Second Bite: Another Look at HBO's "True Blood"

Back in May, I wrote a pretty negative review of the original pilot for HBO's upcoming Alan Ball vampires-in-the-South drama True Blood, based on the novel series by Charlaine Harris. (You can read my original review here.)

Since then, I was contacted by HBO, who asked me to take another look at True Blood's revised pilot ("Strange Love"), which recast one major character and altered a few scenes, and the series' second episode.

Always willing to take another look at something, I agreed, especially when the project in question is the next HBO Sunday night lynchpin and comes from such storied auspices. So did writer/director Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and producers manage to fix some of the problems I had with the original pilot for True Blood? Let's discuss.

For those of you who didn't read my original review of True Blood (and shame on you if you didn't!), here's the quick recap of the plot of True Blood: vampires have "come out of the coffin" thanks to the advent of a Japanese synthetic blood called Tru Blood but poor, misunderstood telepathic waitress/social pariah Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) hasn't seen a single vamp in her sleepy Southern town of Bon Temps, Louisiana... Until, that is, a vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) comes into Merlotte's, the bar Sookie works at, and changes her life forever, especially when Sookie realizes that she can't hear his thoughts for a change.

If that reads like the near perfect set-up for a series, you'd be right. However, the earlier version of the pilot jumps around uncomfortably in terms of tone, offering a mishmash of satire, soft-core porn, horror, domestic drama, supernatural thriller, and race relations metaphor. The revised pilot tones down these disparate elements slightly but still meanders a bit too much for my liking. While the pilot episode is an improvement over the original, there's still something... off about the production that I can't quite put my finger on. It's almost as though it's itself missing a soul.

Special effects still grate, especially the transformation from human to vamp; given how smoothly Buffy the Vampire Slayer managed this effect so many years ago, it seems both cartoonish and clunky here: the fangs themselves seem too oddly close together and when they drop into position, as it were, they're accompanied by a silly clicking noise. Another attempt at effects wizardry is the combination of sped up and slowed down footage when Bill "quickly" comes to Sookie's side. It's clearly intended to be spooky and jarring but it's just downright funny to watch. Not the intended result.

One of the major improvements, however, that the series has made is the casting of Rutina Wesley (How She Move) as Tara; she replaced the original pilot's Brook Kerr (Passions), whose shrill, unsympathetic performance made me want to smash my television to smithereens. Kerr's Tara was as irritating as nails on a chalkboard; Wesley imbues her character with a vulnerablility that she masks with hard-edged armor and gives her an added ironic twist: how is it that this strong woman who feels the need to tell everyone exactly what she's thinking at that moment can't bring herself to tell the truth about her long-standing feelings to Sookie's brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten)?

An added scene between Sookie, Jason, and their grandmother Adele (Lois Smith) adds a dimension of believability to their characters' connectivity, giving them a moment of domestic bliss before things start to go off the rails. It also allows Sookie and Jason to display some semblance of emotion towards one another, which was somewhat lacking in the original pilot.

The revised pilot also alters the climactic showdown between Sookie and the Rattrays, the trashy couple who capture Bill at Merlotte's and begin to drain his blood in the parking lot. After telepathically hearing their intentions and noticing that Bill has disappeared, Sookie sets off to rescue him. In the original pilot, a female vampire lurks nearby and appears to assist Sookie in her quest to free Bill and punish the Rattrays. In the revised pilot, however, this woman is removed altogether, leading us to believe that Sookie was somehow able to take down Mack and Denise on her own. Though there still is the matter of that dog that's always seemingly lurking about Merlotte's as well... Hmm.

As much as I still didn't connect with the pilot episode, I do have to say that the series' second episode ("The First Taste"), also submitted for review, is a vast improvement over the premiere installment.

Tonally, the series seems to have settled down a little bit and the characters all seem a hell of a lot more comfortable in their own skins. Additionally, the story kicks into high gear with Bill repaying Sookie by rescuing her in turn from the sadistic Rattrays when she is savagely beaten as payback for robbing them of Bill's "v-juice." This being a vampire drama first and foremost, Bill is able to save Sookie through some unconventional means that bring them much closer together than either could have possibly realized.

If there was a way to skip the first episode (which does, unfortunately, set up the series) and watch the second, I would definitely advise you to figure that out. The second episode is a clearer realization of Charlaine Harris' novels, blending together backwoods humor, underworld menaces, and homespun wisdom into a much more appealing package and we're given a much clearer sense of Sookie's world and how each of the characters interact.

Wesley's Tara and Paquin's Sookie definitely seem like mismatched best friends and we learn that Lafayette, the bar's drag queen short order cook, is Tara's flamboyant cousin. Likewise, the murder investigation of Maudette Pickens (who still, to me, looks way too old to have attended high school with Sookie) takes an interesting turn, especially once Jason Stackhouse gets to see the video tape that Maudette secretly recorded of their sex session, and Sookie finds herself in way over her head when she drops by Bill's house one night and discovers that he might not be the only vampire in Bon Temps.

Additionally, True Blood's second episode sets up a seedy underbelly of Bon Temps involving fangbangers, drugs, rough sex, and all sorts of illicit behavior, all of which mirror the inclusion of a literal underworld invading this sleepy town in the form of vampires. While at times a little heavy-handed with the metaphors for vampires as a recognized minority group (a subplot involves a racist preacher and an ACLU-type organization fighting for vampire rights), the inclusion of vampires and the ghost of slavery in the Deep South is an intriguing proposition and provides real sparks during a heated discussion between Bill and Adele as he talks about his family's slaves during the 1860s as Tara sits uncomfortably nearby.

