Channel Surfing: NBC Renews "Parks and Recreation," John Barrowman to Wisteria Lane, "Being Human" Gets Third Season, "Chuck," and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

Great news for fans of NBC's killer comedy Parks and Recreation: the Peacock has renewed the series for a third season, set to launch this fall. News of the renewal was broken by The Wrap's Josef Adalian, who reported that due to "certain production timing issues," an early renewal was required on the Universal Media Studios-produced comedy, which is executive produced by Greg Daniels and Mike Schur. (The Wrap)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Torchwood's John Barrowman is joining the cast of ABC's Desperate Housewives for at least five episodes this season. Barrowman, who is slated to appear beginning in April, will play "the Big Bad at the center of the Angie (Drea de Matteo) mystery," writes Ausiello. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

BBC Three has commissioned a third season of supernatural drama Being Human and announced that all three of the series' leads--Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow, and Aidan Turner--will return for a third go-around. Currently airing its second season in the UK, Being Human's third season will see the flatmates move to new digs in Wales. "BBC Three continues to provide us with a great opportunity to make unusual, ambitious drama, and we are very excited to be able to take the new series of Being Human into fresh territory," said executive producer Rob Pursey in a statement. "With the new location in mind, we’ve already established some startling new storylines and characters. We’ll also aim to deliver plenty more exclusive online content in the gaps between series." (BBC)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Fred Willard and Swoosie Kurtz are set to guest star later this season on NBC's Chuck, where the duo will play "a Hart to Hart-esque spy couple now over-the-hill but still in the game." Look for Willard and Kurtz to appear towards the end of the season. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Digital Spy is reporting that Bill Nighy is set to guest star in the fifth season of Doctor Who. Nighy will play a Vincent Van Gogh exhibition curator in an upcoming episode written by Richard Curtis that is set in 19th century France and the present day. "It was a real coup to get Bill Nighy in Doctor Who, especially in Richard Curtis's amazing episode," an unnamed Who insider told Digital Spy. "Bill plays a van Gogh expert with some similar fashion choices to The Doctor himself." (Digital Spy)

ABC has given a pilot order to a single-camera comedy pilot How to Be a Better American, about a man who decides to become a better person and forces his family along for the ride. Pilot, from ABC Studios, is written and executive produced by Scrubs' Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley. ABC also gave a pilot order to an untitled multi-camera comedy from writer/executive producer Dana Gould, who will star as well. Pilot, from Warner Bros. Television and 3 Arts Entertainment, revolves around a high school guidance counselor who is "caught between his own father's old-school beliefs and his wife's progressive attitude toward parenting." (Variety)

Allison Janney (The West Wing) has been cast opposite Matthew Perry in ABC single-camera comedy pilot Mr. Sunshine, about a 40-year-old sports stadium manager suffering a mid-life crisis. Janney will play Crystal, his boss, on the Sony Pictures Television-produced pilot. Elsewhere, Janney has also been cast in Showtime's US adaptation of British drama series Shameless, where she is set to recur. (Hollywood Reporter)

MTV has officially renewed reality series Jersey Shore for a second season, following the successful renegotiation of contracts for the cast members of the New Jersey-set series. Production is set to get underway on the second season's twelve-episode order, which is set to air this summer on MTV, though the gang "could escape the cold Northeast and find themselves in a new destination," according to the network's press release. (Variety, though I reported the renewal earlier in the week on Twitter)

Elsewhere at MTV, the cabler has ordered twelve episodes of reality series If You Really Knew Me, described as a reality version of The Breakfast Club, in which five high school students are put through Challenge Day, "a one-day program designed to break down barriers between different social cliques." MTV also gave out a second season renewal to Teen Mom, with eight episodes set to air this summer. (Hollywood Reporter)

Another series order at ABC Family: the cabler announced that it had ordered ten episoes of dramedy Melissa & Joey, starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence. Series, which is expected to launch this summer, will follow a politician (Hart) who hires a manny (Lawrence) to help her deal with her family. Hart and Lawrence will executive produce with David Kendall, Bob Young, and Paula Hart. (Variety)

Pilot casting alert! Reno Wilson (Crank: High Voltage) and Katy Mixon (Eastbound & Down) have been cast in CBS comedy pilot Mike and Molly, from executive producer Chuck Lorre. Meanwhile, Megan Hilty (Eli Stone) has joined the cast of NBC's untitled Adam Carolla comedy pilot. (Hollywood Reporter)

Spike has ordered weekly half-hour latenight series Manformation, which will "showcase everyday guys who have had extraordinary experiences, such as the convenience store clerk who fought off a robbery attempt or a stock broker who left Wall Street for a hitch in the military." Series, from Thom Beers' Original Prods., will be produced by authors George "Maddox" Ouzounian and Dax Herrera. Additionally, the cabler ordered a third season of reality series 1000 Ways to Die. (Variety)

Syfy is set to air five telepics that will offer fresh takes on classic fairy tales, including Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, and Little Red Riding Hood. The first, Beauty and the Beast, will air on February 27th. (Hollywood Reporter)

Daytime syndicated lifestyle series The Nate Berkus Show is on track to launch this fall, after it was cleared on NBC's top 10 O&O stations. Series is co-produced by Harpo Prods. and Sony Pictures Television. (Hollywood Reporter)

TLC has ordered a third season of reality series Cake Boss. 26 episodes are on tap for the third season, which will launch in May. (Variety)

OWN has acquired Sundance documentary Family Affair, about the unraveling of a family when a ten-year-old boy shoots his sister in the leg. Written by Chico David Colvard, the film marks the first selection of OWN's documentary film club, which will air once a month on the cabler, which is set to launch in January 2011. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: "Lost" Start Could Be Delayed, Paley Festival, USA Locks "Covert Affairs," ABC Orders More "Cougar Town," and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

The start date for Lost's sixth and final season could be in peril, according to The Wrap's Josef Adalian, who is reporting that the White House is considering using January 26th or February 2nd--the launch date for Season Six of Lost--for President Obama's State of the Union address. The move would require ABC to shift back the start of Season Six, which the network would be particularly loath to do, considering the amount of marketing coin spent on publicizing the February 2nd start. "The good news, according to sources, is that the White House hasn't decided to press the button on the Feb. 2 idea," writes Adalian. "No doubt ABC has made its displeasure with the date very clear." (The Wrap's TVMoJoe)

The Paley Center for Media have announced several more series being feted at this year's William S. Paley Television Festival. Lost, Modern Family, Dexter, and Curb Your Enthusiasm will join the lineup, which so far includes panels on Glee and The Vampire Diaries. The complete schedule for PaleyFest2010 will be announced on Wednesday, January 20th. (Variety)

USA has given a series order to espionage drama Covert Affairs, ordering eleven episodes in addition to the 90-minute pilot. Series, which stars Piper Perabo, Chris Gorham, Peter Gallagher, Kari Matchett, and Anne Dudek, revolves around a CIA trainee (Perabo) who is "unexpectedly promoted to field operative while reeling over a mysterious ex-boyfriend who appears to be of particular interest to her agency bosses." Covert Affairs, from creator/executive producers Matt Corman and Chris Ord and executive producers Dave Bartis and Doug Liman, is expected to be ready to launch this summer, though it may contend for the summer slot with USA's other drama contender, Facing Kate. (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that ABC has ordered two additional episodes of comedy series Cougar Town. The move bumps the episodic total of the freshman season of Cougar Town to 24 installments, a move that's thought to bode well for a second season renewal. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

CBS has announced the identities of the castaways participating in Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains, which will premiere with a two-hour installment on February 11th at 8 pm ET/PT. They include: Rupert Boneham, James Clement, Colby Donaldson, Cirie Fields, Amanda Kimmel, Jessica "Sugar" Kiper, Stephenie Lagrossa, James "JT" Thomas Jr., Tom Westman, and Candice Woodcock for the "Heroes," and Tyson Apostol, Randy Bailey, Danielle DiLorenzo, Russell Hantz, Jerri Manthey, Robert Mariano, Parvati Shallow, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Benjamin "Coach" Wade, and Courtney Yates for the "Villains." (via press release)

Talk show host Jonathan Ross, the BBC's highest-paid performer, has announced that he will leave the broadcaster in July when his current contract expires. Ross, who has been based at the BBC for 13 years, has indicated that he will leave his eponymous Friday night talk show, his Saturday morning show, and his late-night film show, but will continue to host the BAFTA awards show and will appear in other specials. "Over the last two weeks I have decided not to renegotiate when my current contract comes to an end. I would like to make it perfectly clear that no negotiations ever took place and that my decision is not financially motivated," said Ross in a statement. "I signed my current contract with the BBC having turned down more lucrative offers from other channels because it was where I wanted to be and – as I have said before – would happily have stayed there for any fee they cared to offer, but there were other considerations." Graham Norton seems to be the top candidate to take over for Ross for his Friday night talk show. (Guardian)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan has a great interview with Chuck star Adam Baldwin about John Casey. "I've found the biggest challenge in playing Casey is, how do I walk that line between comedy and seriousness?" Baldwin told Ryan. "He is the straight man. But what they told me from the get-go is that Casey has to be dangerous, even when he's being handcuffed by a gorgeous Russian model-spy." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

In an alteration of its previous development patterns, cabler TBS has given a cast-contingent pilot order one-hour mystery-comedy Uncle Nigel, from writer/executive producer Adam Breckman (Monk). Project, written by Breckman as a spec script, revolves around an uptight Philadelphia police detective who clashes with his screw-up cop nephew. (Variety)

File this under wha-huh? The BBC has shot back at claims that Doctor Who had an "anti-ginger agenda" following last week's Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two), in which new series lead Matt Smith made a comment about not being ginger, following his regeneration. Said the BBC in a statement: "We've received complaints from viewers who believed a line in Doctor Who: The End of Time was insulting to people with ginger hair. We would like to reassure viewers that Doctor Who doesn't have an anti-ginger agenda whatsoever. This was a reprise of the line in 'The Christmas Invasion' episode in 2005, when David Tennant discovers that he's not ginger, and here he is, missing out again - disappointed he's still not ginger. In addition, the Doctor's previous companion Donna Noble [Catherine Tate] and his new one Amy Pond [Karen Gillan] are both redheads." (via Digital Spy)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Lee Tergesen (Life on Mars) will reunite with his former Oz co-star Chris Meloni on an upcoming episode of NBC's Law & Order: SVU. Tergesen will play "a deranged religious zealot suspected of murder," writes Ausiello, in an episode to air later this season. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The CW will post the first ten minutes of the series premiere of dramedy Life Unexpected online a week before its network broadcast, thanks to a partnership between the network and Facebook, which will allow the CW's 5.4 million fans to watch the extended preview beginning January 11th. (Hollywood Reporter)

MTV is getting into the scripted series game in a major way. Cabler, according to Variety's Michael Schneider, will "produce as many as eight drama and comedy pilots in 2010," and "between two and four of those series will make it to air." The scripted venture--which includes drama and comedy pilots as well as telepic backdoor pilots--will be overseen by newly installed EVP of scripted development David Janollari. Network already has two scripted projects ordered to series: comedies Hard Times and Warren the Ape, as well as a pilot order for a remake of Teen Wolf. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Geronimo: First Look at Season Five of "Doctor Who"

"Trust me, I'm the Doctor."

Those of us still sniffing following this weekend's Doctor Who: The End of Time and the departure of series lead David Tennant can at least look forward to some new adventures for The Doctor heading our way later this year. (You can read my thoughts on Part One of Doctor Who: The End of Time here and on Part Two here.)

