Channel Surfing: Starbuck is "Lost and Found," Paul McGann NOT headed to "Doctor Who," Hugh Laurie, and More

Good morning and welcome to your Friday morning television briefing.

In her first television role since the end of Battlestar Galactica (hitting small screens in 2009), Katee Sackhoff has signed on to star in drama pilot Lost and Found for Dick Wolf at NBC. Project, from writer/executive producer Chris Levinson, revolves around NYPD detective Tessa Cooper (Sackhoff) who is forced to solve John and Jane Doe cases after she finds herself rubbing her bosses the wrong way. Sackhoff's attachment lifts the cast contingency on the project, which was ordered to pilot last month. (Hollywood Reporter)

FOX has signed a new deal with Gordon Ramsay that will keep the chef at the network for several more years and includes an agreement to produce two more editions of Hell's Kitchen, another season of Kitchen Nightmares, and a third series (likely based on Ramsay's Channel 4 series Man Camp, about a boot camp for men worried by how feminine they're becoming) and a special in which at-home viewers will be able to cook alongside Ramsay. (Futon Critic)

Hugh Laurie has become one of the highest paid actors on television, signing a new deal with Universal Media Studios to continue starring on FOX's House through the 2011-12 season, in a deal said to be worth more than $9 million a year (or $400,000/episode). (Hollywood Reporter)

HBO has ordered a pilot script for an untitled drama series about a Florida golf pro who is forced to enter the witness protection program from writers/sports columnists Carl Hiaasen and Mike Lupica. (Variety)

BBC has denied tabloid reports that Paul McGann, who played the Doctor in a 1996 made-for-TV movie and a series of audio adventures, had been cast in one of the four upcoming Doctor Who specials expected for 2009. The Beeb has categorically denied the story, which ran in The Sun: "There is no truth to the story at all," said a spokeswoman. (Digital Spy)

Wondering how Jason O'Mara felt, being the only cast member to stick around after ABC axed the original pilot for Life on Mars? Find out in this interview. (Los Angeles Times)

BermanBraun has hired Gene Stein as its head of nonscripted programming while Matt Hanna, who had been overseeing the development slate, will focus on overseeing the series that the production company produces through its deal with Thom Beers' Original Prods. (Variety)

In other executive shuffle news, Maria Grasso has left Lifetime and to join cabler OWN:The Oprah Winfrey Network in a top development role, reporting to Robin Schwartz. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); America's Toughest Jobs (NBC); Friday Night SmackDown! (CW; 8-10 pm); 2008 ALMA Awards (ABC; 8-10 pm); Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? (FOX)

9 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); Dateline (NBC; 9-11 pm); Don't Forget the Lyrics (FOX)

10 pm: NUMB3RS (CBS); 20/20 (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

Um, I think I'll just go out instead...

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season ...

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See You in Another Life: Thoughts on The Series Finale of Lost

"No one can tell you why you're here." I'm of two minds (and two hearts) about the two-and-a-half hour series finale of Lost ("The End"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender, which brought a finality to the story of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 and the characters with which we've spent six years. At its heart, Lost has been about the two bookends of the human existence, birth and death, and the choices we make in between. Do we choose to live together or die alone? Can we let go of our past traumas to become better people? When we have nothing else left to give, can we make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good? In that sense, the series finale of Lost brought to a close the stories of the crash survivors and those who joined them among the wreckage over the course of more than 100 days on the island (and their return), offering up a coda to their lives and their deaths, a sort of purgatory for found, r...

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