbox but doesn't want to disturb the ending that Moore and Eick have established for the series? Or that they want to keep the franchise alive, even if it means offering up a take on the series that's a throwback to an earlier era?

At the end of the day, however, which version will fans spark to? Will they be willing to shell out money to see a film that features actors other than the ones they've grown accustomed to seeing in these roles? That's the real question, as audiences, even those obsessed with Cylons and Viper pilots, vote with their wallets.

What do you think of the news? Would you be interested in seeing a feature film based on Battlestar Galactica written by Glen A. Larson? Or does this news make you as unhappy as Laura Roslin facing down mutineers aboard Galactica? Discuss.

Channel Surfing: "Fringe" to Move Production to Canada, "Dollhouse" Drops in Second Week, Pilot Castings, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Hopefully everyone is recovered from Oscar weekend and perhaps some of you even made some quick cash from some Oscar pools.

FOX drama Fringe will move its production from New York City, where it has shot its first season, to Vancouver, Canada, should the series be renewed for a second season. The decision, made by studio Warner Bros. Television, is said to have been made because of the likelihood that New York State's film/TV production tax incentive initiative funds, which have run out of coin, will not be replenished. "In this challenging and uncertain economic environment, we have made the very difficult decision to move," said Warner Bros. in a statement. "We did not come to this conclusion easily, but economic and practical imperatives dictated that this decision be made in a timely manner." (Entertainment Weekly)

In its second outing, FOX's Dollhouse fell fifteen percent in the ratings on Friday, placing second behind ABC's Supernanny, despite decreased competition from CBS. The second installment of Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon, lured 4.2 million viewers overall and scored a 1.7/7 share among adults 18-49. This is a sharp contrast to lead-in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which remained "roughly steady" with its numbers last week, only dropping one-tenth of a rating point. "Given it's a Friday night, neither Terminator or Dollhouse pop out as a jarringly low rating on the grid," writes James Hibberd. "But Fox's shows are relatively expensive scripted dramas that typically require higher numbers than a competitor's repeats or newsmagazines such as Dateline and 20/20, regardless of what night they're on." (Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan talks to Jane Espenson, who wrote Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Deadlock"). "I believe that Saul really loves Caprica," said Espenson. "But not more than he loves Ellen. I don't even think Ellen *really* believes that. But it's clearly more than a casual relationship, and Cylon beliefs about pregnancy and love seem to confirm her fears. And remember that the "thousands of years" is said whimsically -- they didn't perceive it as nearly that long. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

CBS has given a pilot order to comedy pilot Ace in the Hole, starring Adam Carolla as a husband and father who supports his family by working as a driving instructor. Project, from CBS Paramount Network Television, BermanBraun, and Jackhole Prods., is written/executive produced by Carolla and Kevin Hench and executive produced by Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun, Jimmy Kimmel, Daniel Kellison, and Jamex Dixon. (Variety)

Pilot casting news: Jimmy Wolk (Front of the Class) to star in ABC's untitled Daniel Cerone drama pilot (formerly known as Brothers & Detectives), about a detective (Wolk) who uses his 11-year-old brother to solve crimes; Joel McHale (The Soup) to star in NBC comedy pilot Community, where he will play Jeff, a lawyer who returns to community college after his degree is found to be invalid; Jaime Ray Newman (Veronica Mars) to star in ABC drama pilot Eastwick, where she will play Kat, a good-natured nurse; Marc Blucas (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Liza Lapira (21) will star opposite Amy Smart in ABC drama pilot See Cate Run (formerly known as I, Claudia); Dean Winters (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) will star in ABC supernatural mystery drama Happy Town, Aimee Garcia (George Lopez) cast in NBC drama pilot Trauma; and Matthew Yang King (NUMB3RS) has been cast in CBS drama pilot Washington Field. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS has announced that it has putting cast-contingent drama pilot Confessions of a Contractor, from executive producers Shawn Ryan, Richard Murphy, and Jeff Okin, on hold after they failed to find a suitable lead actor. Elsewhere, ABC has pushed director- and showrunner-contingent comedy pilot Funny in Farsi and cast-contingent comedy Planet Lucy into the next development cycle. (Variety, Hollywood Reporter)

John Sayles (Lone Star) will write HBO drama series Scar Tissue, based on the childhood of Antony Kiedis, following the future Red Hot Chili Peppers singer as he grows up in 1970s West Hollywood with his father, a drug dealer who hung out with rock stars on the Sunset Strip. Project is executive produced by Kiedis, Marc Abrams, and Michael Benson. (Variety)

Clay Aiken will appear on the April 8th episode of CW's America's Next Top Model, where he will serve as a guest judge. (Hollywood Reporter)

SAG rejected AMPTP's "last, best, and final offer" on Saturday, voting 73 percent to 27 percent to reject the offer. However, despite nearly 75 percent of the board vetoing AMPTP's offer, it's still not thought likely that SAG will issue a strike authorization vote, as it would require 75 percent approval rating in order to pass. Among the issues preventing SAG from signing: a new contract expiration of spring 2012 and the fact that the contract would go into effect upon ratification rather than retroactively. "The AMPTP's last-minute, surprise demand for a new term of agreement extending to 2012 is regressive and damaging and clearly signals the employers' unwillingness to agree to the deal they established with other entertainment unions," said SAG in a statement. "What management presented as a compromise is, in fact, an attempt to separate Screen Actors Guild from other industry unions. By attempting to extend our contract expiration one year beyond the other entertainment unions, the AMPTP intends to de-leverage our bargaining position from this point forward." (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

In Brief: Ryan Mottesheard Acknowledges "No Exit," Sartre Link

While I was fairly effusive with my thoughts about last week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("No Exit") and my theories about the history and future of the Cylon race, Daniel, and Kara Thrace, there was one thing that I wanted to know more about: the episode's title.

As I mentioned in my previous write-up about the episode, the title seems to be a deliberate allusion to Jean-Paul Sartre's 1944 existentialist play "Huis Clos" (translated in English as "No Exit"), given the episode's use of Ellen Tigh, John Cavil, and Boomer in a similar fashion as the three characters (Garcin, Ines, and Estelle) in Sartre's work, which provided the basis for his most quoted aphorism, "Hell is other people." (And the Cylon centurion who helps Ellen out of her goo bath? Clearly a nod to the Valet in Sartre's play.)

I emailed Battlestar Galactica's script coordinator, Ryan Mottesheard, who wrote "No Exit" to ask him if he intentionally selected the title in order to directly evoke Sartre's work.

"Yes, the title is a nod to Sartre's 'No Exit,'" wrote Mottesheard in an email to me. "(And, yes, I am just that pretentious.)"

"Aside from the obvious thematic overlap, there are myriad superficial similarities," he continued. "I'm just glad to have garnered an entry under the 'No Exit' Wikipedia page."

While the Cylon troika in BSG's "No Exit" also clearly wants to torment each other for eternity, there is one major difference between Mottesheard's script and Sartre's play.

At the end of Sartre's "No Exit," the door opens up but none of the prisoners have the strength to leave and end their punishment; however, in Mottesheard's "No Exit," it's the brooding Boomer who actually proves her free will by rescuing Ellen and taking her off of the base ship, toward the light.

Whether Boomer's decision points to a humanist belief that people--including Cylons--will choose the rational over the divine and do the right thing or whether the series is subtly rejecting the existential notion of the universe's underlying meaninglessness remains to be seen. In rejecting the Pythian prophecies, can the humans and Cylons find their own shared path based on reason and morality rather than pre-destiny?

We'll find out as the road to the series finale of Battlestar Galatica continues...

PaleyFest09 Full Schedule Announced: "Pushing Daisies," "Battlestar Galactica," "Fringe," "Big Love," "Dollhouse," and Many Others to Be Feted

Ending several months of speculation, The Paley Center for Media has today announced the full lineup for PaleyFest09, the 26th Annual William S. Paley Television Festival.

Among the honorees this year are the casts and creators of 90210, Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, The Big Bang Theory, Big Love, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Fringe, The Hills, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Mentalist, Swingtown, and True Blood.

PaleyFest09 will be held from April 10th to April 23rd at the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood; the Paley Center will also present a special closing night presentation honoring Swingtown at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills on April 24.

Other festival firsts this year? PaleyFest09 will be the festival event to honor a new media property, in this case Joss Whedon's celebrated web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and will be the first to premiere the last three unseen episodes of ABC's sadly cancelled series Pushing Daisies.

“For twenty-six years, we have celebrated the best of television, and now new media, with the creative teams who make the breakthrough programs. This interaction between the creative community and media enthusiasts has made this annual Festival a 'Must Be There' event,” said Pat Mitchell, President/CEO of The Paley Center for Media.

The full PaleyFest09 schedule can be found below but, as always, please note that events/participants are subject to change.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia
Friday, April 10 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Danny DeVito (“Frank Reynolds”), Glenn Howerton (“Dennis Reynolds”/Executive Producer/Writer), Rob McElhenney (“Mac”/Creator/Executive Producer/Writer/Director), Kaitlin Olson (“Sweet Dee”). Additional panelists to be announced.

90210
Saturday, April 11 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Panelists from the cast and creative team to be announced.

True Blood
Monday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Alan Ball (Creator/Executive Producer), Ryan Kwanten (“Jason Stackhouse”), Steven Moyer (“Bill Compton”), Anna Paquin (“Sookie Stackhouse”), Sam Trammell (“Sam Merlotte”), Rutina Wessley (“Tara Thorton”). Additional panelists to be announced.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Tuesday, April 14 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Felicia Day (“Penny”), Nathan Fillion (“Captain Hammer”), Jed Whedon (“Bad Horse Chorus #2/Dead Bowie”/Composer/Writer), Joss Whedon (Creator/Executive Producer/Writer/Director), Zack Whedon (Executive Producer/Writer).

Dollhouse
Wednesday, April 15 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Joss Whedon (Creator/Executive Producer/Writer/Director), Eliza Dushku (“Echo”), Enver Gjoka (“Victor”), Fran Kranz (“Topher”), Dichen Lachman (“Sierra”), Harry Lennix (“Boyd”), Tahmoh Penikett (“Paul”), Olivia Williams (“Adelle”).

The Big Bang Theory
Thursday, April 16 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Kaley Cuoko (“Penny”), Johnny Galecki (Leonard), Jim Parsons (“Sheldon”). Additional panelists to be announced.

The Mentalist
Friday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Simon Baker (“Patrick Jane”), Bruno Heller (Creator /Executive Producer) Tim Kang (“Kimball Cho”), Chris Long (Coexecutive Producer/Director), Amanda Righetti (“Grace Van Pelt”), Robin Tunney (“Teresa Lisbon”), Owain Yeoman (“Wayne Rigsby”). Additional panelists to be announced.

Desperate Housewives
Saturday, April 18 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Panelists from the cast and creative team to be announced.

PaleyFest09 Special Matinee Screening Event: Pushing Daisies’ Last Unaired Episodes
Sunday, April 19 at 1:00 p.m.
Introduction by Bryan Fuller (Creator/Executive Producer).