The BBC has released a fantastic one-minute-plus trailer for Season Five of Doctor Who, featuring new series lead Matt Smith as The Doctor and Karen Gillan as new companion Amy Pond. As Who fans well know, Season Five of Doctor Who also sees the head writing and executive producing duties being taken over by Steven Moffat, who previously wrote some of the series' most memorable installments, including "The Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink," and "Silence in the Library," to name a few.

The full Season Five trailer can be found below in all its glory. If you're extremely spoiler-averse, you might want to look away. (Personally, I think it's just a lovely teaser of things to come.)



What do you think of the Doctor Who Season Five trailer? Does Smith look capable of filling the considerable shoes of David Tennant? What do you think of the glimpse of Amy? Or the gun-toting woman? Excited to see the return of the Weeping Angels? Can't wait to see Steven Moffat's take on the Doctor? Discuss.

Season Five of Doctor Who is set to premiere in the spring on BBC One and BBC America.

Rage Against the Dying of the Light: Death and Rebirth in "Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two)"

The Doctor is bigger than just one man.

To date now, eleven actors have taken on the mantle of The Doctor, the alien time-traveler who travels about the heavens in a blue police call box that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

The Doctor's frequent regeneration speaks not only of the resilience of the spirit but also to the temporary nature of all things. It's a reminder that, with each step we make, death stalks all of us, human and Time Lord, mortal and immortal alike. It's what we choose to make of that death--and of that life--that define us for who we really are.

With last night's final 2009-10 Doctor Who special, Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two), written by Russell T. Davies and directed by Euros Lyn, we said goodbye to the actor whom many of us believe has best embodied the madcap heroic attributes of the Doctor: David Tennant.

While I was moved when Christopher Eccleston stepped aside at the end of the first season, it is Tennant's departure that stabs me like a knife in the heart. Throughout his run, Tennant's turn as the Doctor has left an indelible mark on the Doctor Who franchise and its numerous fans, both young and old. We all knew that the Doctor would die, that he would regenerate (specifically into incoming series star Matt Smith), and that we would have to say goodbye. But that doesn't make the leave-taking any less difficult or any less fraught with emotion.

So what did I think of Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two)? Let's discuss.

I thought that Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two) showed significant improvement on the first part of the two-part David Tennant finale, which itself felt like it shoehorned in too many story threads, characters, and disjointed subplots. Was it necessary for Tennant's swan song on the series to include the return of The Master (John Simm), the possible return of the Time Lords, the Naismiths, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), Wilf (Bernard Cribbins), Lucy Saxon (Alexandra Moen), the Mystery Woman (Claire Bloom), the Ood, the Vinvocci, and a slew of others? In that sense, the storyline was bound to suffer from the weight of too many elements, all jockeying for supremacy.

The first half seemed to set up several mysteries that went unanswered in the second half (and therefore may not have been important in the first case). Just why was the Master blond? Who was behind the cabal that resurrected him? Why did he suddenly have new powers? Why didn't Lucy Saxon's sacrifice work? And what happened to Lucy if she wasn't fused with The Master? Putting those minor thoughts aside, the larger mystery--the identity of The Woman--looms even larger. I'm still not entirely sure, even after watching both halves of the Doctor Who: The End of Time, why she was necessary for the story. Or even who she was, a fact that seems to be under debate.

What Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two) did successfully was hit some well-crafted emotional beats, particularly between the Doctor and Wilf. Both old men, both on the road to death, the unlikely duo has been linked by death from the start. Each is, in the words of Dylan Thomas, raging against the dying of the light in their own way. 80-year-old Wilf is in search of one last adventure before he lays down his pistol for the last time, while the Doctor is attempting to throw off the shackles of fate, to avoid his death, to negate the prophecy.

But death can't be escaped from. Not even for a man to whom time and space are mere playthings. The Doctor's folly is that he wants too desperately to live. It's a strain of the same disease which infects the bloodthirsty Time Lords, trapped within the Time Lock, looking for a loophole with which to save themselves. While the Time Lords--led by the nefarious Lord President, Rassilon (Timothy Dalton)--find that escape via the Master's insanity, the never-ending sound of drums in his mind, the Doctor realizes that any attempt to battle death is foolish. Death comes knocking whether you want it to or not.

I thought it a cruel, ironic twist that the four knocks of the Doctor's death came not from The Master, not from Rassilon, or the countless threats that the Doctor has faced down over 900-plus years of existence but from Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) himself. Doom isn't drawn pistols or energy-wielding gloves but four knocks from a kindly old man. I knew once Wilf had managed to lock himself inside the nuclear shielding that the Doctor was done for. But while others would have plead to the Doctor for salvation, Wilf is prepared to sacrifice himself to save the Doctor. For others, it might have been an easy choice. What weight does the life of an elderly man, a nobody by all accounts, have against that of a Time Lord?

But The Doctor isn't most people. His death has been foretold and his life has come down to this very moment. Can he live with himself if he lets Wilf die? Can he live with one more death on his conscience when he could avoid it? And so The Doctor steps inside the shielding and absorbs the now critical nuclear energies into himself. He frees Wilf and condemns himself.

To me, the most powerful elements of Doctor Who: The End of Time involve the Doctor and Wilf, whose friendship and scenes together give the finale some emotional weight. I'm less certain about the handling of the return of the Time Lords or The Master's modus operandi. (He was really going to then turn the Time Lords into more genetic copies of himself? Why?) It's a big reveal and an even bigger plot that's given short shrift by the demands of the story here. Part One of "The End of Time" dealt almost solely with the return of The Master, his resurrection, and his eternal battle with the Doctor but that's all swept aside in place of Gallifrey in Earth's orbit, a somewhat incomprehensible plot involving white-point stars, drumbeats, and paradox, and the possible resetting of the Time War.

The Doctor had to end the Time War and doom his own people once before (off-screen anyway, before the start of the revival series) but here this monumental decision to again obliterate his race takes place over the course of a few seconds as the Doctor has to decide whether to shoot The Master or Rassilon. He does neither as The Master attacks Rassilon with his new-found powers and they are all seemingly sucked back into the Time Lock.

Also propelled back into the darkness: the Mystery Woman who had appeared to Wilf throughout the two-parter. Why the Lord-President would take the two opposing Time Lords through the rift to Earth was odd to me but her presence seemed to be the mechanism by which the Doctor realized there was only one course of action. As for her identity, it's left deliberately vague. The obvious answer would be that she was the Doctor's mother (which itself feels far too pat and on the nose) but I couldn't help but wonder if it was the Doctor's granddaughter Susan (from the original series). The Doctor doesn't answer Wilf when asked who she was but instead looks to Sylvia (Jacqueline King) and Donna Noble. (It is, after all, Wilf's granddaughter's wedding day.)

But the real question is: why was the presence of the Mystery Woman--whether she was the Doctor's mother or granddaughter or, hell, Romana--necessary at all? How was she able to manipulate time and space to appear to Wilf from within the Time Lock? And why did she order Wilf not to tell the Doctor of their conversations and urge him to retrieve his pistol... which remained unfired by the end of the story, at least against an individual. (Which, ironically, goes against the narrative contrivance of having a loaded gun in the first act and setting it off in the third act. Was it, perhaps, a comment on the Doctor's dislike for guns? And the knowledge that he would choose peace over violence even at the end?)

The Mystery Woman's identity, however, remains a mystery. What is more tangible and therefore more powerful is the Doctor's final moments in the series. Choosing to bestow boons upon his former traveling companions, he tracks down Martha (Freeman Agyeman) and Mickey (Noel Clarke)--now married--and rescues them from a trigger-happy Sontaran; saves Luke (Tommy Knight), the adopted son of Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), from an oncoming car; gives "best friend" Donna one hell of a wedding present (a winning lottery ticket purchased by borrowing a quid from her dead father); gets a book signed by Verity Newman (Jessica Hynes), the granddaughter of lost love Joan Redfern; introduces heartbroken Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) to Alonso Frame (Russell Tovey); and encounters Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) one last time, meeting her on New Year's Day 2005 and telling her that she is going to have a great year.

(Aside: I'm not quite sure why the Doctor didn't visit Joan Redfern herself rather than her author granddaughter Verity, given that he traveled back in time to see Rose but that's a quibble in a grand sequence of reminiscence.)

But it's the Doctor's final words--"I don't want to go!"--that show him truly grappling with his own mortality, an attempt to bargain with the universe at large. (It might as well have been Tennant himself saying those words as they made me burst into tears.) But as the glow of regeneration comes over him, the Doctor does rage, violently as the TARDIS seemingly begins to crumble around him, collapsing in a sea of sparks and a throb of energy... before the Doctor transforms into his Eleventh incarnation (Matt Smith).

While we're only given a glimpse of Smith as the Doctor, I'm already a fan, thanks to his use of Tennant's trademark head-tapping, the shock on his face when he considers that he came back as a woman, and his gleeful cry of "Geronimo!" as the TARDIS begins its rapid descent toward Earth.

All in all, Doctor Who: The End of Time found the Doctor--and the series--looking backward and forward in the same breath, much like the Doctor himself. The ending of Doctor Who: The End of Time, while arriving after a needlessly confusing and convoluted narrative, was a fitting send-off for Tennant, a man who made a mark on the eternal and never-ending character of the Doctor. He'll be much missed as we move into a new decade, new adventures, and a new Doctor. Allons-y once more...

Season Five of Doctor Who is set to launch in spring 2010.

The Sainted Physician: The Doctor Faces His Greatest Threat on "Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One)"

Time itself has caught up with the Doctor.

The latest Doctor Who Christmas special, Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One), found the Doctor attempting to fight his fated death... or at least the prophesied end of this incarnation of the solitary Time Lord.

But it's not just the prophecy of the end of the Doctor's song ("he will knock four times") that provides the focus of this, the penultimate Doctor Who episode starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It was an installment that featured the return of several familiar faces, including John Simm's The Master (reborn in a matter of speaking), Bernard Cribbins' Wilfred, and Catherine Tate's Donna Noble. Along with the alien Ood, who telepathically tap into a global nightmare pattern involving the Master and alert the Doctor to impending doom in the form of the titular end of time.

Written by Russell T. Davies and directed by Euros Lyn, Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One) finds the Doctor in the midst of an existential crisis. Still reeling from the disastrous choice he made in Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, the Doctor finds himself at his lowest point, unaccompanied and alone, and must face his mortal enemy... as well as the possible end of his adopted people, the human race.

The scene between the Doctor and Wilf (Cribbins) in the cafe--an exercise arranged by Wilf so that the Doctor would see Donna and hopefully cure her--was absolutely heartbreaking, as the Doctor tearfully confronted his fallibility and his mortality. It was a scene masterfully played by Tennant, who not only embodied the Doctor's own fears but also our own sadness at the inevitable end of this incarnation. Has he made the right choices? The wrong ones? Is he to blame for what's about to happen? Is his eternal loneliness penance for the mistakes he's made, the friends he's lost? For the fire and the floods? The ice and the destruction?

But the Doctor isn't quite alone: he has a companion of sorts in Wilf, the grandfather of his former traveling companion Donna Noble (Tate). The Doctor and Wilf are united by a bond of deception--both, after all, conspired to lie to Donna in order to save her life, erasing all traces of the Doctor from her memory--and by something else, something that keeps them crossing paths. The Doctor refers to Wilf as existing "at the heart of coincidence," but there are signs that someone--or something--is deliberately pulling their strings.

