[Televisionary]

Welcome to your (very early) Tuesday morning television briefing. In a rather major casting coup, FOX's 24 has cast former Battlestar Galactica star Katee Sackhoff as a series regular in Day Eight, where she will play Dana Walsh, a "highly respected and down-to-earth data analyst at the new and improved New York branch of CTU" who is romantically involved with Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Davis Cole and has a "skeleton in her closet she's trying desperately to keep hidden." Sackhoff joins such Day Eight players as Prinze, Mykelti Williamson, Jennifer Westfeldt, Chris Diamantopoulous, John Boyd, and Anil Kapoor. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) It's now believed that Lost 's Dominic Monaghan will be joining the cast of ABC's Flash Forward this fall. IGN's Eric Goldman is reporting, citing reports from an undisclosed insider, that Monaghan will be joining Flash Forward and that the actor, who played Charlie Pace on Lost, will &quo

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. ABC is set to bring back Better Off Ted earlier than expected as the network has announced that it will air six unaired episodes from Ted 's first season this summer before kicking off a second season of thirteen episodes in early 2010. Better Off Ted will return to ABC's schedule on June 23rd at 9 pm ET/PT, airing behind new reality competition series The Superstars . [Editor: that gleeful squealing sound you're hearing? It's me.] Meanwhile, ABC also announced that it had pulled comedy Surviving Suburbia from its lineup, instead airing back-to-back episodes of The Goode Family this week. ( Variety ) Mykelti Williamson ( Kidnapped ) has joined the cast of Day Eight of FOX drama 24 , where he will play the head of CTU New York, Brian Hastings, described as having "a razor-sharp intellect." Williamson, who will be a series regular next season, joins the recently announced Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Westfe

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. BBC America has acquired the US premiere rights to five Doctor Who specials, featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and plans to air "The Next Doctor," the 2008 Christmas Special, on June 27th at 9 pm ET/PT. The first of this year's specials, entitled "Planet of the Dead," will follow in July with the three others airing in late 2009 and early 2010. “The outstanding quality of the Doctor Who scripts from Russell T. Davies and the on-screen dynamic that David Tennant brings to the role are a magic combination for our viewers," said BBC Worldwide America president Garth Ancier. "Russell’s spin-off series Torchwood is already our highest rated show on the channel and I know the fans will follow these new specials with equal passion and support. We’re thrilled to bring this iconic show to BBC America, home of the best British sci-fi programming on television." Meanwhile, Doctor Who spin-o

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Jennifer Westfeldt ( Grey's Anatomy ) and John Boyd ( The Notorious Bettie Page ) have been cast in Day Eight of FOX drama series 24 . Westfeldt will recur as journalist Meredith Reed, an ambitious writer who has ties to Middle East leader Arman Hashemi (Anil Kapoor), who arrives in the U.S. on a peacemaking mission. Boyd, meanwhile, will be a series regular and will play CTU analyst Jonah Schwartz. ( Hollywood Reporter ) The Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach has joined the writing staff of NBC's upcoming sci-fi series Day One, where he will serve as writer/co-executive producer. Also joining the writing staff, according to series creator Jesse Alexander (who broke the news via Twitter): Kings ' Erik Oleson, and Angela Kang. ( io9 ) BBC Films has confirmed that a big screen version of Doctor Who is being developed and that development of a script is currently underway. It's unclear whether inbound showrunne

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Wondering just what Season Three of NBC's Chuck will be like? For one thing the series' core trio isn't going anywhere. "Yes. Chuck, Sarah, and Casey are in all episodes," said Chuck co-creator/executive producer Josh Schwartz. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello catches up with Schwartz to find out about Season Three, budget cuts, Subway, returning supporting cast members ("We have plans for Anna to return"), and about being off the air for ten months. "It was really a tough choice that the network faced: Put us on Friday or [hold us until] midseason," said Schwartz. "I really believe Chuck is the little show that could. Our fans are clearly passionate, clearly loyal, and hopefully all we'll do is get them more and more [excited] for our return. And we'll come up with fun ways of stoking the fans throughout the fall. We also have something very, very fun planned for