Battlestar Galactica/Caprica
Evening Sponsor: Microsoft Zune
Monday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: David Eick (Executive Producer), Ronald D. Moore (Executive Producer). Additional panelists to be announced.

The Hills
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Tony DiSanto (Executive Producer), Adam DiVello (Creator/Executive Producer), Liz Gateley (Executive Producer), Heidi Montag, Audrina Patridge, Spencer Pratt. Additional panelists to be announced.

Big Love
Wednesday, April 22 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Ginnifer Goodwin (“Margene Heffman”), Bill Paxton (“Bill Henrickson”), Chloe Sevigny (“Nicolette Grant”), Harry Dean Stanton (“Roman Grant”), Jeanne Tripplehorn (“Barbara Dutton Henrickson”). Additional panelists to be announced.

Fringe
Thursday, April 23 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: Joshua Jackson (“Peter Bishop”), John Noble (“Dr. Walter Bishop”), Lance Reddick (“Homeland Security Agent Phillip Broyles”), Anna Torv (“Special Agent Olivia Dunham”). Additional panelists to be announced.

Swingtown Celebration
Evening Sponsor: Netflix, Inc.
*Friday, April 24 at 6:00 p.m. at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills*
Festival Closing Reception & Panel Discussion
In Person: Mike Kelley (Creator/Executive Producer), Alan Poul (Executive Producer). Additional panelists to be announced.

Tickets to PaleyFest09 will go on sale February 26th to Paley Center members and the general public beginning March 1st.

So who's in this year? And what panels are you hoping to see? Discuss.

Channel Surfing: Michael Emerson Talks Annie, Jacob on "Lost," Richard Hatch Pitching Docusoap, James Tupper Finds "Mercy" at NBC, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing.

TV Guide has an interview with Lost's Michael Emerson, in which the actors teases some details about upcoming storylines on the ABC drama. My favorite bit? "I may go so far as to say we may already know Annie," said Emerson cryptically. "Have you considered that? I'm not speaking from knowledge of a script because that's not a thing that has been written, but stranger things have happened on the show. Everyone is more connected then they ever thought, and it's often by blood." Hmmm...

And, speaking about Jacob, the enigmatic leader of the Others, Emerson had this to say: "Jacob seems to have fallen away from our consciousness. The show is so much more wrapped up in intermediary leader figures. There seems to be a whole raft of people Ben must answer to, but they're not as high up as Jacob. Jacob seems to have receded into the mist again — sort of mysterious and godlike. He continues to be much talked about, and ultimately is the force behind the island. And the island is changing. We thought of it as a rock in the water, but now it appears to be more of a movable organism now. So to be in charge of such a thing — what does that mean? These are questions I ask myself." (TV Guide)

While the following article is actually about the potential rise of Canadian series on US broadcast networks, what struck me is that Battlestar Galactica's Richard Hatch has his own reality series entitled Who the FRAK is the REAL Richard Hatch, which is being shopped to US networks by Frogwater Media. Series would follow Hatch has he tries to score acting gigs, pitch projects to studios, and host the Galacticruise, a BSG-themed vacation cruise. What would Tom Zarek have to say about that? (Hollywood Reporter)

James Tupper (Men in Trees) has been cast in NBC drama pilot Mercy, about the friendship between three nurses at Mercy Hospital. Tupper will play Dr. Chris Sands, a new physician at the hospital who previously had an affair with one of the nurses while they were stationed in Iraq. Elsewhere, Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel and ER's Noah Wyle remain the most sought-after actors this pilot season, with each receiving about six pilot offers. Lizzy Caplan (Party Down) is also said to be in high demand, while Dirty Sexy Money's Peter Krause and Shopgirl's Claire Dane are said to be mulling returns to television. (Hollywood Reporter)

19 Entertainment, creators of American Idol, and ITV Studios, the production arm of ITV, have signed a co-production deal, under which they will jointly develop six unscripted formats for the international market. "I believe our combined talents will give us a real opportunity to develop some innovative and exciting exploitable formats together," said ITV Studios head Lee Bartlett. (Variety)

Charisma Carpenter (Angel) will guest star in an upcoming episode of CBS' CSI, where she will play a skydiver named Mink. (TV Guide)

A&E has ordered docusoap Hammertime, which will follow performer M.C. Hammer, his wife, and his five children. The cabler ordered eleven half-hour installments of the series, executive produced by J.D. Roth, Hammer, Robert Sharenow, Todd Nelson, Scott Lonker, and Stephen Harris, which it plans to launch later this year. (Hollywood Reporter)

SAG resumed talks with the AMPTP yesterday, marking the first time the two sides have spoke in three months. General thought around town is that a tentative deal will soon be formed, however there is a bit of bad news: if SAG and AMPTP don't reach an agreement before the end of this week, further talks would likely be delayed until March 1st, as the negotiation committee will begin a week of talks regarding their commercial contract. (Variety)

GSN has renewed game show Catch 21, hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, for a second season, ordering 65 episodes which will launch on April 6th. Series will be paired with the debut of Michael Davies-executive produced revival of The Newlywed Game. (TV Week)

G4 has announced that it will now only produce four episodes a week of Attack of the Show! and only three episodes per week of X-Play, beginning March 2nd. Additionally, the Comcast-owned cabler will also scale back personnel in the face of these changes. "Savings resulting from this move will go directly toward producing more original programming in 2009," said G4 in a prepared statement. "This is not a budget cut. G4 remains dedicated to these core franchises." (Variety)

20th Century Fox Television has hired Sky1 acquisitions head David Smyth as VP of sales; Smyth will oversee sales of feature films and television series to European broadcasters and expand the studio's co-production initiatives. Smyth, who spearheaded Sky1's acquisitions of such US series as Lost, Prison Break, Eureka, and Bones, will report to Yoni Cohen. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Word Salad: The History of the Cylon Race Comes Tumbling Out on "Battlestar Galactica"

"Hell is other people." - Jean-Paul Sartre

It's hardly a coincidence that this week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("No Exit"), written by Ryan Mottesheard, shares its title with one of Sartre's best known works, a play about three people trapped in a room with no escape, forced to argue for all eternity. Yes, hell is other people and Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon) discovers that when she's imprisoned aboard a base ship with only John Cavil and Boomer as her companions and captors.

It's in that room that Ellen regains her memories of her true life, one lived on Earth and as the creator of the so-called Cylon skinjobs, eight humanoid models that were gifted (or is it cursed?) with bodies comprised of flesh instead of metal and programmed with the Centurions' belief in one true God.

Wait? Eight humanoid models? Yep, you read that correctly. So strap on your Viper gear and let's discuss the history of the Cylon race, Daniel, the Colony, and Kara Thrace.

Confused about the secret history of the "Old Cylon" race? Let's see if we can work it all out from what Battlestar Galactica has told us thus far.

The Thirteenth Tribe. Just as there seemed to be a link between the fact that the humans have twelve colonies and the Cylons had twelve models, so too is there some analogy to be gained by the fact that the Cylons now seem to number thirteen... and the Final Five are the last descendants of the fabled Thirteenth Tribe of humanity, an offshoot that fled Kobol with the humans but rather than settle on one of twelve planets flew across the stars to Earth and settled on the Blue Planet. Along the way, they left a route marker should the humans come looking for them eventually, a Temple of Hope that would point the way to Earth.

Were these original Cylons the "gods" that the humans worshiped and lived with on Kobol? Or were they an ancient race of artificially intelligent beings? Tory believes that the Thirteenth Tribe was created by the humans on Kobol, so the latter seems plausible. These beings couldn't reproduce sexually but they could live on via an ancient resurrection technology, a technology that was later rediscovered by Ellen and her fellow scientific researchers on Earth. Such technology fell out of favor because, over the course of thousands of years, the Thirteenth Tribe was able to reproduce biologically.

In their hubris, like the humans, the Thirteen Tribe also created a slave race of Centurions... who rose up to overthrow their fleshy oppressors and unleashed a nuclear holocaust on Earth. Everyone was killed... but Ellen and her colleagues had foreseen this eventuality and had used the resurrection technology to download their memories aboard a ship that was orbiting the planet, as Anders told us.

The Thirteenth Tribe, however, lacked FTL jump drives and therefore had to cross the universe in order to reach the Twelve Colonies, a journey of roughly 2000 years. During that journey, time slowed down for the Final Five so that when they arrived at the Colonies, they weren't much older than when they had left Earth.

Unfortunately, they arrived at the Colonies just as the First Cylon War was raging. The Final Five intervened and ended the war, recalling the Centurions and restoring peace to the Colonies in order to buy the humans more time. They didn't want to see a repeat of what had happened to them on Earth.

And that's where things get really interesting...

Cavil. Ellen and the others attempt to appeal to the Centurions' belief in a loving, forgiving single God and--in order to make them understand and sympathize with the humans--create eight humanoid models that bridge the gap between man and machine. The first model created? John Cavil, who turns out to be a sadistically twisted creation who loathes his corporeal body.

And like Cain slew Abel, he brutally murders one of his fellow children, Daniel, a Model Seven who was artistic and sensitive (more on him in a bit); poisoning the amniotic fluid containing his entire line and corrupting Daniel's programming, John causes his entire line to be irreversibly damaged. He then turns on his creators, shoves them in a compartment, cuts off the oxygen and suffocates them. When they download, he erases their memories and implants false ones, eventually setting them up over time among the humans in the Colonies. An experiment and a punishment wrapped in one.

Cavil also apparently warps the other humanoid models' beliefs, erasing their own memories of the Final Five and making any discussion about this mythical figures strictly verboten. Hell, he boxes off D'Anna's entire line when she glimpses their faces in the Temple of Hope during the supernova, lest the others discover his malevolent ways. And he puts into motion the very thing that the Final Five worked so hard to prevent: another nuclear holocaust.

Yes, Ellen and the others gave their children free will, something the Centurions strove for. But in doing so, they allowed their children the very means to express their true selves. And in Cavil's case, it's a wickedness that will perhaps destroy three races in the end. Then again, it's the very thing that allows Boomer to rescue Ellen, against her better judgment.

The Final Five attempted to create something that was the best of two very different races: man and machine. In creating the humanoid Cylon models, the Final Five hoped to find a means to ensure the viability of both their races. There's a reason why these models can't reproduce amongst themselves: because they are meant to biologically intermingle with the humans (something that Boomer can't quite stomach)... much like, in order to survive, the human-made Galactica will have to fuse itself with Cylon technology.

Daniel. So there's the matter of Daniel then. It's driven me crazy for several seasons now that the Sharons were Model Eight, but I could only name seven models. Not a coincidence, fellow BSG fans. And now we know that there was a Model Seven, an artistically-tempered model named Daniel. But while we're told that Cavil destroyed all of Daniel's line, I can't shake the feeling that there could be another one out there somewhere, either by accident... or by design. Could Ellen have predicted Cavil's innate darkness and protected one Daniel? Perhaps by sending him to "The Colony," a seemingly secret location that also contains ancient resurrection technology? Hmmm...