After all, we still don't know the identity of the mystery woman (Claire Bloom) whom Wilf meets in that church, the one that depicts the "blue box" of the "sainted physician" in its stained glass window. She's the same woman who appears on his television set during the Queen's speech and who urges him to help the Doctor, saying that he can still be saved if Wilf bears arms once more and doesn't reveal the contents of this message to the Doctor himself. But is this mystery woman helping or hindering their cause? And just who is she really?

Her presence in the story is one of many mysteries in Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One), which sets up a final confrontation between the Doctor and his nemesis, the mad Time Lord known as The Master, seemingly resurrected from death with some newfound powers... and a new blonde hairdo.

It's that hairstyle that's odd, really. I can't help but wonder where the blonde hair came from and if it has anything to do with the presence of Lucy Saxon (Alexandra Moen) at the Master's rebirth. Lucy is after all blonde... and we don't know just what she threw at the Master's visage during the resurrection process, an action that resulted in the death of several willing sacrificial victims (all loyal to Harold Saxon's anarchist cause). But where did Lucy go? Has she somehow fused with The Master himself? And just what are the source of his strange powers, which seemingly grant him the ability to absorb human life, fire electrical blasts, and soar into the sky?

Personally, I think the Master is terrifying enough without the additional abilities, which lend his character an air of over-the-top comic book supervillainy. The intimacy of the sequence where the Doctor forms a telepathic link with the Master and shockingly learns that the drum beats aren't in fact part of the Master's madness but something else, something real, was electric enough without having the former prime minister blasting away at his foe with blue electricity. Tennant and Simm are both fantastically dynamic actors and the scenes where the two face off with chess-like precision have more subtle power within them.

As Davies told me a few months back, it wasn't Lucy who reached into the Master's funereal pyre and pulled out his signet ring, but the new governor of the prison where Lucy Saxon is being held. The member of a secret cabal of Saxon loyalists, she uses the ring along with Lucy's biometric imprint to bring the Master back to life, at the cost of her own.

And there's another organization that wants The Master for themselves, a group overseen by father and daughter futurists Joshua Naismith (David Harewood) and
Abigail Naismith (Tracy Ifeachor) that has unwittingly constructed an Immortality Gate. Joshua intends to use the Gate to give his daughter neverending life but it's a gift that's twisted by the Master for his own insane purposes: the creation of a Master race, the rewriting of the human genetic code to create a literal race of Master clones.

Yet hope remains. Not everyone is affected by the genetic wave: both Wilf (ensconced in nuclear shielding nearby the Gate) and Donna (saved thanks to the metacrisis at the end of Season Four) remain themselves. But Donna's salvation triggers a flood of memories, which threaten to burn her up from the inside. We're left not knowing whether Donna will live or die (I'm leaning towards the former) but I have a feeling that the Master's final trick has unexpectedly saved her life and her memories.

But the true threat to the universe doesn't come from the Master's, er, masterstroke of villainy. Instead, it's the end of Time, a threat manifested in the return of the Time Lords themselves, numbering in the thousands. Just how have they survived the Time War? Where are they and Gallifrey? And why does the Lord President of the Time Lords (Timothy Dalton), who serves as the installment's narrator, seem so hell-bent on conflict? And are the drums the Master has heard his whole life the drums of a Gallifreyan war? We'll have to wait until the end of the week to find out.

All in all, Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One) offered a fantastic prelude to David Tennant and Russell T. Davies' final act ahead. The penultimate Doctor Who special brought up some of Doctor Who's enduring subplots and set up a monumental showdown involving the Master and Time itself, as well as some of the revival series' narrative foundations themselves (given the destruction of Gallifrey and the Doctor's status as the last Time Lord).

Just how Time will be put to right again remains to be seen, but I am nervous about Wilf's wartime pistol, the mystery woman's warnings, and the deathly prophecy itself. Not to mention that this weekend's conclusion to Doctor Who: The End of Time will signal the end for the Tenth Doctor himself. Lives will be lost, sacrifices made, and the laws of the universe itself ripped apart... and I am sure I'll be moved to tears by the death of the Tenth Doctor and his regeneration.

This is one man, after all, who won't be going gently into that good night. Not without a fight, anyway.

Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part Two) airs Saturday evening at 8:30 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Say Goodbye to the Tenth Doctor Starting with Tonight's "Doctor Who: The End of Time (Part One)" on BBC America

The inevitable and the inescapable have arrived.

Tonight's Doctor Who Christmas special, Doctor Who: The End of Time (which airs at 9 pm ET/PT), signals the end of the Tenth Doctor's run on the sci-fi series... and that of series lead David Tennant, who will leave the series following next week's concluding installment.

I've remained (and intend to remain) spoiler-free leading up to tonight's broadcast of Doctor Who: The End of Time, which aired last night in the United Kingdom. I'm steeling myself to be utterly heartbroken after tonight's installment, which features the return of John Simm's malevolent Master and several familiar faces, including Bernard Cribbins' Wilf and Catherine Tate's Donna Noble.

But I can't help but think back to when I first heard that Christopher Eccleston was departing Doctor Who and would be replaced by the relatively-unheard-of David Tennant, whom I recalled slightly from his turn as the titular character in Casanova.

At the time, I was deeply saddened that Eccleston was leaving Doctor Who and would be replaced by someone who seemed so completely different to him, one whose Doctor wouldn't be the same as the gruff, muscular, and stolid Doctor embodied by Eccleston. "Who," I asked my wife (then my girlfriend), in a unintentionally ironic question.

What a difference a few years make. Tennant--with his manic, madcap, and mischievous take on the Doctor--has become in my mind the definitive performance for the Time Lord and now he too is stepping aside as another relatively unknown actor, Matt Smith (Party Animals), replaces him after a roughly four-season run on the series.

Will Smith supplant Tennant in my esteem? Time will tell, though he has some mighty big shoes to fill. But as we settle in tonight to say goodbye the talented Mr. Tennant (and to executive producer Russell T. Davies, also departing), my thoughts won't be of the future of the series--of Matt Smith and new head writer Steven Moffat (both supremely skillful men in their own right)--but of the past. I'll be recalling Tennant's legendary run on the series, the off-kilter way he dove into every new adventure with equal parts glee and curiosity, the times his Doctor saved countless people and the times he failed, and of the actors who played his companions these past few years: Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, and Catherine Tate.

The Doctor and Doctor Who are bigger than any single actor, yet Tennant's performance, which captures both the innate strengths and flaws of the alien time-traveler, will remain a highlight of the decades-old drama. As we prepare to embark on one final trip in the TARDIS with the unnamed man from Gallifrey, I find myself both tearful and exhilarated to see just what will happen next.

The Doctor, I am sure, wouldn't have it any other way.

You can read my cocktails-laden interview with David Tenannt from a few months back here... and watch my video interviews with Doctor Who executive producer Russell T. Davies and director Euros Lyn here.

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One airs tonight at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Time Lord Victorious: "Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars"

"A Time Lord victorious."

You had a chance to read my advance review of the sensational Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars but now that the latest David Tennant-led Doctor Who special has aired, I'm curious to see just what you thought of the special, written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford, which found the Doctor grappling with some weighty issues about predetermination, free will, and responsibility.

As I said in my review, I thought that Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars was the darkest and most adult of the 2008-09 Doctor Who specials and brought us a Tenth Doctor for whom time was running out, both literally and figuratively. The Tenth Doctor's song is ending (and with it, rather sadly, David Tennant's run on the series) and he's waiting to hear those four knocks that will signal his doom but before then the Doctor made a stunning decision that might seal his fate once and for all.

In choosing to intervene in the "fixed time" element of the Bowie Base One disaster, the Doctor oversteps his bounds, both as hero and as the last of the Time Lords. Throughout the series' run, the Doctor has been wary of interfering with events or times that are fixed. His involvement in Pompeii ended up bringing about the city's destruction as a result; Pompeii had to be destroyed and the Doctor had always been the one to destroy it. At the time, it was a tough decision to make but one that he had to do in order to save the human race from a greater evil. Perhaps the ability to make those moral judgments--to safeguard the greater good--is both the Doctor's strength and his curse.

Here, he's faced once again with an enormous dilemma but there's no companion to push him towards the correct course (as Donna Noble had done in Pompeii). As before, he saves a handful of people from certain doom but in doing so, alters the natural course of the universe. While Donna's insistence that they save one family doesn't have any huge implications about the future, the Doctor's interference here does. Adelaide Brooke's death on Bowie Base One directly influences her granddaughter, who follows in Adelaide's footsteps and takes the human race to the stars.

The Doctor, in an act of hubris, decides not to follow time's natural path. He opts instead to save Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), believing that she can still inspire her granddaughter and still save the human race. The Doctor wrongly believes that he is not chained to the laws of time and space. He is the last of the Time Lords and time itself bows to his command. He saves Adelaide, aware of the costs. It's a monumental error, perhaps made because he knows his own death is stalking him, circling him and ready to pounce. If he can save Adelaide, perhaps he can save himself?

But it's a dark gift that is too much for Adelaide to bear, too much responsibility for one person to carry. She knows that the fate of the human race rests on her slender shoulders and, even if the Doctor will not make the right decision, she will. She sadly enters her house after telling the Doctor that a "Time Lord victorious is wrong." And she promptly kills herself, righting the course of history and keeping the human race on the path they were meant to be on.

It's a rare miscalculation from the usually infallible Doctor, an act of shocking hubris that comes as a surprise but also perhaps serves as a fitting consequence of the death and destruction he's left in his wake these past few years. A fatal flaw that points to his inevitable regeneration and the end of this form.

As for the Ood who appears before the Doctor, he is a harbinger of things to come. The darkness is closing in on the Doctor, even as he rallies to try and fight his fate. The fear in his face as he attempts to escape the inescapable (and the sound of danger-alerting cloister bell) is palpable. He'll fight with his very last breath to stay alive and what's even more gut-wrenching is that we, as the audience, knows that he ultimately will fall.

What did you think of Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars? How did it compare to the other specials? Just what will happen to the Doctor in the final two-part episode of David Tennant's run? And how sad are you that Tennant is leaving the series? Discuss.

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One airs Saturday at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

What Price Victory: An Advance Review of BBC America's "Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars"

"Water always wins."

Those words are uttered by the Doctor (David Tennant) about a certain water-based entity stalking the crew of Bowie Base One, the groundbreaking Mars colony currently inhabited by a group of Earth scientists. Certainly then, the Doctor and the residents of Bowie Base One (and, yes, that's a direct reference to "Life on Mars" singer David Bowie) are at a bit of a disadvantage. How do you fight something that's persistent, deadly, and can wait forever, wearing down everything around it? How do you battle the eternal?

In his journeys through time and space, The Doctor has squared off against some pretty tough adversaries but perhaps none quite so dangerous as the one he faces in the latest Doctor Who special, the darkly compelling Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford and directed by Graeme Harper.

That's because the enemy he must confront is himself.

I had the opportunity to watch Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars in advance of its US broadcast tomorrow night on BBC America and was immediately struck by its darkness, its stakes, and a sense that time is finally catching up with the Tenth Doctor.

Just what did I think of Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars? Read on for my thoughts but beware there are minor spoilers lurking about.

It's worth noting that Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars is the best of the three season-bridging Doctor Who specials that have aired in the last year or so. The Next Doctor offered a campy Victorian-era steampunk rollercoaster ride in the tradition of other Christmas-themed episodes, The Planet of the Dead was an adventure story that fused together a heist with a sci-fi caper. And finally Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars represents the beginning of David Tennant's swan song on the series. It's the darkest of the specials and the most complex in terms of the emotions that are brought up over the course of the hour.

