[Televisionary]

As the Summer Solstice has come and gone now, the hot months of summer are officially in full swing as the broadcast and cable networks bring out their slate of originals and burn-offs during the sweltering season. While I'm sinking my teeth into quite a bit of programming this summer (including HBO's True Blood , Bravo's Top Chef , and my latest obsession, BBC America's upcoming Come Dine With Me ) and catching up on some others (cough, Friday Night Lights , cough), I'm curious to know just what you are watching right now... and what you intend to watch this summer. Are you hooked on USA's dramedies? Can't wait for the return of Entourage ? Trembling at the thought of more True Blood ? Intrigued by Work of Art ? Spooked by the thought of Syfy's Haven ? Head to the comments section to discuss what's on your season pass this summer, what's failed to click with you so far, and what new and returning television series you are most looking forward to

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alanis Morissette will return to Weeds for the Showtime dark comedy's sixth season, set to launch August 16th. Leigh will reprise her role as Nancy's sister Jill in one episode, with Morissette due to appear in two episodes as Andy's girlfriend Audra Kitson, who also happened to be Nancy's doctor. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Jamie Foxx has shot a trailer for a potential television project entitled Tommy's Little Girl , which features Paul Sorvino, Selma Blair, James Russo, and Tony Sirico. Project would revolve around the relationship between a mobster (Sorvino) and his daughter (Blair) and will be pitched to cable networks. ( Deadline ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello has an interview with newly promoted Grey's Anatomy series regular Sarah

I already spoke in general terms about the season premiere of Top Chef over in my advance review of the episode , but now that the episode has aired, we can get down to the details of the food that the cheftestants prepared this week. First episodes are always tricky as there are a lot of new contestants and it's often hard to keep track of all of them, particularly when there are seventeen of them being introduced all at once. But this is Top Chef , after all, so it's only typical that the strongest performers would stand out in the first week... along with some of those who might be destined to be packing their knives sooner rather than later. This week's episode of Top Chef ("What's Your Constituency?") found the new crop of contenders heading to Washington D.C., where they were immediately put through their paces in a round-robin Quickfire Challenge--with only four chefs actually getting to create a dish--before heading into their first Elimination

Before we can even catch our collective breath after the end of Top Chef Masters , Bravo has brought back the original Top Chef to the lineup, beginning with tonight's season premiere ("What's Your Constituency?"). While I've loved seeing master chefs hone their craft even further on Top Chef Masters , I have to say that I'm really excited by the return of Top Chef itself. There's an even fiercer air of competition from these chefs, many of whom are just beginning their culinary careers... and are therefore less likely to play nice and be as helpful as the masters. Which means more drama, inevitably. Heading to Washington D.C., this season of Top Chef finds the seventeen new contestants attempting to outdo their competitors in the nation's capital, which means that the setting is only too apt for the backstabbing and manipulation likely to unfold as this season's episodes get underway. In the first installment alone, we're treated to

I really enjoyed this season of Top Chef Masters , which came to a close last night with a heart-stopping final showdown between three of the strongest chefs in the competition. It was only fitting that the season finale ("Top Chef Master") would ask each of these master chefs to reflect back on their lives and their careers and pull together a final three-course meal for the critics that reflected where they had been and where they were going. Happy childhoods, struggles, and painful memories--as well as creative awakening--were all demonstrated on the plate as Marcus Samuelsson, Susur Lee, and Rick Moonen faced off for the title of Top Chef Master and a substantial donation to the charity they were playing for. So how did they do? And who walked out of the Top Chef Masters kitchen as the ultimate winner? Let's discuss. At this point in the competition, I'm glad that we didn't see a final Quickfire Challenge and instead the time that would have been used focusin

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” - Leonardo Da Vinci I'll admit that my expectations for Bravo's newest reality competition series Work of Art were painfully low. After all, this seems just just the sort of series for which you can easily make a snide remark about it being less exciting than watching paint dry. But I have to say that I was extremely pleasantly surprised by Work of Art , which premieres tonight. Not only was it fast-paced and exciting, but it was slickly produced, thanks in part to the crack team at Magical Elves, which has once again worked its reality magic on this format. Art isn't the most accessible of topics, yet the show--which is hosted by China Chow--is just that: tearing away the sort of potential pretentiousness of its subject by allowing the audience to enter the minds of some gifted artists--each coming from different media--and participate in the artistic process. The result is a fun and engaging hour that's overflowing with quirk

Looking to set your TiVo season pass this summer before you head out on vacation? Or sticking around and wondering just what's worth watching (or at least checking out) this summer? Head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my piece entitled, "19 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer," where I break down 19 new and returning series airing during the sweltering season, including HBO's True Blood AMC's Rubicon and Mad Men , Bravo's Work of Art and Top Chef: DC , FOX's Masterchef , Syfy's Haven , USA's White Collar , TNT's Memphis Beat and Rizzoli & Isles , BBC America's Being Human , and a lot more. Check out the gallery to read descriptions of the series and then head to the comments section to discuss just what you're most excited about this summer.