The Biblical Daniel had the ability to interpret dreams. Coincidence then that Cavil, when he was new and fresh, suffered from nightmares involving "dog-faced boys chasing [him] through the yellow mists"? Cavil, for his part, deleted the sub-routine that the Final Five programmed him with that allowed him to sleep. After all, you can't dream if you don't sleep.

Kara. We've been wondering for some time now just what Kara Thrace really is. After all, she saw her own corpse on Earth, in the charred remains of her original Viper, yet she has all of her memories. The logical answer: someone used organic memory transfer technology to bring Kara back to life after her death. She's not a missing member of the Final Five or one in a line of Cylon humanoid models. She is Kara Thrace... in a new body. After all, we know that the Cylons have Kara's genetic material, which they harvested from her on Caprica. What's troubling me is that it was Simon who culled her ovaries... and he still seems extremely loyal to Cavil's cause. So is Kara's return to center stage orchestrated by Cavil himself? Was he aware of the hybrid's prophecy that Kara is the "harbinger of death"?

Or is someone else pulling the strings? After all, while we know that Kara's mother was human, we still don't know who her father was. And Kara, as we know, has an artistic streak, an obsessive painter within her who repeatedly painted the Eye of Jupiter from a young age. Someone downloaded her memories into a new body, created a fake Viper from scratch, and restored her to the fleet. But who?

In Season Three's "Maelstrom," where Starbuck seemingly blows up, Kara is granted a vision of her mother before her death, where Kara angrily walked out on her... but this time is offered a chance to change the past by "Leoben," and instead holds her mother's hand as she dies. The message her mother wanted to impart to her was that Kara shouldn't fear death. But the "Leoben" who arranges this epiphany isn't actually Leoben. So who is he? We haven't yet learned the answer to that dangling plot thread.

Could it be that Kara's father is Daniel himself? And that "Leoben" is actually a Daniel who escaped Cavil's purge in order to save his own daughter? Did Daniel reproduce with a human... and later save her by using Cylon technology?

And if that's the case then where was Kara between her death and her return to the fleet in "Crossroads, Part Two"?

The Colony. My theory: Kara's memories were downloaded to Ellen's Colony, as it is known to house that very same memory transfer technology. While there, someone (Daniel?) recreated Kara's Viper, kept her in a fugue state, and then planted her back among the fleet, so that she could help them find Earth and help the Final Five regain their missing memories. So will we get to see The Colony? Youbetcha. It's only a matter of time before Starbuck pulls the plug on poor brain-dead Sam Anders and I believe that he will resurrect... down on The Colony. Just who else will be down there remains to be seen but my guess right now is we'll see Daniel after all.

What did you think of this week's episode and its revelations about the Cylon race, the seventh model, and Cavil and Ellen's relationship? And what do you think about a possible Starbuck/Daniel connection? Discuss.

This week on Battlestar Galactica ("Deadlock"), the Final Five are reunited; Tyrol attempts to fix the cracks in Galactica's hull; Ellen Tigh is forced to make a decision that could have lasting repercussions for the Cylons and humans alike.

Channel Surfing: FX "Powers" Up with Comic Adaptation, Zarek Speaks Out About Coup, Pratt Hangs Out for "Parks and Recreation," and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

Cabler FX is developing a series adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's comic series Powers, about two police detectives in the homicide division assigned to cases involving super-powers. “Powers is in active development as a pilot at FX,” Bendis told MTV. “I just handed in a draft to the network and we’re getting our notes from the network as soon as this thing is over. So next week I’ll get the notes, and as long as they don’t involve sock puppets and some sort of orgy scene that I’m not interested in, then hopefully it will go in the right direction.” (MTV's Splash Page)

More discussion about Tom Zarek's motivations during the recent two-episode arc on Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica, this time from Richard Hatch himself, who eloquently commented on Maureen Ryan's thread about the most recent episode ("Blood on the Scales") over at the Chicago Tribune's site. "First, having played Zarek for the past four years I would like to say that never did I play this character as a villain nor did I think he was one and I still feel that way," wrote Hatch. "After paying the price of 25 years in prison for standing up for human rights and seeing both his family, friends and cohorts killed by a supressive government on his home planet he had every right to distrust the powers that be on Galactica that seemed to think that only they had the right to make decisions for the people." Definitely worth a read. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Anne Heche (Men in Trees) will replace Kristin Bauer in HBO's ten-episode comedy Hung, from creators Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson and director Alexander Payne. Heche will play the ex-wife of Thomas Jane's Ray, a well-endowed high school basketball coach. Scenes with Bauer, who played the role in the pilot, will be reshot using Heche. It's thought that HBO will launch the series in June; production is slated to begin in March. (Hollywood Reporter)

Noel Fisher (The Riches) has been cast in at least four episodes of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he will play a "rookie crime scene sleuth, a nerdy, eager beaver-type who is in awe of Benson and Stabler." Fisher's first appearance is slated to air in April. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Looking for an update about the possible Veronica Mars feature film? Look no further. (Televisionary)

NBC has given a cast-contingent pilot order to ensemble comedy 100 Questions for Charlotte Payne, about a woman trying to figure out the dating scene in New York City. Project, from Universal Media Studios and Tagline, is written/executive produced by Chris Moynihan and executive produced by Ron West and Kelly Kulchak. (Variety)

Chris Pratt (Everwood) has been cast in NBC's midseason comedy Parks and Recreation, starring Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, and Aziz Ansari. In the project, Pratt will play Andy, the unemployed musician boyfriend of Jones' Ann, a well-intentioned nurse. Having read the script, I can say that Pratt is perfectly cast as lazy boyfriend Andy and his role is a pivotal one in the pilot. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Helmer alert: Stephen Hopkins (Californication) will direct FOX drama pilot Maggie Hill; Mark Pellington (Cold Case) will direct CBS drama pilot Back; and Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle) will direct FOX comedy pilot Sons of Tucson. (Hollywood Reporter)

Cartoon Network has renewed animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars for a second season and plans to launch Season Two next fall. (Variety)

Aaron Tveit (Ghost Town) and Holley Fain (Lipstick Jungle) have been cast in two episodes of the CW's Gossip Girl, where they will play Nate's wealthy cousin Tripp Vanderbilt and his fiancée, Maureen respectively. (TV Guide)

ABC Family has ordered 24 episodes for Season Two of The Secret Life of the American Teenager and plans to launch the sophomore season this summer. (Hollywood Reporter)

PaleyFest09 has announced panels for FOX's Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible. (Televisionary)

Spike has ordered ten episodes of half-hour comedy Players, about a man who co-owns a sports bar with his uptight brother. Project, from writer/executive producer Matt Walsh, stars Walsh and Ian Roberts. Production begins this month in LA and Players is slated to air this summer. (Variety)

Kelsey Grammer will direct Lifetime multi-camera comedy pilot Alligator Point, starring Cybill Shepherd, Lauren Stamile, Brian Patrick Wade, Robyn Lively, Leslie Jordan, Joel McCrary, and Charlie Robinson. Project, written by Robert Peacock and executive produced by Grammer and Steve Stark, revolves around a quirky group of Florida residents who hang out at an oyster bar owned by Shepherd's Mae and whose lives are changed when they are joined by a Yankee (Stamile). Project was originally developed for NBC in 2002-03 and starred Nathan Fillion, Jaime Pressley, Paula Marshall, and Joel McCrary (who reprises his role in the pilot). (Hollywood Reporter)

NBC has ordered eight episodes of an untitled reality series from Reveille which will follow life coach Tony Robbins as he helps participants face various challenges in their lives. Project will be executive produced by Robbins, Howard T. Owens, Mark Koops, and Bruce Beresford-Redman. (TV Week)

Nick Cannon has replaced Jerry Springer as the host of Season Four of NBC's America's Got Talent. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Madame Airlock and Mother Revolt: Revolution and Resolution on "Battlestar Galactica"

"When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood, it is hard to shake hands with her." - Oscar Wilde

What price does freedom have? How far are revolutionaries willing to go to overthrow the status quo? When does the overthrow of the status quo become nothing more than mutiny, tyranny, and anarchy?

These are the questions posed by this week's superlative episode of Battlestar Galactica, written by Michael Angeli and directed by Wayne Rose, in which Gaeta and Zarek's overthrow of the Adama-Roslin administration kicked into high gear, the Quorum of Twelve had their final meeting, and Roslin proved just why she earned the nickname "Madame Airlock."

If you thought that the coup engineered by Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek would end peacefully with everyone hugging and singing a round of Kumbaya, you're clearing watching the wrong series. No, this coup ended as it began: with bloodshed, enmity, and punishment for wrongdoing.

Let's discuss.

Over the past few seasons, Felix Gaeta has emerged as quite an interesting character. He dabbled with Baltar's puppet government on New Caprica, seemingly aided the Resistance during the Cylon occupation, and went a little cuckoo following the loss of his leg aboard the Demetrius. It's this phantom pain which seems a symptom of Felix's generate unease. (It also didn't help matters that he was the last person to see Duala alive before her suicide and discovered her body.) The loss of a dream, of an ideal, of a belief in the system can propel people to do things to change the status quo.

In Gaeta's case, it's to take a stand against what he believes in his heart is wrong: the alliance with the Cylons, responsible for the nuclear holocaust that destroyed the Twelve Colonies. Gaeta's radicalization has been a smoothly developed one this season and his desires dovetailed quite nicely with the dissent being seeded by Tom Zarek, the incarnate opportunist who uses the matter of Cylon technology as a flashpoint for a revolution.

And yet it's Zarek's thirst for power and his posturing as a true revolutionary that doesn't sit well. Does he need to brutally murder the Quorum in order to achieve his ends? No. Yet he does because it's a way to consolidate power, a power that's he reluctantly shares with Gaeta because the military is loyal to Gaeta. And yet Gaeta is at his heart an idealist; he wrongly believes his revolution is happening for the right reasons, even if he's got to do some bad things to make it happen rather than the instrument of vengeance it really is. (He did institute a kangaroo court to prove to naysayers, I suppose, that his mutiny was justified and orderly rather than sheer chaos.) Zarek, on the other hand, is a pragmatist who knows that Mother Revolution is steeped in the blood of the murdered. Gaeta may never have agreed to "this" but it's the nature of mutiny.

Sadly, Gaeta remains naive to the bitter end and twisted by revenge. Could he have called off Adama's execution? Absolutely. But if he thinks that killing the Old Man will exorcise his own personal demons, he's very, very wrong. The "confessional" scene between him and Baltar was absolutely poignant and reminds us just how very human Baltar is. For a man responsible for the destruction of the human race, he remains magnificently in touch with his emotions, offering Felix his compassion and understanding.

And I was glad to see that Gaeta doesn't accept that pity ("Please no religion") but only smiles wanly as Baltar speaks after listening to him tell his story. Despite the tragic figure he becomes, I'll miss Felix Gaeta immeasurably; "Blood on the Scales" gives Alessandro Juliani the perfect showcase for his acting talents, portraying Gaeta as a man pushed into something that he doesn't quite understand and attempting to hold onto the power he's usurped. ("I hope people realize eventually who I am.")

