[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 Wednesday morning television briefing. With the 100th episode of Lost set to air tonight on ABC, many are already looking to the series' next milestone: the all-important series finale, set for May, 2010, and viewers are bound to have high expectations when creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wrap up the series. "We can't let those expectations terrify us," said Lindelof in an interview with Variety 's Shawn Malcom. "The reality is, we've known what the series finale is going to be for a while now." In fact, the real variable is how the series' characters wind up at the end point charted by Lindelof and Cuse. "The path that we take to the end still has some room for surprises and changes and discoveries along the way (in terms of) the characters' journeys and how their relationships evolve," said Cuse. While the duo wouldn't reveal any specifics about the finale, they did say that fans will be left wanting

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. NBC has pulled freshman drama Kings from its schedule, effective immediately. The drama was originally set to air on Thursday evenings but the Peacock shifted it to Sundays, where it aired four low-rated episodes before being pushed to the graveyard on Saturday nights. NBC has once again managed to surprise, this time by pulling Kings from its lineup altogether, although the network has pledged to return Kings to the schedule on June 13th, when it will begin to burn off the remainder of the series' unaired installments on Saturday nights at 8 pm. In the meantime, NBC will air repeats of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Southland, and Law & Order on Saturdays. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Variety 's Season Pass has a brand-new Q&A with Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as they look back at the five seasons that have gone by and the final season yet to come. "I think our hope is that

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Freddie Prinze Jr. ( Freddie ) has been cast as one of the leads in ABC's US remake of UK comedy series No Heroics . In the ABC Studios-produced pilot, Prinze will play Bradley (a.k.a. Ultimatum), a cocky celebrity superhero with no shortage of women, arrogance, or grade-school quips. He joins the already cast Paul Campbell, Eliza Coupe, and Arielle Kebbel. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Just days after announcing that Samantha Who? star Jennifer Esposito had been cast in USA's Burn Notice , the actress has dropped out of the role. No reason was given for Esposito's departure from the series, where she was to have played Miami police detective Michelle Paxon, a new adversary for Jeffrey Donovan's Michael Weston. Stepping in to replace Esposito: Moon Bloodgood ( Journeyman ), who will assume the role of Michelle. Production on Burn Notice 's third season is currently underway. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Samantha Who? 's Jennifer Esposito has been cast in a multiple-episode story arc on USA's Burn Notice , where she will play Michelle Paxon, "a Miami PD detective who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about Michael." Esposito is expected to first turn up at the start of Season Three of Burn Notice , scheduled to debut in June. ( Entertainment Weekly' s Ausiello Files ) Chevy Chase, who'll be seen later this season on NBC's Chuck , has been cast as one of the leads in NBC's comedy pilot Community , where he will play a community college student who has been married five times, opposite Joel McHale. Pilot will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo ( Arrested Development ). ( Hollywood Reporter ) Richard Dreyfuss ( Tin Man ) and Jason Biggs ( The Pleasure of Your Company ) will star in CBS comedy pilot Happiness Isn't Everything , about adult siblings and their parents who are "overinvolv

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. It looks like Caprica will be heading to our screens sooner than we originally thought... or the two-hour backdoor pilot will be, anyway. Sci Fi Channel announced that it will make Caprica 's pilot available as a limited-edition DVD on April 21st with an uncut and unrated version, ahead of the series' 2010 broadcast launch. Additionally, the film will be available for digital download at select online destinations. (Having already seen the pilot, I can say that it will definitely please BSG fans while also offering a glimpse into a series that's vastly different than anything we've seen so far on Battlestar Galactica .) "Ever since fans first caught wind of the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica , they have been eagerly following its development," said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President, Original Programming for SCI FI & Co-Head Original Content, Universal Cable Productions. "We wanted to giv

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. This being a scant two days before Christmas, there aren't many television-related headlines to discuss but rest assured there are still quite a few. Oh, what's occurrin'? The big news is, of course, that Ruth Jones and James Corden have announced-- from Barry Island , no less--that they will write a third season of their hit comedy Gavin & Stacey . The third season, which had been commissioned by the BBC earlier this year, had been in doubt when Jones and Corden said that their schedules were a bit too full at the moment to write the next season of the romantic comedy, which airs in the States on BBC America. While pesky details like actor availability still have to be worked out, it's fantastic news that we'll get to see more of Nessa and the gang from Barry and Essex before long. The Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special, meanwhile, will air tomorrow night on BBC1. ( BBC News ) Doctor Who executive produce

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Details are slowly emerging about the next season of British import Torchwood . Producers have cast four actors for the series' condensed third season, entitled Torchwood: Children of Earth . Lucy Cohu ( Meadowlands ) will play Alice, "a woman keeping many secrets from the past," according to producer Peter Bennett. Susan Brown ( The Riff Raff Element ) will play Bridget Spears, "a character vitally connected to the government, which plays an important part in this story." Cush Jumbo will play Lois Habiba, a secretary who "hacks into some vital information," and Rik Makarem will play Doctor Rupesh Patanjali, a "junior doctor at St Helen's hospital who gets drawn into Torchwood's investigations." I can't wait! ( Digital Spy ) ABC is developing an adaptation of classic 1980s mini-series V , about reptilian aliens who enslave Earth, with The 4400 co-creator/executive producer Scott

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Kristen Bell's mentally unstable character Elle Bishop will get her backstory spelled out this season on Heroes . Bell has hinted that Elle may have some previous connections to some of the characters and these may be disclosed during the drama's third season, which kicks off on September 22nd. ( Sci Fi Wire ) Rose McGowan ( Charmed ) will replace Katee Sackhoff ( Battlestar Galactica ) on an upcoming four episode stint on FX's Nip/Tuck . Sackhoff was due to play Theodora "Teddy" Lowe, a doctor and potential love interest for Sean (Dylan Walsh) but likely had to back out of the role after being cast as the lead in Dick Wolf's NBC drama pilot Lost and Found . ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) In other Nip/Tuck news, production begins today on the sixth and final season of the FX drama and the stars' representatives are still said to be "deep in salary renegotiations," with Julian Mc