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Amy Ryan ( The Office, The Wire ) has landed a role on Season Three of HBO's psychiatric drama In Treatment , where she will play the new therapist for Gabriel Byrne's Paul. That role was formerly supplied by Dianne Wiest's Gina, who was Paul's mentor/psychotherapist for the first two seasons. (Wiest has departed the series.) [Editor: it's about high time that Ryan had a regular gig on a series. She's been a favorite since her turn on The Wire as Beadie, so it's only fitting that she returns to HBO for In Treatnment .] ( Deadline ) E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos has an interview with Glee 's Jessalyn Gilsig, who plays Will's scheming ex-wife Terri. So will Terri be returning for Season Two of Glee ? And just what was up with her potentially inappropriate interest in Finn (Cory Monteith)? While Gilsig admits that she hasn't yet received her

I know that a lot of people were turned off my this week's Elimination Challenge on Bravo's Top Chef Masters , given its use of some out of the ordinary (okay, extreme) ingredients, such as geoduck, black chicken, duck's tongue, kangaroo, sea cucumber, and monkfish liver. While I haven't eaten a single item that was on offer here, I like to be open-minded. I'm somewhat culinarily adventurous and, if one of these master chefs cooked something, I would eat whatever they put down in front of me, if I had the chance. Even if that was something as unpalatable as the Pacific Northwest's phallic-looking bivalve the geoduck or the sea cucumber, which Susan Feniger described as "a slug." So while it didn't exactly stir my appetite, I was fascinated to see how each of the chefs would adapt and use these ingredients on this week's episode of Top Chef Masters ("Scary Surf and Turf"). Tasked with using two unusual proteins--a land-base

Kudos to the producers for putting the master chefs through their paces with two of my favorite all-time Top Chef challenges, back-to-back. This week on Top Chef Masters ("Wedding Wars"), the eight semi-finalists gathered back in the Top Chef kitchen to discover that they wouldn't be able to glide through on their earlier wins this week. No, the producers were determined to get these chefs to experience the full pressure and heat of Top Chef by making them participate both in the tag-team cook-off and--shudder--wedding wars. As fans of Top Chef well know, wedding wars is one of the toughest and craziest challenges ever devised on the series as the chefs have limited resources and--even more critically--time to pull together an entire wedding reception (including cake!) on their own. Not only to do they have to get food out fast but it has to taste good, satisfy the 150 guests of the wedding, and make the bride and groom happy. It's worth noting, of cours

If you've ever been on a working television or film set, you know the mad rush that the lunch call is as the cast and crew head towards a makeshift dining room--usually set amid film equipment and discarded set pieces--to grab a brief respite before heading back into the madness. Caterers specialize in delivering fast, fresh, and tasty grub that's all ready to go when the crew is meant to go on break and it's a brutal business. So that rhythm and pacing would be the perfect challenge for the five new master chefs entering the Top Chef kitchen this week: Rick Tramonto, Maria Hines, Debbie Gold, Joey Adams, and Susur Lee, the latter of whom was named one of Food & Wine 's Ten Chefs of the Millennium. (No small matter, that.) On this week's episode of Top Chef Masters ("Cast and Crew Meal"), the master chefs were tasked with creating a perfectly styled fruit plate and preparing a cast and crew meal for the actors and staffers on ABC's comedy s

Ah, pub food. For all of its humble origins, British pub food is exactly what I crave on a long, cold night, conjuring up an image of a roaring fireplace and a nice pint of lager. It's earthy, homey, stick-to-your ribs sort of food and it's just as often terrible when it's made without care or love. But in the right hands and in the right kitchen, it's just the thing to banish the mid-winter blues. On this week's episode of Top Chef Masters ("Pub Food"), six master chefs from Season One--Jonathan Waxman, Ludo Lefebvre, Mark Peel, Rick Moonen, Wylie Dufresne, and Graham Elliot Bowles--returned with a second shot at glory as they reunited in the Top Chef kitchen to compete for charity, a spot in the next round of competition, and a chance to redeem themselves. But in order to do so they'd not only have to craft a dish best paired with a specific Stoli-based cocktail (and serve it to--of all people--cast members from Bravo's Real Housewives of Orang

If you're participating in a reality competition series, should you help out a competitor if they find themselves in the weeds? And does the answer to that question change if you're competing for charity? This week's episode of Top Chef Masters ("It's My Party"), the season's second, welcomed five new master chefs to the Top Chef kitchen--Carmen Gonzalez, David Burke, Marcus Samuelsson, Monica Pope, and Thierry Rautureau--as they made their way through a Quickfire Challenged designed to tie into National Grilled Cheese Month (yum!) and catered a soul food-themed birthday party atop the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills (about a block away from where I live) for actor Mekhi Phifer ( ER ). But one chef found themselves in a bit of a bind when they realized they had left a crucial element of their dish back at the the Top Chef kitchen and had to return to collect it while the timer continued to tick down. Which is where the above question really came