At the very end, Gaeta's phantom pain dissipates in the moments before his death, possibly as he accepts his fate and limitations. Is it hubris that leads to Gaeta and Zarek's downfall? Did you hope for human compassion from the reunited Roslin and Adama (BTW, how beautifully emotional was their tearful reunion scene?) that would save Gaeta and Zarek from a traitor's death at hands of a firing squad? Or do the reinstated duo realize that death truly is the cost of revolution?

Even after believing that Tigh had been killed, Adama maintained his stoic demeanor during the hearing. I thought that Edward James Olmos was absolutely fantastic in this episode, filling each of his scenes with the requisite amount of gravitas, sadness, and simmering rage. ("I want to take back my ship.")

I also loved that Romo got to kick some ass as well... with a pen, no less. Echoes of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, perhaps? Starbuck being Starbuck? Just frakking awesome. Baltar finally realizing how ridiculous his "fanclub" is but also knowing innately that he has to go back, that he can't keep running from everything. (Still, his dream about Adama's death? Prophecy? Or warning?) But poor Anders... I'm hoping he emerges from this in one piece.

Roslin's "I'm coming for all of you" speech from aboard the Cylon base ship? Absolutely chilling. ("Not now, not ever!") There's a reason that this former schoolteacher earned the respect of the fleet; she may have lost her path in recent days with the discovery of Earth but this crisis within the fragile future of humanity sparks the old Laura we know and love to come back out of her shell. She may be dying but there is no way that she is going quietly into the night.

To live is to fight, to continue to struggle in the face of adversity. D'Anna didn't quite understand when she chose to remain on Earth that what the humans and Cylons are doing isn't running from Cavil, but running towards something. Their destination might be unknown, it might be terrifying, and it might be frakking impossible to make sense of it, but living means moving forward. It means building, rather than destroying; it means making hard choices and trying to keep a people together rather than ripping them apart. Being alive means being in pain, something that Gaeta didn't understand until the very end, and striving to get past that constant ache.

It's something that both the humans and Cylons could stand to learn. The question that remains is where do they all go from here?

Later this week on Battlestar Galactica ("No Exit"), Anders' critical condition causes a flood of memories about his life before Caprica to come out, leading to some revelations among the humans and Cylons; Ellen Tigh returns after being missing for 18 months.

Channel Surfing: "Chuck" Plans Game Changer Finale, "Melrose Place" Character Breakdowns, Whedon Has His Fill of Vampires, Pilot Updates, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

Chuck creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak said that this season's finale will be "game changing" for Chuck and his band of spies. "We're going to launch the show in a really exciting direction next year. We designed our season heading toward it," said Schwartz, appearing this weekend at New York Comic-Con. While Schwartz and Fedak are being tight-lipped, they did mention that Jordana Brewster will reprise her role as Chuck's deadly ex Jill in an upcoming episode. (TV Guide)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has the character breakdowns for the CW's planned update of Melrose Place, including a character who is the son of the original's Jake (Grant Show), an omni-sexual PR maven, a wannabe filmmaker, a recovering alcoholic, a med student turning tricks to pay her tuition, and a teenage sex kitten. The pilot, produced by CBS Paramount Network Television, will be overseen by Smallville's Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Joss Whedon has had his fill of vampires, as he tells TV Week's Josef Adalian in a new interview, in which he talks about Buffy, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible. (TV Week)

Elsewhere, Joss talks about Eliza Dushku, the possibility of a Buffy feature film, and what to expect to see in Season One of Dollhouse. (Televisionary)

NBC has given out a pilot order to single-camera comedy State of Romance, described as a modern take on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" set in Chicago, from Universal Media Studios, and writer/executive producers Barbara Wallace and Tom Wolfe. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS, meanwhile, picked up four pilots: dramas Three Rivers, from CBS Paramount, writer Carol Barbee (Jericho), and executive producers Curtis Hanson and Carol Fenelton, about organ transplants, and cast-contingent The Good Wife, about a politician's wife who goes back to work as a defense attorney from writer/executive producers Robert King and Michelle King (In Justice), CBS Paramount and Scott Free, and comedies Accidentally on Purpose (also cast-contingent), about a San Francisco movie critic who finds herself pregnant after a fling with a younger man from writer/executive producer Claudia Lonow, CBS Paramount and BermanBraun, and Waiting to Die, about two single guys happy with their lives, from writers Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen and Sony Pictures Television. The pickups join Jerry Bruckheimer-produced medical drama pilot Miami Trauma, about a team of trauma surgeons from writer Jeffrey Lieber (Family Practice) and Warner Bros. Television, which was also picked up on Friday. (Hollywood Reporter)

Variety discusses just what happened to primetime comedies (CW doesn't even bother to develop them anymore) and points to a possible re-emergence of the genre this midseason, with a slew of comedies being launched at the networks. (Variety)

Ed O'Neill (Married with Children) has been cast in ABC comedy pilot An American Family, where he will play a man who becomes a step-father after he marries a woman 30 years younger than him (Sofia Vergara). Also cast: Eric Stonestreet (This Might Hurt), who will play part of a gay couple (along with Jesse Tyler Ferguson) who adopt a Vietnamese baby. (Hollywood Reporter)

David Nutter (The Mentalist) will direct ABC drama pilot Eastwick, from Warner Bros. Television. Nutter has now gone 14-for-14 in directing pilots that have gone on to be picked up to series. "She has come up with an amazing starting-off point -- I can really see where the series is going to go," Nutter said of writer Maggie Friedman's script. "She's got a great bedrock of characters and a great mystery." (Variety)

Former Universal Media Studios president Katherine Pope has been hired as a consulting producer on FOX drama Lie to Me for the final four episodes of the series' 13-episode first season run. It is said that Pope will support showrunner Sam Baum "in a role similar to Katie Jacobs' duties on Fox's House alongside creator/exec producer/showrunner David Shore." (Hollywood Reporter)

FOX is developing a US remake of Argentinian teen telenovela The Rebels (Rebelde Way), about private school kids who form a pop band, with Jennifer Lopez and Simon Fields' Nuyorican Prods. on tap to produce. Script will be adapted by Duane Adler (Step Up). (Variety)

Maureen Ryan has a first look at a notable guest star appearing in Galactica's medical bay this week: The Daily Show's John Hodgman, who currently lends his voice to the feature film Coraline. He'll drop by to lend Doc Cottle a hand in Battlestar Galactica's February 13th episode, entitled "No Exit." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

CBS Paramount Network Television has asked the stars of the majority of its produced dramas such as CSI, NCIS, and NUMB3RS, to waive their annual raises and keep their salaries at a plateau next season, as part of an overall cost-cutting measure. However, some argue that this could produce the opposite effect: stars who won't fall in line and accept a salary freeze. "If our lead doesn't accept the freeze, we will have no choice but to let one of our supporting actors go," says on CBS Paramount drama executive producer. "There's no question that it's the second-tier actors who are most vulnerable." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Julia Ormond (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (The 4400, Benjamin Button) have been cast in Lifetime Movie Network telepic The Wronged Man, based on a true story. Project, from Sony Pictures Television, is directed by Tom McLoughlin and written by Teena Booth. (Hollywood Reporter)

SAG has once again voted to remove Doug Allen as the guild's chief negotiator and has replaced the negotiating committee with a new task force. Move comes on the heels of president Allen Rosenberg's legal claims that the previous vote violated guild procedure. Talks between SAG and AMPTP are expected to begin on February 17th, following a more than two month silence between the two parties. (Los Angeles Times)

Jerry Springer will not return as the host of Season Four of NBC's America's Got Talent. The Peacock is currently on the hunt for a host to replace Springer, who dropped out due to time commitments with his syndicated talkshow and a stage production this summer. (Variety)

Syndicated talkshow The Steve Wilkos Show has been renewed for a third season, to run during the 2009-10 season. (TV Week)

However, syndicated court show Cristina's Court, produced by Twentieth Television, will not be renewed for a fouth season, though episodes will be produced through September. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: More "Big Love" at HBO, "NCIS" Spinoff Nabs O'Donnell and LL Cool J, Anna Friel, Swoosie Kurtz to Get "Desperate," and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. My mind is still buzzing after last night's double-bill of Lost and Damages.

Pay cabler HBO has renewed drama Big Love, about the polygamist Henrickson clan, for a fourth season. Production will begin later this year for a 2010 launch. "The stellar reviews and solid viewership this season confirm that this is a signature series for HBO," said Michael Lombardo, president of programming at HBO. "The series keeps getting better and better." (I have to agree with him: this season has been absolutely amazing!) Once DVR, encores, and VOD ratings are added in to Big Love's initial airing, viewing figures soar to about 5 million, on par with HBO's True Blood. (Variety, Hollywood Reporter)

Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J are said to be in final talks to star in CBS' untitled NCIS spin-off. Chris O'Donnell would play Callen, a man capable of changing into various different personas with ease, while LL Cool J would play former Navy SEAL Sam Hanna. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel is said to be in high demand this pilot season. Friel has received three offers so far: ABC drama pilots Eastwick and I, Claudia and CBS drama pilot House Rules. Her former co-star Lee Pace was said to have been offered pilot but declined. (Hollywood Reporter)

Meanwhile, Friel's other Pushing Daisies co-star Swoosie Kurtz has been cast in ABC's Desperate Housewives, where she will play a potential love interest for one Wisteria Lane resident. Kurtz's first episode of Desperate Housewives is slated to air in March; she'll then be seen as high society dame Millie on NBC's Heroes in April. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

ABC will launch MRC's Bob Saget family comedy Surviving Suburbia (originally to air during MRC's Sunday night block on the CW) on Mondays at 9:30 pm, following Dancing with the Stars. Move comes on the heels of ABC's decision to move comedy Samantha Who? to Thursday evenings. Thirteen-episode Surviving Suburbia, starring Bob Saget and Cynthia Stevenson, was created by Kevin Abbott (Reba). (Variety)

Christine Baranski (Mamma Mia!) has been cast in at least three episodes of ABC's Ugly Betty, where she will play the wealthy mother of Betty's new love interest, sports writer Matt (Daniel Eric Gold). Baranaski's first appearance is slated to air in March. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

For the first time, Doctor Who will be filmed in high-definition, beginning with the Easter special, "Planet of the Dead." Move marks the first HD outing for the sci-fi series, although spin-off series Torchwood has been filmed in HD since it first launched. (Digital Spy)

Casting is underway for Serena's new European beau on the CW's Gossip Girl, possibly inspired by Anne Hathaway's real-life ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, who was convicted last fall of wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy charges. Executive producer Stephanie Savage wouldn't confirm the rumor but said that Serena's new love interest Giorgio is "very well-traveled, part of the global elite. He's not a brooding artist like Dan or Aaron Rose. He's definitely a grown-up, and that's something Serena is very attracted to." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Vivica A. Fox (Curb Your Enthusiasm) will host TV Land's eight-episode dating competition series The Cougar, which will premiere on April 15th. And, yes, it's about exactly what you think it is. (Variety)

NBC has delayed the launch of geneology-based reality series Who Do You Think You Are? until the summer. Deal or No Deal will take over the Mondays at 8 pm timeslot, currently occupied by Chuck, for three weeks beginning May 4th. (Futon Critic)

Imagine TV is said to be looking for its next Arrested Development. The shingle, headed by Brian Grazer and David Nevins, is developing FOX single-camera comedy pilot The Chairman of Chatsworth, written by Dan Palladino (Gilmore Girls), about a lawyer with a "questionable moral compass" who is said to be loosely based on Grazer's own father. Also in development: an animated series based on Angry Little Girls (based on Lela Lee's comic) with Simpsons vet Josh Weinstein, the redeveloped Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office at FOX (it was originally shot as a pilot for ABC in 2007), and NBC comedy pilot Parenthood. (Variety)

Battlestar Galactica's Kate Vernon talks to The Daily News about her role on the sci-fi series and hinted at the scope of the series finale. "None of us saw the ending coming," Vernon said in an interview. "I would just say, erase your mind of any expectations and really watch the show with an open mind. So much is to be revealed." (The New York Daily News)

The House of Representatives has voted to approve the DTV delay, shifting the transition from Feb. 17th to June 12th, and has sent the bill to President Obama to sign. The delay, according to White House spokesperson Amy Brundage, "means that millions of Americans will have the time they need to prepare for the conversion." (TV Week)

Stay tuned.