At its core, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars is a story of survival, not just for the crew members of Bowie Base One but also for the Doctor himself, the ultimate survivor of a doomed race that has been exterminated. Survivor guilt can do strange things to those it infects; it's propelled the Doctor out among the stars on a never-ending series of adventures, always running, always looking to connect, and always ending up once more on his own.

Over the course of the revival series, we've seen the Doctor attempt to form permanent relationships with the companions he brings aboard the TARDIS but every time he does, the universe conspires to punish the Doctor for managing to survive. Each of those relationships--whether it be with Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, or Donna Noble--always end in tragedy.

In Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, the Doctor talks about certain events being fixed points in time and the plot revolves around his interference into one of those very unalterable events. Here, he comes in contact with the crew of Bowie Base One, led by the gruff Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan). Adelaide is unlike any of the other companions the Doctor has encountered; she's perhaps a woman as stubborn and far-thinking as the Doctor himself, a pragmatist who knows just what needs to be done, no matter what the sacrifice. As the base falls prey to the aforementioned water-based entities, Adelaide faces her toughest decision yet, a choice that she must make that will put the future of the human race on the line and yet which also connects to a very personal moment she shared fifty years earlier, a moment that ties in very nicely with the continuity and plot of the Doctor Who revival series.

As for the Doctor, he too faces a choice here. It's a decision which speaks volumes about the pressures and tragedies that the Tenth Doctor has faced since his regeneration. It's a monumental decision that alters some of the unquestionable boundaries the Doctor has placed on himself and ultimately exposes his fatal flaw.

Yes, it turns out that the Doctor is just as human, perhaps, as any of us. And the flaw he holds within his character is one that has faced many a character in literature as the Doctor falls prey to hubris and makes a decision that could change the Doctor from hero into a tragic figure.

Tenant and Duncan make a superb pair and there's an energy and respect between the two that puts them on equal footing in a way that the Doctor hasn't quite been with any of his previous companions. There's a sense that Adelaide, like the Doctor, has to make unpopular decisions and that she too is alone in the universe. That they would find each other to be sympatico souls in the toughest of situations and yet never take their chemistry into a romantic place is a testament both to the actors and the top-notch writing of Davies and Ford here. There are still little Davies-esque quirks here, such as the "gadget, gadget"-spouting droid but this is a more serious, "adult" adventure than we've seen the Doctor on in quite a while.

I won't say anything more, lest I give away just what happens in this momentous and tense special. The end is near for the Doctor and will signal its arrival with four knocks. That time is drawing ever closer and in Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars there's a sense of a ticking clock as we prepare to say goodbye to the Tenth Doctor and series lead David Tennant. Decisions are made, lines are crossed, and consequences hit home.

Yet for all of the Doctor's bravery and good intentions, there are some things that can't be undone, some events that must unfold, and some fates that can't be avoided. For a man such as the Doctor, a Time Lord who exists somewhat outside the laws of time and space, I am sure that the irony isn't lost on him.



Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars airs tomorrow night at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Channel Surfing: Jerry O'Connell in, Sendhil Ramamurthy Out at "Rex," No "Who" Movie, "FlashForward," "Big Love" for Alby," and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy has departed NBC's David Tennant-led legal dramedy pilot Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, allegedly due to scheduling conflicts. (The project was in second position to his role on Heroes.) Ramamurthy's role, that of a good-natured lawyer who falls in love with the fiancee (Abigail Spencer) of his best friend Rex (Tennant), has now been recast with Jerry O'Connell (Carpoolers) coming on board the project. Also cast: Lindsay Kraft (Southland) and Cleo King (The Hangover); Kraft will play Rex's assistant, an aspiring singer/songwriter while King will play a private school bus driver coached to represent herself by Rex in the pilot. Project, from Universal Media Studios, also stars Jeffrey Tambor and Jane Curtin (Hollywood Reporter)

Meanwhile, David Tennant has dispelled rumors that there are any plans for a Doctor Who feature film. "I don't think there is a Doctor Who movie," Tennant told Radio Times. "It's not like I'm hell-bent on breaking into movies but it's a nice notion." (via Digital Spy)

Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen talks to FlashForward creator/executive producer David S. Goyer about the series' three-month hiatus and its overall creative direction. "I know we’re all as writers breathing a sigh of relief," said Goyer when asked about the series' thirteen-week scheduling for the second half of the season. "We feel like we have all the chess pieces on the board and now we can just knock the dominoes over and watch them fall in interesting ways. I kind of feel like we did when we got into working on The Dark Knight after finishing Batman Begins: we got done with the origin story, we don’t have to do that anymore, we can now hit the ground running." [Editor: sadly, Jensen didn't ask Goyer about how the revised scheduling will affect the date-specific narrative.] (Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider)

SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that there are major plans afoot this season for Matt Ross' Alby on HBO's drama series Big Love, which returns for its fourth season on January 8th. "There’s a provocative nature to what we’re doing," co-creator/executive producer Mark V. Olsen tells Ausiello. "It’s more than just the Mormon culture. We’re highlighting certain aspects of the church’s relationship with its gay members that I think, as the story unfolds, is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Cynthia Cidre (Cane) will write the pilot for TNT's revival of nighttime soap Dallas, which is being produced by Warner Horizon. Storyline for the resurrected series are being kept firmly under wraps by the network, although several actors from the original series, including Patrick Duffy, Larry Hagman, and Linda Grey, were reportedly approached by producers about reprising their roles. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS has given a script order plus penalty to a series adaptation of James Patterson's upcoming novel "Private." Project, from 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Television, revolves around a former CIA agent/Marine who takes over his father's private investigation firm. Jason Cahill will write and executive produce, alongside Brian Grazer and David Nevins. (Variety)

Seven less questions? NBC has cut down the episodic order for midseason comedy series 100 Questions from thirteen installments to just six. The reason behind the reduction, according to NBC, is due to the fact that both Parks and Recreation and Community garnered full season pickups and that the Olympics will clear the network's schedule for two weeks as well. (Parenthood, however, will keep to its thirteen-episode order.) (Hollywood Reporter)

The Los Angeles Times' Maria-Elena Fernandez has a great interview with Modern Family star Sofia Vergara. (You can literally hear her voice as you read the piece, intonation and all.) (Los Angeles Times/Show Tracker)

Pilot casting alert! Laura Leighton (Melrose Place) and Alexis Denisof (Dollhouse) will star opposite Lucy Hale and Troian Bellisario in ABC Family drama pilot Pretty Little Liars. Also cast: Ashley Benson, newcomer Shay Mitchell, Jean Louisa Kelly and Nia Peeples. Elsewhere at the cabler, Tracey Fairway and Nick Robinson will star opposite Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence in an untitled multi-camera comedy and Vanessa Marano and Chloe Bridges will star with Scott Cohen and Stephanie Childers Michael Jacobs' untitled single-camera comedy. (Hollywood Reporter)

Producer Kenn Viselman, the man responsible for who importing the Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine to American television, has formed production company Kenn Viselman Presents, which will focus on development feature films and television programs aimed at the family market. (Variety)

Former FOX Entertainment chairman Peter Ligouri has been hired by Discovery Communications as the company's chief operating officer, where part of his overall responsibility will be overseeing the launch of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, scheduled to debut in 2011. Liguori, who will report to David Zaslav, is expected to begin in his new position in January. (The Wrap's TVMoJoe)

Late Show with David Letterman co-head writers (and brothers) Eric Stangel and Justin Stangel have been promoted to executive producers. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

BBC America Announces Airdate for Final David Tennant "Doctor Who" Special, "The End of Time"

BBC America today announced an airdate for Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, which marks the departure of David Tennant from the series. (I mentioned the scheduling earlier today in my morning news roundup, found here.)

Just a day after the BBC One broadcast of Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, BBC America will air David Tennant's final Doctor Who special on Saturday, January 2nd at 8 pm ET/PT. [Updated: BBC America has since revised the 9 pm ET/PT airing to 8 pm ET/PT.]

The digital cabler's scheduling means that US viewers will be able to see both parts of Doctor Who: The End of Time just a day after UK viewers (Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One is set to air on Friday, December 26th, as previously reported) and will be airing the final three David Tennant specials over a two-week period.

"It's personal for the Doctor," executive producer Russell T. Davies told Radio Times about the final showdown between the Tenth Doctor and The Master. "The Master (John Simm) is his enemy, his opposite, and yet so tantalizingly close to being his soul mate. There's something epic about their sheer existence - the last two survivors of an ancient race. It's a clash of the titans. Both of them, heading for death, and yet both determined to survive - at any cost!"

The full press release from BBC America announcing the scheduling--and official synopses of the final three David Tennant specials, can be found below.

DAVID TENNANT’S FINAL DOCTOR WHO SPECIAL – U.S. PREMIERE ONLY ON BBC AMERICA

BBC AMERICA today announced the U.S. premiere of David Tennant’s final special as the Tenth Doctor. Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, premieres January 2, one week after Part One, on BBC AMERICA. The finale to the era of David Tennant is one of the most eagerly anticipated adventures in the history of Doctor Who. Guest stars include John Simm (Life on Mars) as the Master, Timothy Dalton, Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins. New synopses for the final three specials airing on the channel three straight Saturdays over the holiday season are available below.

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars airs Saturday, December 19, 9:00pm ET/PT

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One airs Saturday, December 26, 9:00pm ET/PT

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two airs Saturday, January 2, 8:00pm ET/PT

Regarding the final specials, lead writer and executive producer Russell T Davies told Radio Times, "It's personal for the Doctor. The Master (John Simm) is his enemy, his opposite, and yet so tantalizingly close to being his soul mate. There's something epic about their sheer existence - the last two survivors of an ancient race. It's a clash of the titans. Both of them, heading for death, and yet both determined to survive - at any cost!"

Davies and Tennant are passing the baton to Steven Moffat and actor Matt Smith, who will play the Eleventh Doctor in a new season of the re-imagined series premiering in 2010 on BBC AMERICA.

BBCAmerica.com/DoctorWho has exclusive Doctor Who video clips including Inside Look interviews with David Tennant, Russell T Davies and executive producer Julie Gardner as well as sneak peeks of The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, Part One.

The BBC will release The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, Part One and Part Two on DVD and Blu-ray, Tuesday, February 2, 2010. A 5-disc set, Doctor Who: Specials Collection, which includes The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars, The End of Time, Part One and Part Two and a 16-page booklet with an introduction written by David Tennant, hits stores the same day.

BBC AMERICA brings audiences a new generation of award-winning television featuring news with a uniquely global perspective, provocative dramas, razor-sharp comedies, life-changing makeovers and a whole new world of nonfiction. BBC AMERICA pushes the boundaries to deliver high quality, highly addictive and eminently watchable programming to viewers who demand more. It is available on digital cable and satellite TV in more than 65 million homes.

DOCTOR WHO: THE WATERS OF MARS - SYNOPSIS
Lindsay Duncan (Alice and Wonderland (2010), Rome) joins the Doctor as his sharpest and most strong-minded companion yet for the second of four Doctor Who Specials. The Waters of Mars is a dark, scary thriller that sees the Doctor land on the planet Mars, at a base in peril. A creeping infection beneath the Martian surface threatens not only the human race, but also the Doctor's most fundamental beliefs. Together with Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), the base’s commander, the Doctor must defeat a seemingly unstoppable menace before it can reach Earth, and wipe out mankind. The Doctor must fight not only the water but destiny itself… Whilst also confronting his own existence, when the prophesy about his future begins to resonate. Is his song about to come to an end?