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

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. With May Upfronts only a few weeks away, there are an awful lot of series that are on the bubble for renewal next season. Chuck , which airs its penultimate episode of the season tonight, is definitely on the bubble, with its return hindered by the lack of real estate now that NBC will use the 10 pm hour next fall for a nightly Jay Leno talk show and by the numbers for midseason replacement Southland . There's a slightly better chance for Medium to return, however. ( Life is expected to be cancelled, as is Kath & Kim .) FOX's Dollhouse is said to have a 50/50 shot at coming back. CBS' Without a Trace and Cold Case are said to have a 50/50 shot at a renewal, things are looking brighter for The Unit after the network asked Shawn Ryan for a fifth season bible, while Eleventh Hour is thought unlikely to return. At ABC, Better Off Ted, Castle , and The Unusuals could get a second go-around as the network is said to be

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that FOX will not be renewing sophomore drama series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for a third season. While the network has declined to comment on a cancellation, saying that they won't be announcing their fall schedule until May 18th, Ausiello has several unnamed insiders stating that the series is dead. "It's done," said one source. "Everyone has pretty much known for a couple of weeks." Ausiello was told by one network insider, "Consider it canceled." ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) As previously reported, Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, and Gary Jones will reprise their roles from various Stargate franchise series in Sci Fi's upcoming series SGU: Stargate Universe. Also joining them in providing a guest starring role on the first season of the spin-off series is Amanda Tapping, who will reprise

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Showtime has renewed period drama The Tudors for a fourth and final season. The series, which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as England's King Henry VIII, will air ten episodes--all penned by series creator Michael Hirst--in spring 2010. ( Variety ) 24 executive producer Howard Gordon talks to Entertainment Weekly 's Hollywood Insider about the return of Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) to the FOX series. "Kim has been easily targeted and lampooned by fans, so we had to do it very carefully," said Gordon of Cuthbert's return. "Elisha was as sensitive to this as we were." Gordon, meanwhile, offers a few tidbits about the reason behind her return and about her relationship with Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Hollywood Insider ) E! Online's Jennifer Godwin was on hand last night at the Paley Festival's panel for HBO's True Blood and has some answers about the Sooki

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. The Pie Maker returns to ABC! Pushing Daisies fans will finally be able to catch the final three episodes of the prematurely canceled series. ABC is expected to officially announce that it will air the final three episodes of Pushing Daisies on Saturday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT beginning May 30th. (Sadly, still no news for when or if Dirty Sexy Money or Eli Stone will return to the lineup to burn off their remaining installments.) Also on tap for May on ABC: four-hour mini-series Diamonds , starring Judy Davis and James Purefoy, on May 24th and 26th; the launch of The Bachelorette on May 18th; the return of reality competition series Opportunity Knocks on May 26th; Wipeout returns on May 27th; and comedy The Goode Family will kick off on May 27th. ( Futon Critic ) Despite her character seemingly dying in the fifth season finale of Melrose Place (where she was run over on her wedding day), Laura Leighton will reprise her role a

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Still scratching your head about the apparent confusion surrounding the age of Lost 's Charlotte Staples Church, played by Rebecca Mader, who was allegedly born in 1979 but then turned up as a kid on the island in 1974? You're not the only one. In executive producer Damon Lindelof and Carlton's Cuse's latest podcast, they placed the blame for the mixup about Charlotte's age squarely on Mader, saying that she changed her character's age from 37 to 28. Mader then shot back on her Facebook page, blaming Team Darlton for the error. Now Darlton have cleared up the confusion and apologized to Mader. "Rebecca is absolutely right and we apologize to both her and the entire fan community for screwing up the story," said the duo in an email to Michael Ausiello (click through to read the full statement). "Our first mistake was the timeline gaffe, but the much more significant one was wrapping Rebecca up in