Fear and Loathing Stalk the Crew of "Battlestar Galactica"

It's hard to let an episode of Battlestar Galactica go by without saying anything, especially as the series only has a handful of episodes before it sails off among the stars (sadly, with no resurrection ship anywhere in sight).

While I wasn't going to write about this past week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("A Disquiet Follows My Soul"), which found the ragtag Colonial Fleet dealing with a number of internal fractures, from Laura Roslin deciding to stop treatment for her cancer, Gaeta stirring dissent among the shell-shocked crew of the Galactica, and Tom Zarek making a power grab with Roslin indisposed.

While this episode--written and directed by Ronald D. Moore--lacked, say, the narrative heft of the previous week's installment ("Sometimes a Great Notion"), it perhaps will later be viewed as an installment which figuratively drew a line in the sand for the series's characters.

After learning that Earth was no more than a barren wasteland and the site of its own nuclear holocaust, the crew of the Galactica is quite literally pressurized into making some rather bad decisions. For Laura, it's the feeling that she can no longer be the dying leader that the scriptures prophesied and that she needs to live for a change. The result is that she skips her cancer treatment and goes for a run around the ship, experiencing a chemical euphoria from withdrawal from her cancer drugs. But is she truly living? Or is she in a state of denial about the future of the human race? About her own responsibilities as president of the Colonies?

I'm glad that the series' writers have dealt with the troubling notion of Cally and Chief's offspring, finally revealing that baby Nicholas isn't Tyrol's son after all, but the result of a relationship between Cally and Hot Dog. After all, it did diminish the weight of Hera being the savior of the Cylon race as the first human-Cylon offspring if there was a second one waiting in the wings. No longer. Still, I can't help but feel bad that, even in death, bad things just keep on happening to Cally.

Over the last season, Gaeta has subtly turned into one of the series' most enduring villains, the sort that you never see coming. His latest act, after picking a fight with Starbuck in the cantine, is to have his own desire to stop the humans' collaboration with the Cylons dovetail with Tom Zarek's latest bid for power. Separately, these two didn't have a chance of changing the the status quo. Zarek's attempt to hold the Tillium ship hostage until Adama reversed his position on a permanent human-Cylon alliance (including integrating Cylon jump technology into the civilian fleet) ended, rather predictably, in defeat and he himself wound up in the brig. After being largely ignored by Doc Cottle (who was focusing his energies on Tigh and Caprica's Six's unborn child), Gaeta's efforts to sow seeds of dissent among the crew may have found some converts but there's no way that he could have enabled any sort of power struggle on his own.

Scarily, together, these two could prove to be exceptionally dangerous. Zarek has the ear of the quorum and a long reputation of being a freedom fighter and the enforced use of Cylon technology seems to be a hot-button issue that he can use to his advantage. Gaeta brings with him a crew that has been pushed beyond the brink and that has lost its way after being promised a new home on Earth by Adama and Roslin. Should the use of Cylon technology be a ship-to-ship decision? Or is Adama right that the safety of the fleet is his priority and his decision alone to make? Gaeta certainly believes the former, as evidenced by his menacing look at Adama and blatant sneer as he questions the Old Man.

Among all of this chaos and mutiny, however, was the absolutely gorgeous scene at the end between lovers Adama and a bald-headed Roslin in bed. Lit by candles and wrapped up in Adama's arms, Laura did seem as though she was living again for the first time in a very long time; hell, she practically glowed. But, given the forces mounting against them, one can't help but view that scene with a twinge of fear. It may always be darkest before the dawn and their candles may have kept the darkness at bay for a little while but that dawn only seems more further off than ever now.

On the next episode of Battlestar Galactica ("The Oath"), Zarek and Gaeta's mutiny kicks into high gear, Adama is removed from power, and the lines of battle are drawn within the Colonial Fleet as opposition to the Cylon alliance turns violent.

Eternal Romance: The Final Cylon and Ronald D. Moore Talk About Reactions, Revelations on "Battlestar Galactica"

The sound of the collective gasp last Friday when Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica revealed the identity of the fabled Final Cylon could have broken the stratosphere, so unexpected was its raw power.

For those of you who saw "Sometimes a Great Notion," the end of the episode featured Colonel Tigh (Michael Hogan) experience a vision after wading out into the ocean on the newly discovered planet Earth. A vision in which he sees the face of the Final Cylon, long hidden from the humans, the skinjobs, and the other members of the vaunted Final Five. (And if you haven't yet seen the episode, consider yourself warned at this point.)

Written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, the episode was gorgeous and somber and featured a jaw-dropping flashback from Colonel Tigh as he recalled the final member of their disparate group.

A few days later, Battlestar Galactica co-creator/executive producer Ronald D. Moore and Kate Vernon, who plays Ellen Tigh, a.k.a. the Final Cylon, gathered together for a press call. Among the discussions: Vernon's reactions to learning that she would be returning to Battlestar Galactica, what we should perhaps ponder from the revelations on Earth, the identities of other characters whom the writers had tossed around as possible candidates for the Final Cylon, and whether all of the series' mysteries will be neatly tied up by the series' finale.

One of the many questions that viewers had for Ronald D. Moore was when he and the writers had decided to make Ellen the Final Cylon. After all, her husband had killed her after it was revealed that she was collaborating with the Cylons on New Caprica in order to protect him... before, that is, he learned that he was a Cylon as well.

"I’m not quite sure exactly," said Moore. "It was some time in the third season. I think the option of presenting her as one of the final Cylons was sort of kicking around for a while, but we really didn’t have an intention of revealing all four of the final four Cylons in the season finale until we were breaking that actual episode. So there wasn’t really a focus on delineating exactly who the final five were for quite a while, but I think Ellen’s name was kicking around the office in terms of, well who could the remaining Cylons be, and maybe it would be Ellen. And we kind of put a pin in that. 'But yes, that might be cool. Maybe we’ll get back to that some day.'"

"It wasn’t really until after we had decided to reveal four of the Final Five in that season finale that then it became a more pressing question," continued Moore. "And then in between the two seasons we went on a writers' retreat and talked about everything in detail, and Ellen was the primary candidate to be the Fifth Cylon, but we were very open to sort of a wider discussion: 'Well, we think it’s Ellen. Let’s say she’s the leading candidate. But who are the others?' And we talked about other possibilities, but none of them really held water. None of them made sense, and none of them really gave us much, so we stuck with Ellen."

But, out of all the many choices on the series for a potential Fifth, why Ellen specifically?

"I would say it worked primarily because of her relationship with Tigh," said Moore. "It really sort of anchored that couple as something that was very special. And I liked the fact that Ellen as a character was an off-camera presence right from the beginning of the show in the mini-series. We started hearing about Tigh’s wife, and it was one of his key defining characteristics, and so we knew she was important in the mythology of the show. And I liked the idea of saying that this couple had been together a very long time that this couple was something special, that they were sort of this eternal romance and this eternal love, which I really thought was real interesting and cool. And it completed sort of the framework of the final five. And it just fit; it all kind of fit. It also made the fact that Tigh had killed his wife back on New Caprica even richer and more complicated and filled with more ironies and more conflicted feelings about what was happening."

So, will Moore reveal just which other characters were being kicked around the writers room as possible Fifth Cylons?

"Oh, I knew you were going to ask that," joked Moore. "I think we just kind of threw them all out. We talked about Dualla; we talked about Gaeta. We talked about all of our regulars, and dismissed Eddie [Olmos] and Mary [McDonnell] pretty quickly, because we kind of say, 'Well it could be; what if it was Adama, what if it was Laura?” I felt that that took something away from the show, [that it] actually would hurt us, because it felt like once they said Adama was a Cylon, it just felt like part of the journey itself wasn’t right and didn’t have the same meaning that I wanted it to, so they kind of fell out early. Then we talked briefly about Dualla and Gaeta and they were interesting characters, but it didn’t feel like it heightened the stakes... And with Ellen it did."

For Kate Vernon, coming back to the series was a dream come true, but she's had a frakking hard time keeping the secret under wraps. "Oh gosh," said Vernon, "there were waves of intense agony and frustration, and then I would completely forget about it. I mean, I had two years to [process this]. So within that enormous amount of time, I did actually forget about it for a minute. But for the most part, this was something I wanted to talk about desperately just because it was such an honor to have been given this role. When they killed me off, I went up to Ron and I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, 'Isn’t there any way I can come back? Is there any way I’m coming back?' And he just looked at me very gently and assuredly said no. And so I was done in Ron’s eyes. But in my heart, I personally had a love affair with Ellen as an actress and this show, so I never let go of it. And Ron can attest to that, because I called him several times. And bless you Ron for talking all of my phone calls."

Moore, for his part, said that killing off Ellen Tigh was one of the hardest decisions he's had to make as showrunner. "On my side of it, killing off Ellen was great creatively," said Moore. "It was one of those big sort of like, 'Whoa, that’s a great ending. Man, that’s going to be powerful.' And it was a great excitement about what it was. But it was hard to let go of the character; it was hard to say that, oh, Ellen’s not going to be in the show anymore. I would say legitimately probably the hardest moment or probably the hardest moment of my experience on the show was calling Kate Vernon and saying, 'We’re killing off your character.' ...it was really heartbreaking."

But Vernon did managed to keep her return to the series a secret in the end. "NBC and Ron asked me just to lay low really, and to honor and respect this enormous hit that was going to happen eventually," she said. "And part of it was to keep it quiet. It was a thrill. Of course I was going to keep this quiet. This isn’t one secret you wouldn’t want to blow."

"Ellen is the best role I’ve had in my career," admitted Vernon. "And I had no expectations when I auditioned for the part; I was told there might be two or three shows. And they kept bringing me back. And as they brought me back with each show I couldn’t wait to crack open these scripts because these writers seemed to really indulge the naughtiness or the feistiness or the troublemaking or the complicated relationship she had with her husband. I found her more and more and more fascinating and dark and delicious and misunderstood. So as an actress it was pure discovery. And I was never expecting to really continue on as much as I wanted to. So it was just a wild ride. You know, I did my best to hang on to the tail of the pissed off cat and I just got whomped around but I hung on there."