The Waters of Mars is written by Russell T Davies (Torchwood, Queer as Folk) and Phil Ford and directed by Graeme Harper. The executive producers are Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner (Torchwood, Life on Mars).

DOCTOR WHO: THE END OF TIME, PART ONE – SYNOPSIS
It's the Tenth Doctor's final journey - but his psychotic nemesis the Master has been reborn, on Christmas Eve. With both determined to cheat death, the battle ranges from the wastelands of London to the mysterious Immortality Gate. Meanwhile, the alien race Ood warn of an even greater danger approaching, as a terrible shadow falls across the entire Universe.

David Tennant stars as the Tenth Doctor and guest stars include John Simm, Bernard Cribbins, Catherine Tate, Timothy Dalton, David Harewood and June Whitfield. The End Of Time, Part One is written by Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn. The producer is Tracie Simpson.

DOCTOR WHO: THE END OF TIME, PART TWO - SYNOPSIS
The Doctor faces the end of his life as the Master's plans hurtle out of control. With the sound of drums growing louder, and an ancient trap closing around the Earth, the Doctor and Wilf must fight alone. But sacrifices must be made, and the deadly prophecy warns: "He will knock four times."

David Tennant stars as the Tenth Doctor and guest stars include John Simm, Bernard Cribbins, Catherine Tate, Timothy Dalton, David Harewood and June Whitfield. The End Of Time, Part Two is written by Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn. The producer is Tracie Simpson.

Channel Surfing: FX Renews "Sons of Anarchy," BBC Renews "Merlin," BBC America Sets "Doctor Who" Special, "True Blood" Lures Two, and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing.

On the heels of Tuesday night's second season finale, FX has ordered a third season of Kurt Sutter's biker drama Sons of Anarchy, with thirteen episodes on order for September 2010. Additionally, the cabler has signed a two-year deal with Sutter that will keep him on board Sons of Anarchy as the showrunner/executive producer. "This has been a wonderful ride and we're just getting started," said Sutter in a statement. "I'm really proud of the work by our incredible cast and crew. The response this season from the fans and critics has been terrific and I can't wait to get back to the writer's room and start on season three." (via press release)

BBC One has commissioned a third season of Shine Television-produced medieval drama Merlin. "With its mix of magic, adventure and humour Merlin is perfect Saturday-evening family television, and we are thrilled that Shine Television will be creating a new series for BBC One," said Controller, Drama Commissioning Ben Stephenson. "I'm looking forward to seeing what adventures our popular young wizard, and his friends in Camelot, will go on in series three." (BBC)

BBC America has announced that it will air Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two on Saturday, January 2, a day after the BBC One broadcast. Special marks David Tennant's final appearance as the Tenth Doctor. (via Twitter)

Two more actors have landed recurring roles on Season Three of HBO's True Blood. Theo Alexander (Chuck) will play Talbot, described as the "intensely beautiful" vampiric boyfriend of the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare), while Grant Bowler (Ugly Betty) will play werewolf Coot, described as "the menacing ringleader of a biker gang." (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

It's official: Comcast and GE have announced that they have reached a deal on NBC Universal, with Comcast controlling a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal in a joint venture with General Electric. Jeff Zucker will head up the new joint venture and will report to Steve Burke, Comcast's COO. Broadcasting & Cable's Claire Atkinson has a fantastic breakdown of the key elements of the transaction between the two entities. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Over at The Wrap, Josef Adalian has created an insightful and intelligent list of "Five Things Comcast Must Do to Save NBC," now that the deal between Comcast and General Electric has been officially closed, pending federal approval. "The once-proud Peacock in recent years has become the poster child for those who believe the network TV business model is just a few heartbeats from extinction," writes Adalian. "Before today's announcement, more than a few pundits wondered aloud whether you might simply chuck NBC altogether. But let's assume you're not ready to give up on the notion of broadcasting. Let's imagine you still think there's value in owning a brand with 70 years of history and entry into just about every home in America." (The Wrap's TVMoJoe)

HBO is developing drama project Honest, about a man who goes on the run, from writer/executive producer Eric Simonson (Hamlet) and executive producers Carolyn Strauss and Dan Halsted. (Variety)

Pilot casting alert! Abraham Benrubi, Celia Weston and DJ Qualls have been cast opposite Jason Lee in TNT drama pilot Delta Blues, from executive producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov. Weston will play the mother of Lee's cop/Elvis impersonator Dwight; Qualls will play Dwight's protege on the Memphis police force; Benrubi will play Sgt. J.C. Lightfoot, described as a "6-foot-5 Caucasian man with a braided ponytail who is only one-eighth Chickasaw but lives by his tribe's wisdom and dispenses sage quotations to the rest of the Memphis detectives." (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello talks to Cougar Town co-creator/executive producer Bill Lawrence about the upcoming guest appearance by Courteney Cox's former Friends co-star Lisa Kudrow in the January 6th episode. "They didn’t want to play friends,” Lawrence told Ausiello. "She plays a dermatologist who is a horrible, horrible person, but [Cox] goes to her because she’s the best. The [sight] of them playing people who dislike each other intensely was very funny for me to watch." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

FOX has given a pilot order to an untitled sketch comedy series (which is also being referred to as Inside Jokes) from Merv Griffin Entertainment and executive producer Kevin Connolly (Entourage). Pilot, which is shooting this week, will be hosted by Cameron Bender and feature Mary Scheer, Jay Phillips, Carrie Wiita, Paul Schackman, and Lauren Rose Lewis. (Hollywood Reporter)

MTV has announced that it has renewed The Hills for a sixth season (despite plummeting ratings following the departure of Lauren Conrad) and The City for a second season. (Variety)

UK fans of True Blood are in luck as FX has picked up Season Two of HBO's vampire drama series and will launch the second season in February. (Digital Spy)

Kevin Pollak has been named the host of FOX's upcoming reality competition series Our Little Genius, which launches Wednesday, January 13th before moving to its regular timeslot of Tuesdays at 9 pm ET/PT the following week. "I've been a fan of Kevin Pollak's work for many years. His incredible humor, intelligence and quick wit are all perfect additions to an incredibly dynamic format," said executive producer Mark Burnett. "He instinctively knows when to add seriousness and when to add humor. I am so glad he has joined the Our Little Genius team." (via press release)

E1 Entertainment will join forces with Company Pictures co-produce the US version of British teen drama Skins, which has a pilot pickup at MTV. (Broadcast)

CBS Television Distribution has sold daytime talk show Swift Justice With Nancy Grace into daily syndication and has cleared the programming in nearly all 50 top markets. Series, which will be stripped as back-to-back half-hour installments, will debut in fall 2010. (Hollywood Reporter)

Investigation Discovery has renewed On the Case With Paula Zahn for a second season. (Variety)

NBC Universal Television business affairs executive Rick Olshansky has departed the company in a move said to be unrelated to the Comcast/GE deal, with Variety's Michael Schneider indicating that he is leaving "as much of his oversight has been taken over by NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios chairman Marc Graboff." (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: USA Overhauls Its Schedule, Aunjanue Ellis Takes on "The Mentalist," "Big Love," BBC Confirms "Doctor Who" Dates, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. For those of you Stateside, hope that you're feeling rested (and hopefully recovering from a few days of gluttony) after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Major changes afoot at USA, according to The Futon Critic's Brian Ford Sullivan. Rather than follow the plans the cabler had outlined for January, USA has chosen to revise its entire schedule, moving its series White Collar, Burn Notice, and Psych onto separate evenings, come January. White Collar will return to the lineup on January 19th, where it will move into its new timeslot of Tuesday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT. Meanwhile, Psych will take over the Wednesday night slot beginning January 27th and Burn Notice will remain on Thursdays, returning with new episodes on January 21st. The move gives the cabler original series on three weeknights. Perhaps a ploy to lure viewers from broadcast sibling NBC to some scripted fare at 10 pm? (Futon Critic)

Aunjanue Ellis (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) has been cast in CBS' The Mentalist in a major recurring role. Ellis will play "the beautiful but tough new head of the California Bureau of Investigation who is installed following the resignation of the unit's former chief, Virgil Minelli" (who is played by Gregory Itzin). Her first episode of the Warner Bros. Television-produced drama series will air in April. (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has a first look at the official poster for Season Four of HBO's Big Love, which returns on January 10th. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

BBC One has confirmed its airdates for David Tennant's final two Doctor Who specials, which will air on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, respectively. Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two is set to air at 7:30 pm GMT on New Year's Day, followed by EastEnders and the final episode of Gavin & Stacey. (Digital Spy)

Syfy has signed on as the US broadcaster for E1's international co-production of Haven, a thirteen-episode supernatural thriller based on Stephen King's "The Colorado Kid." Pilot will be written by Sam Ernest and Jim Dunn, who will executive produce with showrunner Scott Shepherd, Lloyd Segan, Shawn Piller, John Morayniss, and Noreen Halpern. (Variety)

Pilot casting alert: Lucas Black (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) and Cary Elwes (A Christmas Carol) have been cast in Epix pilot Tough Trade from Lionsgate Television. Black will play an exceptional guitarist and singer who could have followed in his family's musical legacy in Nashville but instead sells illegal ammunition. Elwes will play his father. Elsewhere, Garrett Dillahunt (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) has been cast in Greg Garcia's FOX comedy pilot Keep Hope Alive, where he will play the dysfunctional father of Lucas Neff's Jimmy, a man who has to raise his infant daughter--the product of a one-night stand--after the baby's mother winds up on death row. (Hollywood Reporter)

Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) and Naoko Mori (Torchwood) have been cast in BBC Four's one-off biopic drama Lennon Naked, which will depict the life of John Lennon (Eccleston) between 1967 and 1971. Project, written by Robert Jones (Party Animals) and directed by Edmund Coulthard (Soundproof), will air in 2010. (BBC)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has two exclusive images from the two-hour Smallville: Absolute Justice telepic, which introduces the Justice Society of America. Ausiello has one shot of Justin Hartley's Green Arrow tangling with Michael Shanks' Hawkman and another of Brent Stait's Doctor Fate and Britt Irvin's Stargirl. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Barry Sonnenfeld (Pushing Daisies) will direct ABC comedy pilot Funny in Farsi, based on Firoozeh Dumas' memoir about growing up in Newport Beach in the 1970s after leaving Iran, which was adapted by Jeffrey Hodes and Nastaran Dibai. (Hollywood Reporter)

Tony Curran will play Vincent Van Gogh in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who, slated to air next year as part of the Matt Smith-led Season Five that is written by Richard Curtis (Pirate Radio). ""We've got a brilliant guy playing Vincent van Gogh... He's a guy called Tony Curran, who really could not look more like [him]," Curtis told Bullz-Eye. "He's a wonderful actor who was in this brilliant movie called Red Road that came out, a rather serious movie. But he's going to be great. I’ve had a lot of fun. We start to shoot in about a month." (Digital Spy)

FOX is developing animated comedy series Rooster Tales with executive producers Matthew McConnaughy, Mark Gustawes, Mike McConaughey, and writer Kell Cahoon. Project is based on the life of Mike "Rooster" McConaughey, described as a "a beer-swilling, redneck sheriff who marries a much younger woman from Mexico [and] soon realizes, however, that he's gained not only a wife but an entire clan -- 114 members and counting." Project hails from 20th Century Fox Television and J.K. Livin'. (Variety)

Ryan Devlin (Veronica Mars) has been cast in ABC comedy Cougar Town, where he will recur as Smith, described as "a love interest for Laurie (Busy Philipps), Jules' (Courteney Cox) ditsy assistant and close friend." (Hollywood Reporter)

Callum Keith Rennie (Battlestar Galactica), Molly Parker (The Road) and Camille Sullivan (Da Vinci's Inquest) have been cast in E1's drama series Shattered, a Canadian series that the indie is shopping to international broadcasters. Project, which will air in Canada on Showcase, will revolve around a homicide detective (Rennie) with multiple personality disorder. (Variety)

TBS comedy VP Nina Howie is leaving the cabler after 3 1/2 years. No reason was given for her departure. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

The End is Near: BBC America Announces Air Date for "Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One"

Good news for Stateside Doctor Who fans.

