Bad news for fans of FOX's forensic drama Bones.
No, before the letter-writing campaigns begin (complete with massive mountains of Paul Smith striped socks being sent to FOX executives, no doubt), the series hasn't been canceled... but fans of the drama, currently in its third season, will have to wait quite a while for new episodes.
FOX has once again tweaked its midseason schedule and announced that, in addition to a berth on Friday evenings, Bones will pop up on the Monday night lineup at 8 pm, beginning in April.
While the above is hardly reason for concern, it's the fact that FOX is pushing the remaining four produced episodes of Bones, which were meant to air during February sweeps, to April 28th.
Which means that anyone waiting for another fix of Brennan and Booth is going to have to cool their heels for quite some time. It also means that FOX is dead serious about digging their heels in for the long term, preparing for the eventuality that the strike will not end in time to get the 2007-08 season back on track...
In other FOX programming news, Terminator fans can get a sneak peek at the pilot for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, starring Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, and Richard T Jones over at Yahoo, beginning tonight at 9 pm PT/midnight ET.
Personally, I was let down by the pilot when I saw it in early May, so I am curious to see if there have been any significant changes since then... But I will admit that I am curious to see how they manage to replace Owain Yeoman (The Nine) with Garret Dillahunt (No Country for Old Men) after the pilot episode...
If there's one series that I view with the utmost respect and adoration it's the sadly short-lived Freaks & Geeks, though the series has certainly proven itself an adept hand at casting the next generation of talent actors, from Linda Cardellini and Jason Segel to James Franco, Busy Phillips, and Seth Rogen.
I've been hoping for a long time now that the series' Sam Weir, John Francis Daley, would find a series equal to his talents, but after the demise of Kitchen Confidential, Boston Public, and botched pilot The Call, I hoped that we'd get to see him as a series regular on an established series for a change.
That hope has arrived in the form of FOX's procedural crime drama Bones. Daley has been upgraded to series regular status on the series after making a guest appearance earlier this season.
Daley plays Dr. Lance Sweets, a therapist assigned by the FBI to monitor the relationship between Temprance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) in order to see whether they should continue as partners.
As Daley's recent upgrade means that he'll be seen in more than the four episodes in his original deal, I'd expect that we'll see him in more locations than just his therapist's office over the course of the season...
"[Daley] is terrifically funny and very appealing while projecting intelligence, which injects his scenes with all our actors, especially Emily and David, with a kind of rollicking energy that is a real bonus," said Bones executive producer Hart Hanson. "He fits in perfectly with the cattywonkers tone of our show."
Cattywonkers indeed.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Singing Bee (NBC); Beauty and the Geek (CW); It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (ABC); Bones (FOX)
9 pm: The Unit (CBS); The Biggest Loser (NBC; 8:30-10 pm); Reaper (CW); Dancing with the Stars (ABC); House (FOX)
10 pm: Cane (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
8 pm: Beauty & the Geek.
I'm a sucker for the CW's "social experiment" Beauty & the Geek. But if you were hoping for a brand-new episode tonight, you're plum our of luck. On tonight's episode ("A Look Back"), the producers offer up a retrospective of this season so far along with never-before aired footage. Yawn.
8 pm: Torchwood on BBC America.
Looking for something entirely different to watch? Why not catch this past Saturday's episode of British import Torchwood, a spin-off of Doctor Who? On tonight's episode ("They Keep Killing Suzie"), when Torchwood is implicated in a series of murders, Jack uses the gauntlet to resurrect Suzie Costello to provide some answers, but Suzie has other plans when she comes back to life for longer than the gauntlet's standard two minutes.
A whole slew of casting notices on this chilly early morning in Los Angeles.
John Francis Daley, best known for playing adorable moppet Sam on the still-much-missed Freaks and Geeks, has signed on in a recurring capacity on procedural drama Bones, where he'll play a therapist. (Really, has our little pygmy geek Sam grown up that much?) Daley most recently appeared in the comedy pilot The Call and FOX's short-lived Kitchen Confidential.
Elsewhere, Cherry Jones has landed herself a husband on 24: Colm Feore (Slings and Arrows) will play the First Husband. (Wonder if that means that early plans to give the series' first female president both a husband and a child living at the White House will prove to still be valid.)
Flipping channels over to ABC, Season Four of Lost has gained three new actors. Rebecca Mader (Justice), Jeremy Davies (Band of Brothers), and Lance Reddick (HBO's The Wire) have joined the cast of the drama series, which returns in February 2008. Details on their respective characters are being kept under even tighter wraps than the mystery of Jacob.
Reddick is allegedly playing Arthur Stevens, a corporate recruiter (for Hanso, perhaps?), while it's possible that Mader has been cast as Charlotte, an attractive and loquacious academic. While there is no information about who he'll be playing, Davies will appear in eight episodes of the series next season.
With Kristen Bell no longer available to join the cast of Lost next season, can I make one teensy suggestion to the producers as to a possible replacement, if Mader won't be playing "Charlotte" (the character Bell was meant to play)? Keri Russell?