So what can we expect from Vernon's return to Battlestar Galactica as Ellen Tigh? Vernon and Moore were both extremely tight-lipped but Vernon did let one minor spoiler slip out. "I’ll be talking," said Vernon. "I’ll be walking and talking. I get to reunite with my husband in the good old fashioned way that they do."

(So, fans, look for a reunion between Saul and Ellen coming up and one imagines that said interaction likely has a combination of raw sexuality and bitter arguing, as par for the course from their relationship so far.)

Their characters' tortured history was a major factor in bringing back Ellen.

"It was certainly one of the things that made it an interesting choice," admitted Moore. "I always liked Tigh and Ellen both, because they were both flawed and noble characters who tended to get in their own way. And I liked the bad choices they made as much as I enjoyed the good choices that they made. I loved watching them claw at each other, and I loved the fact that they just couldn’t bear to be apart from one another. It was just such a complicated relationship -- that bringing her back and revealing her to be a Cylon and he’s a Cylon and they’ve always been Cylons and that there’s something profound about that relationship. I just thought that was fascinating in that it says something about the two lovers. Usually the two lovers that transcend time are just such good noble people that you hate them. Ellen and Tigh feel like a legitimate couple. They’re a married couple who just have to go at it periodically and just have major issues and major problems and this and that. But the bond between the two of them was something that literally could not be broken. And I though that that was a really interesting and ultimately very positive thing to say."

"And," chimed in Vernon, "the longest-standing relationship in the universe, right?"

Still, Vernon keenly felt the pressure of playing such a mythical role as the Final Cylon.

"At one point before I started shooting I walked into Michael [Hogan]’s trailer and I was a little stunned; I’m coming back as the fifth Cylon and I felt this enormous responsibility," she said. "Michael looked at me and said, just know that you are Ellen and everything will be fine. And basically what he’s saying is that I’m already Ellen; I don’t need to do anything, [just] let the words guide me. And it was the kindest and most supportive thing an actor or anybody could have said because I was very concerned that I was going to answer creatively what Ron and what the writers intended to reveal as the [Final] Cylon. I felt a lot of pressure."

Regarding the surprising suicide of Dualla (Kandyce McClure) in "Sometimes a Great Notion," Moore said that he was happy with the way that viewers reacted to this unexpected death in the crew.

"Oh I’m pleased," he said. "It got a huge response and that’s what you go for. You try to get a response out of your audience. You try to go out every once in a while you want to reach out and grab you by the throat and say, Feel something. Have a reaction. Get involved. Think. What does this mean to you? What does it mean [when] Dualla blows her brains out suddenly, shockingly. What does that mean? Do you care? Are you paying attention? I mean I think it’s great. People can have whatever the specific reaction is, is fine with me as long as they have a reaction; as long as they’re emotionally caught up in a show and it means something to them."

But why was Dualla the one so affected by what they discovered on Earth? Why it did it push her to shoot herself?

"[Dee] was the one that in many situations had sort of always been the voice of reason, the one that was going to try to soldier on, the one that would buck up Adama when he was down and she would buck up Lee when he was down," said Moore. "And there was sense of her kind of being the rock. And it felt important to me that when they found Earth and Earth was a wasteland that the psychic damage from that would be profound. This was everything that they had hoped for since the beginning, since the mini series. And you take that dream away from them, there’s a consequence, there’s a price to be paid. It didn’t feel like they should just shrug a shoulder to move on. It felt right that, in that circumstance, somebody would just check out. And there was something shocking about it being Dee because they had relied on her, because she had always been there... I don’t think she thought about it consciously but, on a subconscious level, she soldiered on this far, [and said] no farther; I don’t want to soldier on anymore. I don’t want to soldier on anymore and I’m going to try to feel good one last time and then I’m out of here."

As for other answers, should viewers make a parallel between the nuclear holocaust on Earth 2000 years ago and the ancient destruction of Kobol? "Yes," said Moore, cryptically.

And, given Tigh's visions of Ellen's face when he was with Number Six, did Tigh subconsciously know that Ellen was the missing Cylon model? "Yes," said Moore, "I think that’s part of it. The times Tigh saw her in that cell as Ellen as opposed to Six is not something we ever really delineated in the show and I don’t think we really are going to say, oh, here’s why he saw her like that later on in the series. But that was my internal kind of reasoning."

And can fans expect Moore and David Eick to wrap up all of the series' mysteries by the time the series ends in just a few months? Not quite.

"I’d say the character [arcs] and the mythology of the show [are] resolved to my satisfaction by the time all is said and done," said Moore. "I think we answer most if not all of the major questions of the show. I think there are some things that we decided to leave deliberately ambiguous or at least make you think about them further after the show but those were more creative choices about how you don’t want every single little tiny thing wrapped up in a bow the end. Life’s not like that."

So, what's next for Moore? For one thing, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, the latest telefilm based on the series, has finished shooting and is in post-production. And Moore is gearing up for Sci Fi's next BSG offering, Caprica, a prequel series set to air on the cabler in 2010.

"Caprica’s getting under way," said Moore. "We’re putting the writer’s room together as we speak. It’s very exciting. It’s a very different challenge. It’s a very different show, and I think there’s a sense of, well, Battlestar has set a very high bar and that’s sort of makes everybody have to bring their A game. And I think that’s the spirit in which we approach Caprica... There’s a sense of exploration, there’s a sense of uncharted territory. And that’s exiting and it’s scary. It’s scary to have to get one of these things off the ground and hope that it’s all going to work out, that people will like it -- and especially when everyone’s going to compare it to Battlestar. But that’s kind of the reason we’re in the business: to take on those kinds of challenges."

Stay tuned.

Talk Back: "Battlestar Galactica" Mid-Season Premiere ("Sometimes a Great Notion")

And so The Mystery is solved.

Those of you who read my advance review of this week's season premiere of Battlestar Galactica ("Sometimes a Great Notion") know that I was prohibited by the network from discussing any major plot points from the current installment, which kicks off the final batch of episodes of BSG before this gripping and intelligent series takes its final flight among the stars.

But now that the episode has aired (likely to the sound of a collective gasp from fans around the country), we can get down to the business of discussing the head-trippy revelations that this week's episode of BSG, written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, unearthed.

Ellen. I'm sure everyone here wants to talk about the fact that we finally learned that the Final Cylon was in fact Ellen Tigh, who was killed by her husband Saul back on New Caprica... for collaborating with the Cylons. Tigh, of course, later learned that he was a Cylon and he poisoned Ellen after she aided the Cylons, unaware of the fact that she herself was also a member of their race.

And that, readers, is called irony. I think that the reveal about Ellen has a perfect symmetry and logic to it and adds yet another shading of tragedy to Saul and Ellen's relationship. It also explains why D'Anna knew instantly that the final member of the Five was not in the fleet, as she knew that Ellen had died on New Caprica. Just what this means for Tigh and the others remains to be seen but given the Cylons' capability for resurrection (after all, she was killed BEFORE the Hub was destroyed), it's entirely likely that Ellen is out there somewhere.

Earth. I absolutely love the fact that the Cylons are actually from Earth and are the thirteenth tribe. Less clear, however, is how the Final Five managed to arrive at the Twelve Colonies roughly 2000 years after the nuclear holocaust on Earth... and are we to believe that we then (i.e., the human race) are in fact Cylons? Curious that. The setting and look of the world that we see through Tyrol's eyes before the blast looks suspiciously like our own world right now. I'm also still very unclear how the thirteenth tribe were Cylons, when the robotic race was supposedly created using technology sixty years before the action of the mini-series (which will provide the basis for the spin-off series Caprica). Unless we are using the notion of paradox, how can something exist thousands of years before it was created? Or are we talking about two different things when we say "Cylon"? One being a race of skinjobs and the other being the metallic centurions? Hmmm....

Kara. I'm not sure what to make of Kara's discovery on Earth but she and Leoben definitely managed to trace the Colonial signal to Starbuck's old Viper... which contained the corpse of, well, Starbuck. Wha-huh? It definitely seems as though Kara did die in the explosion in the supernova during Season Three; after all, the Viper was hers, the body had blonde hair and had her Galactica dog tags and her wedding ring. So what gives then?

Seeing as we seemed to see time fold upon itself right before Kara died, I think that somehow she was downloaded to a new body using Cylon technology when the Viper exploded. But how had they managed to grow a new body for Kara? Well, Simon did have genetic material from Kara and they had extracted her eggs and blood samples back on Caprica, so it's entirely possible that they were able to grow a new body for Kara and set up the system to download her memories and personality. The base star's hybrid claims that Kara was the "harbinger of death," so there's no way that the Cylons wouldn't have prepared for the inevitability of Kara's death along the way. However, even Leoben seems fairly freaked out by the discovery of the wreckage. Thoughts?

Dee. Poor Dualla. I was completely shocked by her suicide, especially coming on the heels as it did of her "perfect moment" with Lee, one in which she seemed happy and finally regained her smile. But as soon as she started humming and took off her wedding ring, I knew that Dee was a goner. She seemed really quite shaken by the discovery of the jacks down on Earth and I don't think she could quite process the fact that another race of people--and their children--was wiped out in one fell swoop. So she engineered a perfect moment with her ex-husband and died happy, a smile on her face. Think this could open the door to yet another romance between Lee and Kara? I had a feeling, after seeing her pick up those jacks, that Dee would either be the Final Cylon (seeing as how the others were so visibly affected by what they saw/touched on the planet) or would be dead very, very soon. Sigh. I'm going to miss Kandyse McClure.

Lee. The scene where Lee adjusted the tally of survivors, removing the number 1 with his finger on the board after Dee's suicide, was heartbreaking. Unable to give into emotion, Lee lets a single tear trickle down his face before he's interrupted by Kara. I never thought that Lee and Dualla would really reconcile but the first half of this episode makes you believe that there might just be a future for them together, until Dee picks up that gun. Lee has undergone such extraordinary character growth and development since we first saw him in the mini-series and I am very curious to see where his character is taken by the writers now that he's gone through Dee's suicide.

Adama and Roslin. Likewise, the scene between Adama and Tigh, with its discussion of the fox riding the tide out to sea, was remarkably well done. Having lost nearly everything he believes in and thrown over the edge by the discovery of Tigh's true identity and Dee's suicide, a drunken Adama brings a sidearm to Tigh's quarters and tries to push Tigh into pulling the trigger on him. How can he go on leading the Galactica after everything that's happened? Similarly, I loved the scene where Roslin arrives back at the Galactica and can't bring herself to say anything about what they found on Earth, before she's swarmed by everyone seeking answers. And then Roslin's dreams quite literally go up in smoke as she burns the Pythian prophecies as she sobs. Have all of their hopes and dreams really turned to ash? Still, the final image of her on the ground with the small flower she took back from Earth offers at least the promise of renewal. They can find a way to start over again, to rebuild, to find a new home. Where do they go from here?