BBC America has announced that David Tennant's final two Doctor Who specials, Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One and Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, will premiere during the holiday season, with the first set to air on BBC America on December 26th at 9 pm ET/PT.

Yes, you read that correctly: it's just a day after the UK broadcast.

Meanwhile, BBC America said that an announcement on an airdate for the final David Tennant special, Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two will be issued "very soon." [Update: Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two is set to air during the Christmas holiday season in the UK, although not necessarily on New Year's Eve itself.]

Meanwhile, the third-to-last Tennant special (Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars) will air on BBC America on December 19th, making it possible that the digital cabler will air all three Doctor Who specials within a two week period. (Fingers crossed, anyway.)

The full press release from BBC America as well as a three-minute world premiere clip from Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One can be found below.



DOCTOR WHO FINAL TWO SPECIALS BEGIN DECEMBER 26 ON BBC AMERICA
-Exclusive sneak peeks now available at BBCAmerica.com/DoctorWho-

The finale to the era of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, is one of the most eagerly anticipated adventures in the history of Doctor Who. As previously announced, the next special, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars premieres Saturday December 19, 9:00pm ET/PT on BBC AMERICA. The final two specials, Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One and Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, will premiere over the holiday season starting December 26 on BBC AMERICA. Guest stars John Simm, Timothy Dalton, Catherine Tate, Lindsay Duncan and Bernard Cribbins join Tennant on his final journey. Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One premieres Saturday December 26, 9:00pm ET/PT on BBC AMERICA. The End of Time, Part Two premiere date will be announced very soon.

BBCAmerica.com/DoctorWho has exclusive Doctor Who clips including a sneak peek to The Waters of Mars, which The Times says is “a big-budget, knock-yer-socks-off blockbuster” and the Guardian exclaimed “it's a belter, a watery nightmare - scary, moving, relevant, believable.”

The site also has a new world premiere clip from The End of Time, Part One, with never-before seen footage that will keep fans all over the globe wondering what's in store for the Doctor.

This slick re-imagination of Doctor Who, created by Russell T Davies (Torchwood, Queer as Folk), puts a fresh spin on the adventures of the iconic Time Lord and his feisty companions - who travel across the universe to protect Earth from dangerous aliens and terrifying monsters. Davies and Tennant are passing the baton to Steven Moffat and actor Matt Smith, who will play the Eleventh Doctor in a new season of the re-imagined series premiering in 2010 on BBC AMERICA.

The BBC will release The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, Part One and Part Two on DVD and Blu-ray, Tuesday, February 2, 2010. A 5-disc set, Doctor Who: Specials Collection, which includes The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars, The End of Time, Part One and Part Two and a 16-page booklet with an introduction written by David Tennant, hits stores the same day.

Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One will air on BBC America on December 26th at 9 pm ET/PT.

Channel Surfing: Elizabeth Mitchell Talks "Lost" Fate, Itzin to Return to "24," TNT Locks Up "Southland," and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch has an interview with Elizabeth Mitchell and Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about the ultimate fate of Mitchell's Juliet, last seen detonating the hydrogen bomb that may or may not have caused The Incident at the end of Season Five. While Mitchell is set to reprise her role as Juliet Burke on Season Six of Lost, it's been confirmed that Juliet is definitely dead. Still, there are still some mysteries about the good (or not so good?) doctor that still need to be resolved. "There’s still something very significant that we have not yet learned about the character," according to Cuse. (Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch)

Gregory Itzin (The Mentalist) will return to FOX's 24 in a multiple-episode story arc that finds him reprising his role as villainous former President Charles Logan, who was last seen being stabbed by his wife Martha (Jean Smart) during Day Six. The Wrap's Josef Adalian is reporting that Logan will return in Day Eight in order to help Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) deal with a diplomatic crisis. (The Wrap's TVMoJoe)

It's official! TNT has picked up the axed Southland in a deal with Warner Bros. Television that gives the cable exclusive rights to the six unaired episdoes produced for NBC, which TNT will air as well as the series' seven-episode first season. Southland will debut on TNT on Tuesday, January 12th at 10 pm ET/PT. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

NBC has given a script order to hostage crisis drama Zeroes, which depicts the final hour of a hostage crisis. Project, from Universal Media Studios and BermanBraun, will be written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who are attached to direct should the project be ordered to series. (Hollywood Reporter)

David Tennant said that he's jealous of incoming Doctor Who star Matt Smith, who replaces Tennant in the role of the Doctor next year. "I'm really excited for him but I remember how exciting it was starting out on this kind of a journey - and nervewracking and a bit overwhelming but just such a kick," said Tennant. "So I'm jealous he's going through that now, but [it's] brilliant and it couldn't happen to a nicer chap." (BBC Newsbeat)

Ghost Whisperer executive producers Ian Sander and Kim Moses have three projects in development at ABC via their overall deal with ABC Studios, including legal drama Jane and Dick, about an all-female law firm and its newest partner whose life is sent spinning when she crosses paths with her high school boyfriend from writers Jennifer Weiner and Michael Reisz; Police Surgeon, about a female cop who also happens to be a medical surgeon in Chicago, from writer Lance Gentile; and Ghost World, about a male ghost who solves crimes with a female police detective with the hopes of solving his own death, from writer Daniel Taplitz. (Variety)

Scott Foley (The Unit) has been cast in three episodes of ABC's Cougar Town, where he will play a businessman who is shown several homes by Courteney Cox's Jules and who might just be a potential love interest for Jules. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Anthony Michael Hall is set to guest star in the December 10th episode of NBC's Community, where he will play a bully who challenges Joel McHale's Jeff to a fight in the series' Christmas-themed episode. (TV Guide)

Variety's Michael Schneider talks to original V creator Kenneth Johnson about ABC's reimagination, which launches on Tuesday, and his efforts to get a big-screen remake off the ground. "If the show succeeds, it gives us an opportunity to go out with a one sheet that says, 'You like the show, now see the original classic reborn,'"Johnson told Schneider. "And if the show doesn't do well, we can always say, 'Here is the V you've been waiting for.'" (Variety)

Fox21 and Plantinum Studios are developing a drama series based on graphic novel "Gunplay," about "a buffalo soldier condemned to roam the Old West with a hellish curse slung at his waist: a demonic shooting iron that forces him to kill once a day or suffer soul-searing pain." Project will be adapted by Glen Morgan (The X-Files). (Hollywood Reporter)

Ian McKellan will star in half-hour mockumentary series The Academy, where he will play his own fictional brother, the headmaster of a decrepit drama school. Project, written and directed by Peter Hinton, will also star Jonathan Hyde, Sylvester McCoy, and Frances Barber. Production company DLT Entertainment is shopping the series to buyers on both sides of the pond. (Variety)

Warner Bros. Pictures have stepped in as the sole sponsors of FOX's November 8th Seth MacFarlane primetime variety special (Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show), after Microsoft pulled out of the special last week. The studio will air an extended trailer for Sherlock Holmes during the special. (Variety)

Rena Sofer (24) has been cast on CBS' NCIS, where she will play "a no-nonsense attorney with mysterious motives" in a potentially recurring role. (Hollywood Reporter)

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio has been cast in USA's Law & Order: Criminal Intent, where she will play the team's new captain, replacing Eric Bogosian's character. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Has ABC ordered more episodes of its reality series Shark Tank? Not according to an ABC spokesperson. But it's a different story with regard to one of the series' sharks, Robert Herjavec, who announced that the network had ordered additional episodes of Shark Tank via Twitter. (The Wrap's TV MoJoe)

Former Comcast executive Allan Singer has been hired as EVP of distribution and strategy at OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. He'll report to CEO Christina Norman. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

BBC America Announces US Airdate for "Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars"

Following up this morning's Doctor Who story, BBC America has announced that it will air Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars on Saturday, December 19th at 9 pm ET/PT.

The news comes on the heels of BBC One's announcement that they will debut the David Tennant special, the first of three final Doctor Who installments featuring the Tenth Doctor, on Sunday, November 15th at 7 pm GMT, a full month ahead of the US transmission.

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford, will star David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Rome's Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide. The plot finds the Doctor arriving on Mars at the Bowie Base One where not everything is as it seems as the base falls under attack from a deadly water-based threat. ("Mars, 2059. Bowie Base one. Last recorded message: don't drink the water. Don't even touch it. Not one drop.")

US airdates for the final two David Tennant Doctor Who specials will be made public in early December. As fans of the British sci-fi series are aware, Tennant will depart Doctor Who at the end of the year before Season Five returns in 2010 with the Eleventh Doctor, to be played by Matt Smith.

The full press release from BBC America, announcing the scheduling, can be found below.

THE DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS ARE LANDING ON BBC AMERICA

"Mars, 2059. Bowie Base one. Last recorded message: don't drink the water. Don't even touch it. Not one drop."

New York, NY – October 30, 2009 - The BBC today announced the imminent arrival of the final Doctor Who episodes starring David Tennant as the Doctor. Television’s longest running science fiction series, shot in HD, has just three episodes to go before a new Doctor arrives on screen next year.

The next special, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars airs on BBC AMERICA, Saturday December 19, 9:00pm ET/PT. It stars Tennant and British stage and screen actress Lindsay Duncan (Rome, Langford) as Adelaide, his cleverest and most strong-minded companion.

All will be revealed as the Doctor and his companion Adelaide face terror on the Red Planet in one of the scariest adventures yet. Peter O’Brien (Casualty, Neighbours) guest stars as Ed, Adelaide’s second-in-command at the base.

The Waters of Mars is written by Russell T Davies (Torchwood, Queer as Folk) and Phil Ford and directed by Graeme Harper. The executive producers are Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner (Torchwood, Life on Mars).

The remaining episodes, starring Tennant, will air over the holiday season as a two-part special. Airdates will be released in early December. Tennant shot a total of four specials before exiting the role - Planet of the Dead was the first one to air, last July, on BBC AMERICA.

The BBC will release The Waters of Mars and the two-part finale on DVD and Blu-ray, Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead is already available on DVD and Blu-ray. Releasing on February 2 are:
· Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars – DVD SRP: $14.98/BD SRP: $19.89
· Two-part special (2-disc release) – DVD SRP: $24.98 / BD SRP: $29.99
· Doctor Who: Specials Collection (5-disc release) – DVD SRP: $49.98 / BD SRP: $59.99 - contains The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars and the two-part finale

The iconic sci-fi series originally aired on the BBC from ‘63 – ‘89 and ran on over 400 PBS stations in the ‘80s. This slick re-imagination of Doctor Who, created by Russell T Davies puts a fresh spin on the adventures of the iconic Time Lord and his feisty companions - who travel across the universe to protect Earth from dangerous aliens and terrifying monsters.

Doctor Who has received 67 awards in total - two BAFTAs, including Best Drama Series in ‘06, three Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form in ‘06, ’07 and ’08 as well as the Saturn Award for Best International Series in ‘08. Doctor Who has two hit spin-off series - Torchwood, which gets its name from an anagram of Doctor Who, and one for children, The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Channel Surfing: ABC Reveals First "Lost" Promo, BBC One Sets Airdate for "Doctor Who: Waters of Mars," Easton Ellis Spies "Follower" at HBO, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

ABC has released the first promo for Season Six of Lost, the series' final season. But, be warned, the fifteen-second clip doesn't contain any new footage, which many believe is proof positive that the network will be going out of their way to avoid revealing just what happened after Juliet detonated the hydrogen bomb at the end of last season. There's still no premiere date for Season Six of Lost, but it's expected to debut roughly around the end of January.

(Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

BBC One has announced today that it will air the latest David Tennant Doctor Who special, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, on Sunday, November 15th at 7 pm GMT. No word yet on when BBC America will schedule the special, which will feature Tennant in one of his last appearances before his final two-part story at the end of the year. As soon as BBC America announces their scheduling plans, I'll let you know.

Novelist Bret Easton Ellis will adapt Jason Starr's novel "The Follower," about a group of twenty-something Manhattanites seen through the eyes of a stalker, for HBO. Project, from Lionsgate Television, will be executive produced by Jason Blum, Doug Davison, Roy Lee, and Geyer Kosinski. (Variety)

Sasha Alexander (NCIS) has been cast opposite Angie Harmon in TNT's drama pilot Rizzoli, where she will play medical examiner Maura Isles, who teams up with Harmon's police detective Rizzoli to solve crimes in the Boston area. Also cast: Bruce McGill (Law Abiding Citizen), Jordan Bridges (Bionic Woman), and Lee Thompson Young (FlashForward). (Hollywood Reporter)

With Rescue Me set to wrap its run in 2011, Denis Leary and Jim Serpico's Sony Pictures Television-based shingle Apostle Films is busy adding to its development slate, including an untitled CBS dramedy with Peter Ocko which will star Michael Rapaport as a social worker who helps people with their problems but can't solve his own; multi-camera FOX comedy Extended Family, with John Beck and Ron Hart, about a family that takes in foster kids; an untitled FX drama about evangelists with writer David Folwell (Medium); USA procedural drama Partners in Crime, about divorced spouses who are private eyes; USA drama Scales of Justice, about an overweight former cop who teams up with his support group to fight crime; and an adaptation of "The Rebel League," about a hockey league, for Spike. (Variety)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello has the scoop on last night's shocking twist on the CW's Vampire Diaries. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Feature writer Josh Heald has set up two comedy projects at NBC and FOX. His NBC multi-camera comedy script, Sausagefest, will revolve around two twenty-something best friends who each have clingy fathers. Norm Macdonald is attached to play one of the dads, a three-time divorcee and misogynist. Project, from Universal Media Studios and BermanBraun, will be executive produced by Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun. Heald's FOX project, multi-camera comedy Sequestered, will focus on twelve jurors forced to live together when they are sequestered for a lengthy trial. Project, from 20th Century Fox Television and Chernin Entertainment, will be executive produced by Peter Chernin and Katherine Pope. (Hollywood Reporter)

FOX has ordered a sixth season of Seth MacFarlane's animated comedy American Dad, with 22 episodes expected to air during the 2010-11 season. (The Wrap's TVMoJoe)

SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that 90210's token lesbian Gia (Rumer Willis) will embark on a romance with a major and heretofore straight female character later this season. "This isn’t a fling," 90210 executive producer Rebecca Sinclair told Ausiello. "We’re coming at this [relationship] from a genuine place and not going, 'Let’s do a titillating story that will grab some promotion.' This is a real aspect of teenager life that’s interesting... And there’s been a real void in the 90210 universe in terms of gay and bisexual characters." The character in question? Jessica Lowndes' Adrianna. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Comedy Central has ordered six half-hour episodes of an untitled sketch comedy series to star Nick Swardson (Reno 911!) that will mix man-on-the-street interviews, animation, skits, and digital shorts. Series, from Sony Pictures Television and Happy Madison Prods., is expected to launch in 2010. (Variety)

Danielle Panabaker (Shark) has been cast as a guest star on an upcoming episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, where she will play a patient at Seattle Grace under the care of Cristina and Jackson in the November 19th episode. The episode will also feature The Wire's Frankie Faison, who will play Bailey's father, Bill. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Disney Channel has ordered 21 episodes of animated high school comedy Fish Hooks, which will mix photo collage with two-dimensional digital animation. Series, which will launch in Fall 2010, "revolves around party guy Milo (voiced by Kyle Massey); his neurotic brother, Oscar (Justin Roiland); and an overly dramatic goldfish, Bea (Chelsea Staub). They attend Freshwater High, a school submerged in a giant fish tank in the center of a local pet store." (Hollywood Reporter)

The New York Times is reporting that Cox Communication's sale of cabler Travel Channel could fetch as much as $1 billion. The company is said to have received bids from such entities as News Corporation and Scripps Networks, with one of the bids said to be north of $900 million. (New York Times)

Discovery has ordered eight episodes of unscripted series Airplane Repo, from executive producer Craig Piligian, about repo man Nick Popovich who specializes in repossessing jets and helicopters from delinquent owners. It's expected to debut during first quarter 2010. Elsewhere, the network renewed Swords for a second season. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: NBC Drops Axe on "Southland," CBS Books "Hawaii Five-O," Marc Cherry Developing New ABC Series, and More

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

NBC has axed Southland... before the cop drama even began its second season. The Peacock made the announcement about Southland's demise yesterday afternoon, informing studio Warner Bros. Television had it was cancelling the series, which had so far shot six episodes for its sophomore season, slated to begin October 23rd. NBC was quick to point to the series' dark storylines and tone, saying that it wasn't appropriate for a 9 pm timeslot. For their part, creator John Wells and Warner Bros. Television will begin to shop the series to other networks. (Editor: TNT is a likely first port of call for the series.) "I'm disappointed that NBC no longer has the time periods available to support the kind of critically acclaimed series that was for so many years a hallmark of their success," said Wells in a statement. "We remain extremely proud of Southland and are actively looking for another home for the series." NBC hasn't yet announced when--or if--it intends to air the six installments that have already been shot. (Hollywood Reporter's The Live Feed)

Hawaii Five-O has landed a pilot order at CBS. Fringe co-creators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have teamed up with Peter Lenkov (CSI: NY) to develop an contemporary take on the classic series. Lenkov will write the pilot script, under the guidance of Kurtzman and Orci and will be the showrunner should the project be ordered to series; the trio will executive produce the project, which hails from CBS Television Studios. (Variety)

Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry is developing a new series for ABC, which he will write with Desperate Housewives executive producer Alexandra Cunningham. The premise for the series is still being hammered out but, according to Hollywood Reporter's Nellie Andreeva, it will be a standalone series, rather than a spin-off from Desperate Housewives. Cherry is currently under a multi-year deal with ABC Studios. (Hollywood Reporter)

ABC has given full season pickups to comedies Modern Family, Cougar Town, and The Middle. (Televisionary)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan offers an impassioned plea about why FOX should save Dollhouse, once again on the brink of cancellation, and talks with Dollhouse writer Jed Whedon about Dollhouse and a Dr. Horrible sequel. "We did consciously try to do [more standalones at the start of Season 2] because we want to earn the large, arc-y stuff that we're only hinting at in those first couple of episodes," Whedon told Ryan about Dollhouse's sophomore season. "We want her transformation to someone who is self-aware to be gradual. But we end up getting there pretty quickly." (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

Bradley Whitford (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) has been cast as the lead in Matt Nix's FOX drama series Jack and Dan, which already has a thirteen-episode order from the network for next season. Whitford will play Dan, a "drunken, lecherous, wild-card cop who hangs onto his job only because of a heroic act years before." He's paired with a morally-minded and uber-ambitious cop named Jack. Series, from Fox Television Studios, is slated to start shooting early next year. (Hollywood Reporter)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Nate Corddry (United States of Tara) will guest star on NBC's 30 Rock, where he will play Brian, Liz's upstairs neighbor in a storyline that "finds duplex-obsessed Liz scheming to get Brian to ditch his apartment so she can buy it and combine it with hers. Natch, her plan hits a snag when she discovers… um… something unexpected and extremely spoilery." Corrdry will appear in the sixth episode of 30 Rock's fourth season, which begins next week. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Richard Curtis has teased some details in ShortList about his upcoming episode of Season Five of Doctor Who. "I am writing a new episode of Doctor Who, which is great," said Curtis. "I wanted to write something my kids would like. So I'm doing a Doctor Who that will be on TV next February. I've got Van Gogh stabbing a monster... Someone from the BBC just sent me a picture of my monster. I had to decide if it was yellow enough." (Digital Spy)

ITV has canned Stephen Fry-led drama series Kingdom after three seasons. Fry announced the cancellation via his Twitter feed, where he wrote, "Our masters at ITV have decided that there shan’t be a fourth series of the television series Kingdom. I am sorry because it was such a pleasure making them in my beloved Norfolk. I am sorry because the crew of mostly local East Anglians was so cheerful, professional and delightful to work with." Series starred Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor who juggles his family and work lives as well as those of the clients looking to him for legal guidance; series also starred Hermione Norris, Celia Imrie, Karl Davies, Phyllida Law and Tony Slattery.(Broadcast)

HBO will air documentary Terror in Mumbai, a co-production with Britain's Channel 4 that examines last year's deadly terrorist attack, on November 19th, one week ahead of the one-year anniversary of the bombings. (Variety)

Warner Bros. Animation has named Peter Girardi as SVP of series and alternative animation, where he will oversee development and production of the new studio unit's animated series, including Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave and the Bold. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: "Doctor Who" Unveils New Logo, Bravo Renews "Top Chef," Showtime Gets More "Californication," and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. I'm up in Vancouver, where I'll be visiting the sets for Syfy's series Caprica, Stargate Universe, and Sanctuary today.