D'Anna. Very interesting that D'Anna, out of everyone, would choose to remain on Earth. Yes, she claims that she doesn't want to die out in the cold, running from Cavil. But I think that there's got to be something more going on here, a mystery that needs to be solved. D'Anna isn't one to shie away from confrontation, even without the Hub to turn to, so why decide to remain on Earth alone? Hmmm. Just what is she looking for on the planet? And when will we see her next?

So those are my thoughts but I'm curious to know what you thought of this week's episode. Were you surprised by the reveal that Ellen was the Final Cylon? Did you gasp when Dee shot herself? And does do Baltar and the opera house fit into all of this? Talk back here.

Next week on Battlestar Galactica ("A Disquiet Follows My Soul"), Tigh tries to deal with the revelation that Ellen was the Final Cylon; Kara continues to harbor her secret; division among the crew of the Galactica could lead to mutiny and an all-out civil war.

Channel Surfing: "Mad" Man Signs Deal, Moore Talks "BSG" and Fifth Cylon, Michelle Ryan Could Join Smith in the TARDIS, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I'm still recovering from the past week and a half of Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour and Friday night's Battlestar Galactica cast & crew screening, which featured a live rendition by Bear and Brendan McCreary performing the BSG arrangement of "All Along the Watchtower," and a kick-ass afterparty thrown by director Michael Nankin, where much of the cast--including the Fifth Cylon--turned up afterward.

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan has a fantastic interview with Battlestar Galactica co-creator/executive producer Ronald D. Moore, writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, and director David Nankin about "Sometimes a Great Notion," the season premiere for the final run of BSG. Moore dishes about the reasoning behind the Fifth Cylon, Duala's fate, and shooting this episode during the writers strike. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

The Sunday Mirror claims that Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman, Merlin) has been picked by Doctor Who's Steven Moffat and the other executive producers as the new companion for the Eleventh Doctor, to be played by Matt Smith. According to their source Ryan has "been in secret talks with BBC bosses. They are likely to announce her as Doctor Who's new assistant very soon. She is perfect for the role. She is good looking and the right age to star alongside Matt. Everyone agrees they look great together and reckon fans will think they're the perfect team too." Other actresses linked to the role of late include Carey Mulligan (who played Sally Sparrow in Who's "Blink"), Lily Allen, and Kelly Brook. (N.B.: Ryan previously worked with Moffat on Jekyll, so there could be an ounce of truth to the story and after seeing her in said series, think she could be great on Who.) (Sunday Mirror)

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has signed a two-year deal with Lionsgate and AMC following months of negotiations that will keep him executive producing the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning AMC drama. Under the terms of the deal, Weiner will continue on as Mad Men's showrunner for the third season (to air this summer) and a potential fourth season and develop new series projects for the studio, as well as a feature film. "It's been a long road to try to make this deal," said Lionsgate TV president Kevin Beggs, "but between the support of AMC and the creative deal-making of (Lionsgate TV COO) Sandra Stern, we found a way to cobble together a package that was attractive to Matthew and made sense for us." (Variety, Hollywood Reporter)

The New York Times has a profile of Lost's co-producer/script coordinator Gregg Nation, who keeps track of the series' Byzantine plot developments, from the four-toed statue foot to the smoke monster, all while also charting the complicated character arcs and numerous subplots. "Keeping those details straight is likely to be increasingly important as the series speeds toward its climax, jumping both off and back onto the island and among the past, present and future. If Mr. Eko shows up alive or Jack’s chest hair reappears at an inappropriate time, for example, viewers will notice." (The New York Times)

In other Lost-related news, Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen has a video interview with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse at the writers' office of Lost, as part of a planned Paley Center tribute to the series as they discuss fans' favorite episodes. (Entertainment Weekly)

And Tom Connolly (Veronica Mars) has been cast in an undisclosed recurring role on Season Five of Lost. (Variety)

Laura Prepon (October Road, That '70s Show) has signed on to appear in five episodes of CBS' How I Met Your Mother, where she'll play a former girlfriend of Ted's, whom he dated in high school and college and who was prone to cheating on him. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

ABC has handed out a put pilot commitment to an untitled comedy project from writer/executive producer Ricky Blitt (Family Guy) about a 30-something guy who is caught between his single mom girlfriend and his slacker best friend. (FYI, project was formerly known as Threesome.) (Variety)

Vanessa Marcil (Lipstick Jungle) has been cast in CBS' Without a Trace as a Manhattan social worker in a multiple-episode story arc. Marcil, whose character is intended to be a potential love interest for Eric Close's Martin, will first appear in the seventeenth episode, scheduled to air in March. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Mather Zickel (Rachel Getting Married), Annie Potts (Boston Legal), and Jack Thompson (Australia) have been cast in CBS comedy pilot The Karenskys, opposite Sasha Alexander. Zickel will play Emily's husband Bill, a biology professor; Potts will play Pearl Karensky, Emily's deeply religious mother; Thompson will play Max Karensky, Emily's argumentative father. (Hollywood Reporter)

Matt Letscher (Eli Stone) will join the cast of ABC's Brothers & Sisters in a multiple-episode story arc, where he will play a recent widower and a potential romantic interest for Kitty (Calista Flockhart). His first appearance on the series is slated to air in April. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Patricia Rae (Maria Full of Grace) will guest star on two episodes of NBC's Chuck. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Riding the Tide Out to Sea: An Advance Review of the Final Season Premiere of "Battlestar Galactica"

What defines us as individuals? Is it the terrible choices we've made and those made for us? The mistakes we've committed? The flaws in our characters? The people we've loved and lost? The horrors we've witnessed?

What truly defines us when everything else--career, rank, nationality--is stripped away? Are our natures programmed for us from birth? In other words: what truly makes us, well, us?

It's these existential questions that the intellectually dazzling Battlestar Galactica has always played with, throughout its four season run on Sci Fi. For most of the series, the humans and Cylons have engaged in a battle that presented the stakes as very much Us against Them. Them being the unknowable Other, so different from us in matters of birth, life, and death that it's nearly impossible for each side to sympathize with the other.

And yet over the course of the first half of the fourth season, a fragile alliance between the humans and Cylons has been forged in the fire of war. It's perhaps a reminder that the most divine of attributes--forgiveness--is perhaps present in both man and machine.

I had the chance recently to watch Battlestar Galactica's mid-season premiere episode ("Sometimes a Great Notion"), airing tomorrow night on Sci Fi, and was struck anew by the gritty philosophical elegance of Ronald D. Moore and David Eick's series.

Written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, "Sometimes a Great Notion" picks up where we last saw the beleaguered crew of the Galactica and their Cylon allies as they finally discovered Earth. Sadly, I'm prohibited by the network from revealing some truly major plot points in this week's episode, so I can't reveal just what they discover down on the planet, but I will say that it had major repercussions, not just for the future of both their races, but for several individuals who will never be the same after setting foot on the blue planet.

And that's perhaps what this episode of Battlestar Galactica is truly about: the notion of change, a tide that can't be fought no matter how hard we struggle. Life, as the crew of the Galactica learn, is nothing more than a series of transformations both internal and external. And change, as we all know, is hard to bear at times. What happens down on Earth profoundly affects Laura Roslin, the human race's dying leader, and forces her to confront the death of several dreams. So too does change affect Adama, especially after his discovery that his best friend, Saul Tigh, is a Cylon and a member of the vaunted Final Five.

While I can't discuss specifics about this heartbreaking and gripping installment, I will say that it features a number of shocking plot twists as well as some long-sought answers to some of the series' most enduring mysteries. Look for some vital clues to be gathered among the wreckage and wilderness on the planet as well as some shocking discoveries to be unearthed, Dualla to make a decision about her relationship with Lee, Chief Tyrol to grasp at shadows, Roslin to alter her beliefs, Kara to nearly confess a secret to Lee, D'Anna to commit to a new strategy, and for Adama to, well, grit his teeth and snarl as he is pushed to his very limits.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, such words are often thrown around far too often but things will never be the same after this episode. By the time the end credits roll, no one--not the humans, not the Sixes or the Eights, not the Final Five--will emerge unscathed and unchanged from the fire of transformation. But it's what happens next, how they process and deal with new discoveries, that will test these individuals.

And truly isn't that what defines us in the end: the way that we react to status quo-altering experiences? Can we ever escape the burden of our lives, whether past, present, or future? And are we free to change the path we take or are we all locked into a neverending ring of fate, doomed to repeat the same mistakes forever more?

Season 4.5 of Battlestar Galactica, the series' last, kicks off Friday at 10 pm ET/PT on Sci Fi. And, FYI, be sure to pad your DVR recording time with some extra room: the episode runs over by 3 1/2 minutes.

Top TV Picks of 2008

As it's nearly the end of the calendar year (only a few more days to go, in fact), I figured now was as good a time as any to look back at some of the shows that that have entertained and inspired me over the past year.

It's been a crazy year, between the WGA strike affecting everything from truncated freshman seasons for Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Chuck, delayed seasons for FX's Damages and HBO's Big Love (and a host of others), and a generally frantic development season that only saw two relative hits emerge this fall.

So, what were the favorite series in the Televisionary household? Which left me wanting more... and which ones made me eager to change the channel? Find out after the jump.

Best Reality Series:

Top Chef
The Amazing Race
Flipping Out

Top Chef remains my number one reality obsession. Bravo and Magical Elves have done themselves proud with this sleek, slick production that makes the art of cooking into a nail-biting competition in which egos clash, visionaries emerge, and the judges knock the competitors down a few pegs each week. While those of us at home can't taste the food being prepared, the aura of creativity around this series is more than enough to sate us.

Despite some creakiness in The Amazing Race's format (this most recent cycle won't go down as the most entertaining iteration of the series), this reality franchise remains one of the most consistently high quality unscripted productions around... if the casting directors do their job right. I'm still engaged with the ride but I was hoping for a bit more out of this most recent season, given that one of the main reasons I tune in is for the interpersonal element, seeing which teams emerge stronger than ever after running this gauntlet and which crumble under the pressure.

Flipping Out remains one of the most gripping and tense hours of television around... and also one of the most bizarre. Its breakneck second season had boss Jeff Lewis installing a nanny cam in his office to spy on his employees, the dissolution of Jenni and Chris' marriage, and the Client From Hell which lead to Jeff quitting, not once, but twice over the course of the season. Flipping Out might nominally be about the Los Angeles real estate market (and speculative buying) but it's about some of the quirkiest characters ever to be drawn on the small screen and I just can't look away.

Reality Series Most in Need of Fixing:

Project Runway

Given the current legal battle over the future of the series (producers the Weinstein Co. tried to take it to Lifetime), it seems like the most recent season of Project Runway will be the last for some time (or until that case is tried)... and I have to say that I found it to be pretty lackluster as the contestants seemed more apt to making each other (and themselves) cry than wowing us with any sartorial finesse. And overall the competition seemed overshadowed by Kenley's tantrums. A series with that many seasons under its belt should know better and it's likely that it will be the last one I end up watching.