The Eleventh Doctor has gotten a new logo. Doctor Who revealed its newest title logo, the series' eleventh, which features a play on the series' initials with the shape of the Doctor's TARDIS, which itself resembles a vintage police call box. "A new logo. The eleventh logo for the eleventh Doctor - those grand old words, Doctor Who, suddenly looking newer than ever," said inbound series head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat. "And look at that, something really new - an insignia! DW in TARDIS form! Simple and beautiful, and most important of all, a completely irresistible doodle. I apologise to school notebooks everywhere, because in 2010 that's what they're going to be wearing." The logo will be used on-screen in a new title sequence for Season Five of Doctor Who, with Matt Smith taking over the mantle of the Doctor from outbound series lead David Tennant next year. (via press release)

Bravo announced several renewals and series orders, including a seventh season of Top Chef. Casting on the Season Seven of Top Chef begins October 18th; no city has been announced yet, though the series will debut in 2010. The cabler also announced that it had ordered The Real Housewives of D.C. and renewed The Real Housewives of New Jersey for a second season. Also on tap: unscripted culinary series Chef Academy, which will follow Jean Christophe Novelli as moves to Los Angeles and creates a test program where he will train nine aspiring chefs. (Variety, Hollywood Reporter)

Showtime has ordered a fourth season of dark comedy Californication. News comes on the heels of strong ratings for the third season opener, which racked up a total of 1.2 million in its first two airings. Twelve episodes of Californication are on tap for next year. (Variety)

Fox21 has set up drama project Broken at FX. Written by Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air), the one-hour drama series is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and revolves around "investigative journalist for the New Orleans Gazette who is so frustrated by the breakdown of social and governmental institutions that he takes on a sideline pursuit as a vigilante." Turner will executive produce with Apartment 3B's Jennifer Klein. (Variety)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Desperate Housewives will feature a neighborhood plane crash during November sweeps. "It’s going to be my cliffhanger for the first half of the season," creator Marc Cherry told Ausiello about the catastrophe, which will "affect everyone’s lives" but won't lead to the death of any of the series' titular housewives. "I’d love to kill somebody ’cause that’s just what I do," he told Ausiello. "But the truth is, right now I don’t have anyone major dying." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Sony Pictures Television and executive producer Mark Burnett are shopping a reality competition series take on classic television series Fantasy Island, in which twelve contestants will compete to become the real Mr. (or Mrs.) Roarke of a tropic paradise by fulfilling the wishes of hotel guests. (Variety)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan has compiled a list of television actors, writers, and directors who are on Twitter and has organized them by series. Head over there and take a look. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

MTV is going ahead with plans to air invention series Gone Too Far, hosted by the late DJ AM. The cabler will launch the eight-episode series on October 12th at 10 pm ET/PT. (Variety)

CBS has renewed Canadian-produced drama series Flashpoint for a third season of thirteen episodes, which will air later this season. (Hollywood Reporter)

Looking to catch a glimpse of inbound Doctor's companion Karen Gillan before she steps into the TARDIS next year? UK viewers can check out Gillan in the four-part BBC Two drama The Well, about a set of siblings and their friends who "disturb something dark at the bottom of an ancient well," which kicks off this weekend. (Digital Spy)

Universal Networks International has signed on to co-produce Haven, the thirteen-episode series adaptation of Stephen King's novella "The Colorado Kid" that is being produced by E1 Entertainment. The Universal division has signed on to acquire exclusive pay TV rights in all territories excluding the US, Scandinavia, and Canada. (Variety)

ITV Studios has signed a creative partnership deal with toy manufacturer Mattel under which the studio will partner with Mattel to develop television, mobile, online, and other formats based around its best-selling brands. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: CBS Mulling "Criminal Minds" Spin-off, John Simm Talks "Doctor Who" Send-Off for Tennant, Kevin Zegers Hears "Gossip" Call, and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing.

CBS is said to be developing a potential spin-off from its crime drama series Criminal Minds that will be created by showrunner/executive producer Ed Bernero and executive producer Chris Mundy, the latter of which will write the script for the potential spin-off which will air as an episode of Criminal Minds later this season. No concrete details are available but the series is thought to revolve around a new team of FBI agents, rather than focusing on any of the existing Criminal Minds characters. (Hollywood Reporter)

John Simm (Life on Mars), who returns to Doctor Who to reprise his role as The Master this winter, has said that David Tennant's swan song on the British sci-fi series is a "brilliant send-off" for Tennant and the Tenth Doctor. "It'll be a brilliant send-off for Mr Tennant," said Simm. "Last time I did it it was such fun to do. It was wonderful to be asked back and to be in the very, very last one. To go head-to-head with him was a really honour. It was lovely to be asked. It was a great, great experience. We had such fun doing it. Hopefully it'll come across." (BBC News)

Kevin Zegers (The Jane Austen Book Club) has been cast in a multiple-episode story arc on the CW's Gossip Girl as the potential love interest for Taylor Momsen's Jenny. Zegers will play Damien, "an international bad boy who somehow gets tied up with the likes of little Jenny Humphrey—-who is, in fact, the new Queen Bee." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Diane Ruggiero (Veronica Mars) will write the pilot script for an untitled FOX supernatural dramedy, said to be in the style of Shaun of the Dead, about "a group of dysfunctional siblings who are forced to live together in the family's haunted house after their father dies." Project, from executive producers Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope, and Ruggiero and studio 20th Century Fox Television, has received a script order from the network. (Variety)

TVGuide.com's Natalie Abrams talks to Pushing Daisies' Kristin Chenoweth who guest stars on tonight's episode of FOX's Glee as April Rhodes, a former classmate of Will's who has a certain thing for younger men. "This part is like nothing I've had the chance to do on TV," said Chenoweth of April. "She's very happy when drinking to ease her pain. I also sing in three very different styles, which is always fun and challenging." (TVGuide.com)

FOX has given a pilot presentation order to an untitled animated project from Robot Chicken creators Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, and Tom Root that will revolve around various characters at home and at high school and will feature traditional, rather than stop-motion, animation. Project hails from 20th Century Fox Television. (Hollywood Reporter)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan is reporting that the two-hour pilot for Syfy's Caprica, which launches in January, is hitting the film festival circuit, with airings planned for the San Diego Film Festival as well as the Woodstock Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival in October. (Chicago Tribune's The Watcher)

TLC will relaunch its brand-defining reality series Jon & Kate Plus Eight as just... Kate Plus Eight. The newly retitled series will be relaunched on November 2nd and will focus on Kate Gosselin as the single mother of eight children. But don't count Jon Gosselin out just yet; he's set to continue to make appearances on the series, albeit "on a less regular basis." The cabler is also said to be developing a new series for Kate Gosselin for 2010. (Variety)

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Drop Dead Diva) have received script commitments for two projects at FOX and NBC. The FOX project, a legal drama entitled Laney Sparrow, will be written by Dana Calvo (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and hail from 20th Century Fox Television. The NBC project, dramedy Inside Mary Baxter, is set in a women's prison; that script will be written by Maria Maggenti (Without a Trace), who will executive produce with Zadan and Meron. (Hollywood Reporter)

Billie Piper (Doctor Who), Theo James (Untitled Woody Allen Film), Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval), Sue Johnston (Waking the Dead), and Alun Armstrong (New Tricks) have been cast in BBC One drama Kay Mellor's A Passionate Woman, based on Mellor's stageplay about a young mother who calls in love with a Polish neighbor and its dangerous consequences over a thirty-year period. Project, from Rollem Productions, will air next year. (BBC)

Warner Bros. Television has signed a two-year overall deal with Cold Case executive producer Greg Plageman, under which he will continue to oversee the CBS drama series with Jennifer Johnson and develop new projects for the studio. (Hollywood Reporter)

UK viewers will get a chance to watch Warner Bros. Television's new sci-fi series V (which is airing Stateside on ABC), following a deal between the studio and NBC Universal Global Networks that will see the Scott Peters-executive produced series air on the UK's Sci Fi, as well as the midseason drama series Human Target. (Broadcast)

History Channel has ordered several new reality series, including Extreme Trucking, a spin-off of its Ice Road Truckers, American Pickers, Madhouse, and Sliced. (Hollywood Reporter)

Camryn Manheim (The Practice) has been cast in Lifetime telepic Pregnancy Pact, opposite Thora Birch and Nancy Travis. She'll play a local nurse who alerts the school to the rising rate of teen pregnancies. Telepic is slated to air in early 2010. (Variety)

Jason Priestley will star in Canadian pay TV comedy Meet Phil Fitz, about a "morally bankrupt" used car salesman who "walks a fine line of acceptable behavior on the lot." Project, from writer/executive producer Sheri Elwood (Defying Gravity). E1 Entertainment, Amaze Film and Television, and Big Motion Pictures, will air on Movie Central and the Movie Network in 2010. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Channel Surfing: FOX Keeps "Glee" Singing, Heather Locklear Returns to "Melrose Place," Barrowman Hints at "Doctor Who" Appearance, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. I'm back in the land of the living after recovering from a truly extraordinary Emmy evening the other night. Let's get to the headlines.

FOX has given a full season order to musical comedy Glee, picking up the back nine episodes to bring this season's total to 22 segments. While the cast had already filmed the thirteen initial episodes, there had been no word if FOX would be going ahead with the production until yesterday. Meanwhile, E! Online's Jennifer Godwin has the scoop on some upcoming plot points for the ten remaining unaired episodes from Glee's initial order, including some potential romantic complications for, well, everyone. (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

The CW has announced that Heather Locklear will reprise her role as conniving Amanda Woodward on the resurrected Melrose Place later this season. Locklear is set to first appear in the November 17th episode though the reasons behind her return to the courtyard apartment complex remain a mystery. (Editor: could it have to do with Sydney stealing her thunder by faking her death too?) Zap2It wonders whether Locklear's Amanda could have a familial relationship with Katie Cassidy's Ella but that remains speculation at the moment. (Zap2It)

Torchwood star John Barrowman has hinted that he might make an appearance in this year's final David Tenannt Doctor Who specials. (Editor: I predicted as much back when Torchwood: Children of Earth wrapped its run earlier this summer.) Barrowman, asked by Metro about whether he would be returning to Doctor Who, said, "I'll put it this way - Captain Jack will always return to the side of The Doctor when he needs assistance." Hmmm... (Digital Spy)

John Glenn (Eagle Eye) will write the script for FOX drama pilot Fallen, described by the Hollywood Reporter as "a real-world drama that revolves around a group of vigilante "fallen" angels who take down the criminal and the corrupt in New York while falling in love, battling demons and seeking their own personal revenge." Project, from 20th Century Fox Television and the Chernin Co., will be executive produced by Glenn, Peter Chernin, and Katherine Pope. (Hollywood Reporter)

CBS is staying in the crime drama business. The network has given script orders (with penalties) to two projects from Sony Pictures Television. The first is an untitled crime drama from Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) about a quirky college professor who solves crimes; Tolan will executive produce with Michael Wimer. The second is The Rememberer, from writer/executive producer Ed Redlich (Without a Trace), about a female NYPD cop who has the secret ability to recall everything that she experiences. Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly will also executive produce. (Variety)

SPOILER! E! Online's Watch with Kristin chats with House star Jesse Spencer about what's coming up for Chase this season. "I'm back on the team," Spencer told E! Online's Jennifer Godwin. "It's kinda old-school: Cameron and Chase, kickin' it old-school. The merging of the teams is a work in progress. People are back and forth, and in and out, but I think very soon it's going to be a complete conglomeration of old and new. It's going to be a new dynamic for the team, which I think is going to be really good... I've got a lot of storylines coming my way. There's a bit of dodgy doctoring going on. But dodgy doctoring is all we do on the show. Bend the rules a little bit--that's what House does. If House was practicing medicine [in the real world], he'd have lot his license on day one." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Michael Fresco (My Name is Earl) will direct single-camera FOX comedy pilot Keep Hope Alive, from writer/executive producer Greg Garcia and 20th Century Fox Television, about a 25-year-old man who--wait for it-- is "raising an infant with the help of his quirky family after the mother of the baby, with whom he had a one-night stand, ends up on death row." (Hollywood Reporter)

FX has announced that it will launch comedy series The League in the 10:30 pm timeslot following It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia beginning October 29th. Series, from Jeff Schaffer and Jackie Marcus Schaffer, follows the exploits of a fantasy football league. Meanwhile, the cabler also announced that animated comedy Archer (which aired its pilot via a sneak peek on Thursday evening) will launch in January and Louie will kick off sometime during the first quarter. (via press release)

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello talks to Mariska Hargitay about what's coming up on Law & Order: SVU via a video interview at Sunday's Emmy Awards. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

Variety is reporting that the Television Critics Association will return to the Langham Hotel in Pasadena for the Winter Press Tour in January but has secured the Beverly Hilton for the next three Summer Press Tours, beginning with the 2010 session, slated to run July 17th to August 8th. (Variety)

Stay tuned.