Best British Imports:

Doctor Who
Skins
Gavin & Stacey

In its fourth season, Doctor Who remained just as entertaining and exciting as ever, even as it introduced the Doctor's latest companion, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate, who originated the role in the 2006 Christmas Special, "The Runaway Bride"), easily the most heartbreaking character on the revival series. In a season that saw the return of three prior companions (including fan favorite Rose Tyler), it's the sacrifice that Donna makes that adds a sheen of loss and tragedy to this rip-roaring sci-fi adventure series. And its season finale altered the landscape of Doctor Who, featuring a final battle with some ancient enemies in the form of the Daleks and Davros and a bittersweet ending that had our Doctor (David Tennant) off on his own once again, just as he finally found a traveling companion who might have been his very equal.

Like a bolt from the blue, Skins has shown its devoted audience just what the teen drama genre is capable of, deftly turning out plots ranging from eating disorders and love triangles to the death of a parent, unwanted pregnancy, and teenage mortality. It also gracefully juggled a wide array of well-drawn characters that were alternately cruel, kind, funny, bitter, sly, witty, stupid, and gifted (often all at the same time) but who always remained sympathetic. At times laugh-out-loud funny and utterly traumatic, Skins redefined drama for the under-18 set while also remaining completely relatable to those of us who have left our teen years behind.

No romantic comedy has ever achieved the level of bittersweet emotion that Gavin & Stacey has managed to acquire. What started out as a simple love story between strangers--Essex lad Gavin and Welsh lass Stacey--transformed into a touching portrait of disparate national identities, the problems facing today's twenty-something lovers, and, well, omelettes. It's a rare thing to find a series that makes you laugh as much as it does make you cry, but Gavin & Stacey--created by co-stars Ruth Jones and James Corden--effortlessly achieves both ends with a wit and flair all its own.

Best British Import (Yet to Air in the States):

Ashes to Ashes

The sequel to the cult hit Life on Mars (which wrapped its series very early on in 2007 and thus gets an honorable mention), Ashes to Ashes follows a single mum forensic profiler who, after being shot in the head in 2008, finds herself seemingly sent back in time to 1981, where she encounters Gene Hunt, the New Romantics, a terrifying phantom Pierrot clown, and a mystery that involves the death of her parents. Can she figure out a way to return to her daughter in 2008 and cheat death? Both funnier and scarier than Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes breathes new life into this franchise, which seemed to come to an end with John Simm's Sam Tyler. US audiences can catch this fantastic series beginning in March on BBC America.

Biggest Letdown from a Once Great Series:

The Office

I'll be blunt: The Office used to be one of my very favorite series but watching this sodden comedy has become more of a chore than a pleasure. While Amy Ryan's Holly Flax seemed to reinvigorate this comedy for a bit, her six-episode arc quickly came to an end and has left The Office at a bit of a loss this season. The comedy seems more prone to overwrought absurdity than tweaking humor from the mundane, Jim and Pam irritated me more than ever as a long-distance duo, and the moments of comedic genius, which The Office used to have in abundance, seem ever more isolated. To me, it's not Meredith who needs an intervention, it's The Office itself.

Best Canceled Series:

Pushing Daisies
The Wire

More than any other cancellation in recent television history (save perhaps, Arrested Development), I feel utterly betrayed by that of Pushing Daisies. After launching a nine-episode first season last fall (courtesy of the writers strike), Pushing Daisies should have returned with new episodes in the spring... yet ABC unwisely chose to "relaunch" the series this fall and squandered both the creative momentum and the ratings Pushing Daisies had achieved in its first season. Hilarious, touching, and quirky, Pushing Daisies was unlike anything ever to air on network television and redefined genre-busting sensibilities, blending together supernatural drama, romance, humor, and mystery procedural into one tasty package that was as comforting as a slice of warm apple pie. You'll be missed.

Over the course of five compelling seasons, HBO's The Wire tackled every issue facing today's modern American cities--from corruption and the drug trade to the failing educational systems and underfunded police forces--and did so while juggling a cast of deeply flawed individuals each trying to cope with the lot that fate dealt them. But it was the series' Dickensian aspect that earned it a place in my heart, as it gave equal weight to cops, drug dealers, homeless people, hoppers, politcos, and teachers, creating a memorable fabric of a city on the brink of destruction. Season Five of The Wire may not have been the series' strongest--with an indictment of the media and Jimmy staging a series of homeless serial killings--but it also paid off the series' long-standing storylines in a powerful and memorable way. Likely, there will never be another series as raw and honest as this one.

Best US Comedies:

30 Rock
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Chuck

Consistently belly-achingly hysterical, 30 Rock remains my favorite comedy on television and only seems to be getting better and better with age, even as it remains the most politically-minded program on television today. Not bad for a series that's allegedly just about the goings-on behind-the-scenes at an NBC comedy sketch series. In the hands of creator Tina Fey and her crack team of writers, 30 Rock continues to push the envelope for broadcast comedy, offering well-placed snarky jabs at the media elite, politicians, and pop culture icons while also giving the audience one of the most well-drawn (and realistic) portrait of a 2008 working woman in Liz Lemon. My only complaint: that it can't be on every single week, all year long. Blerg indeed.

Raunchy and provocative, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a raucous laugh riot from start to finish. Set in a low-rent Philly pub owned by a bunch of shallow, self-absorbed, and selfish losers, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia follows Seinfeld's adage that the funniest characters need not be the most sympathetic. It's the best exploration of arrested adolescence ever to hit the small screen and its absurdist plots--Mac and Charlie faking their deaths, a story about the cracking of the Liberty Bell, a forensic investigation into bed-bound fecal matter--reach to new depths of bizarre depravity and hilarity. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Chuck isn't quite a comedy but it is a series that skillfully manages to conflate comedy, romance, workplace intrigue, and action/adventure into one satisfying thrill-ride each week, all while remaining uproarious and emotionally satisfying. And Chuck has something for everyone: a star-crossed romance between Everyman Chuck (Zachary Levi) and his handler Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), explosions, double-crosses, quirky best friends, and fancy spy technology. In its second season, Chuck has only gotten better: more funny, more gripping, more touching. And I can't wait to see where it takes us next.

Best US Dramas:

Lost
Battlestar Galactica
Mad Men

In its fourth season, Lost seemingly rewrote its own rules, having the fabled Oceanic Six made it off of the island and return to normal society and chucking out its own flashback technique in order to make use of a groundbreaking narrative format in which we now flashed forward, seeing the castaways who made it off of the island adapt to life back home and see Jack (Matthew Fox) come to the realization that they had to go back. A brilliant gambit that paid off in spades, the flash forwards added yet another layer of dread and mystery to a series already teeming with intrigue. Having an end date for the series has invigorated the path to that ultimate end of the franchise and made each and every installment count. Plus, "The Constant," in which Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) travels through time and encounters physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) in his quest to find his lost love Penny (Sonya Walger), remains one of the very best single hours on television this year and a reminder of why Lost breaks nearly every one of television's rules, resulting in a series that anything but predictable.

Halfway done with its final season, Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica has remained must-see TV for lovers of high quality drama. Despite its setting in the far-flung reaches of space, Battlestar Galactica has remained a series that offers a dark mirror through which to view our own society, offering glimpses through the looking glass at the occupation in Iraq, racial cleansing, religious intolerance, human resistance, political tampering, civil war, and the hard choices governments must make in times of war. Having discovered Earth to be nothing but a radioactive wasteland, the crew of the Galactica--in an uneasy alliance with the Cylon race--learns to their dismay that we must all be careful what we wish for. There's still many mysteries to be solves as we begin the countdown to the series finale and I for one and dizzy with anticipation to see how Ronald D. Moore and David Eick manage to tie everything up.

AMC's Mad Men, which wrapped its second season earlier this year, is one of the most gripping dramas on television, regardless of what period of time it might be set in. Expertly recreating the 1960s with its attendant sexism, racism, and homophobia, Mad Men explores the public and private lives of the era's men and women with equal relish. This season produced some shocking twists, including Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) telling Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) that she gave birth to his child and gave it up for adoption, Betty (January Jones) kicking Don (Jon Hamm) out of the house, Don's trip to California and his rendezvous with the wife of the man whose identity he had stolen, and Peggy finally placing herself on equal footing with Don Draper. But none was more brutally shocking than the rape of Joan (Christina Hendricks), right in the offices of Sterling Cooper, by her supposedly "perfect" fiancé. Terrifying, brutal, and horrifying, the scene showed just how far women had come since then, just how little had truly changed, and just how quickly every vestige of power can be yanked away.

Best New Fall Series:

Fringe

I'll admit it: it was tough to find a new fall series that I could give the term "best" to. After a season that saw many new series strike out, only Fringe and The Mentalist emerged as justifiable ratings hits. Fringe is the far superior series and I'm somewhat enjoying it but I still have huge reservations about the series' choice to use self-contained storylines rather than serialized storytelling. (Additionally, I've twice now offered up suggestions on how to improve the series.) Fringe has an extraordinary amount of potential that I want the series to achieve sooner rather than later but it seems to be suffering in its execution: too much formula and water-treading and not enough layered mythology and trust in its audience.

And there we have it. A sampling of some of my favorites from 2008. As the year rapidly swings to a close, I'm curious to see what your favorite (and least favorite) series were, which shows you can't get enough of, and which ones you're happy to see the back of now.

Looking at the Face of the Enemy: The "Battlestar Galactica" Webisodes

With the premiere of the final batch of episodes of Battlestar Galactica slated for next month, those of us addicted to BSG have been grasping at anything to fulfill our next fix.

Luckily then, that Sci Fi have chosen now to release a new batch of Battlestar webisodes entitled "The Face of the Enemy," new installments of which will launch each Monday and Wednesday leading up to the January 21st premiere of Battlestar Galactica's final episodes.

The premise? A Raptor, carrying a morpha-addicted Felix Gaeta, a few members of the Galactica crew, and some Cylon Model Number Eights, makes an unexpected detour when it seemingly jumps away from the fleet. When one of them dies under mysterious circumstances, everyone aboard the ship is a suspect. And, oh, we get to see who Gaeta has been dating.

Missed Part One? No worries as you can watch it in full after the jump.



I thought it interesting that Tigh would be so merciful as to give Gaeta some time away from the CIC, giving him a week's leave to drink, sleep, and do whatever it is he needs to do in order to recharge. (He's been seeing "ghosts on Dradis," not a good thing at all.) Seeing as Tigh has never been a particularly understanding or compassionate man and all.

I also thought that the fact that Battlestar Galactica's writers would make Gaeta gay (and dating Pegasus' Hoshi) was an interesting twist for this tortured character. The way with which the reveal about Felix's sexuality was casually handled in this webisode was a refreshing twist in a series that has embraced racial and gender equality. I'm glad to see Lt. Hoshi again though he's obviously quite an enabler for Felix's morpha addiction.

Just what leaves Felix covered in blood (that shot from the opening of the webisode) remains to be seen. But if the opening is any indication, it seems like it's going to be quite a bumpy ride for the crew of that Raptor.

Look for Part Two of Battlestar Galactica: Face of the Enemy to launch later today.