All in all, I do think that HBO made some improvements to the open installment of True Blood but the overall effect isn't enough to salvage that pilot episode. However, I do think that they seemed to fix some of my issues in time for the series' second episode, which gives me a much clearer idea of where this series is going creatively and sets up a slew of intriguing subplots.

Based on the pilot, I don't know that I'd stick around to see True Blood take flight. However, the second episode's relative strength does make me a little more willing to come back again for another bite.

True Blood premieres September 7th at 9 pm ET/PT on HBO.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Greatest American Dog (CBS); Last Comic Standing (NBC); Smallville (CW); Ugly Betty (ABC); Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? (FOX)

9 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); Last Comic Standing (NBC; 9-11 pm); Supernatural (CW); Grey's Anatomy (ABC); So You Think You Dance (FOX)

10 pm: Swingtown (CBS); Hopkins (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching:

8 pm: Greatest American Dog.

I think this looks absolutely cheesy but my dog gave me her saddest eyes when I was setting up this week's TiVo To Do List so I'll record it for her to watch when I'm not around.

9 pm: Dragons' Den on BBC America.

It's the US series premiere of the British reality series, in which inventors pitch a variety of products--like a machine that helps babies sleep--to a panel of multi-millionaires (a.k.a. the Dragons). I'm still feeling burned that BBCA cancelled my beloved MI-5 but I'll check this out anyway.

10 pm: Burn Notice on USA.

I wasn't crazy about Burn Notice's first season but I am crazy about BSG's Tricia Helfer and she joins the cast with tonight's sophomore season premiere ("Breaking and Entering"), in which Michael discovers he's been recruited by the very same people who burned him, tries to get to some intel that's being guarded by some mercenaries, and meets his new handler.

10 pm: Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List on Bravo.

Okay, I know, I know, but I find her acerbic overeagerness somehow calming. On tonight's episode ("Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace"), Kathy looks forward to performing at a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden and sets out for Manhattan to spend time with her friends. Something tells me not everything will go according to plan...

10 pm: Swingtown.

On tonight's episode ("Friends with Benefits"), the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head when Trina meets up with her high-school sweetheart, leading Tom to get jealous; Susan attends a ladies' lunch to try and help promote Bruce's career but Janet ends up making more of an impression on the organization.

"Pretty/Handsome" is Pretty Dead

Those of you suffering through Nip/Tuck withdrawal might have pinned your hopes on creator Ryan Murphy's drama pilot Pretty/Handsome (formerly known as 4 oz.).

The FX drama pilot project, which starred Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner, Robert Wagner, Christopher Egan, and Carrie-Ann Moss, revolved around Bob Fitzpayne (Fiennes), a married gynecologist who slowly comes to terms with the fact that he wants to have a sex-change operation. Moss played his long-suffering suburban Connecticut wife while Danner and Wagner played Bunny and Scotch, his country club set parents.

As for Egan--who was cast in the upcoming NBC drama Kings while FX passed on Pretty/Handsome--he played Beckett Bromley, a mature teen with the hots for Moss' character who happened to be the best friend of Moss and Fiennes' son (Jonathan Groff)... who had his hands full with his girlfriend's secret pregnancy, which she was going to major lengths to conceal from her deaf ex-military father. Um, right.

Studio 20th Century Fox Television attempted to shop the project, produced by Murphy, Brad Pitt, and Dede Gardner, elsewhere when FX passed on a series order but, alas, Pretty/Handsome is no more as the studio was unable to find another home for the series.

Personally, I had high hopes for the project when I first heard about it last year but after seeing the completed pilot--which, despite the presence of a first-rate cast, sagged under the weight of heavy-handed dialogue and the constant telegraphing of Bob's emotional state--I was entirely of the same viewpoint as FX on the subject.

I also had a hard time envisioning quite where Pretty/Handsome would go over the course of its series, especially as the pilot episode begins with Bob furtively literally wearing women's underwear and ends with him already dressed up as a woman, complete with a transformation scene in which Fiennes sensually shaves his body and applies makeup like an old pro. With a payoff like that in the very first installment, where do you have left to go after that?

FX has always taken a path of creating intellectually stimulating, quirky, and controversial series and while Pretty/Handsome may have had some of the latter, it wasn't enough to sustain a series and didn't take a familiar trope--like the medical or legal drama, the family drama, or, hell, the buddy comedy--and turn them on their heads, like previous series offerings Damages, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, The Riches, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia have done.

No, FX made the right decision to order its other drama pilot this development season, Sons of Anarchy (previously known as Forever Sam Crow) to series.

A gripping Shakespearean drama, Sons of Anarchy deftly blends together family drama and the underpinnings of 1940's biker noir and features Charlie Hunnam (Undeclared), Katey Sagal (Lost), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Drea DeMateo (The Sopranos), Maggie Siff (Mad Men), and cast of dozens in a riveting story of rivalry, revenge, and regrets, set against the backdrop of the nation's most notorious biker gang.

Sons of Anarchy premieres in September on FX and I'm anxious to see the completed pilot, given how much I enjoyed reading an early draft of the pilot script prior to the start of production during the writers strike last year. Fingers crossed that it lives up to expectations.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Celebrity Family Feud (NBC); Beauty & the Geek (CW); Wipeout (ABC); Moment of Truth (FOX)

9 pm: 48 Hours Mystery (CBS); America's Got Talent (NBC); Reaper (CW); I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC); Hell's Kitchen (FOX)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Primetime: The Outsiders (ABC)

What I'll Be TiVo'ing

8-10 pm: Britcoms on BBC America.

I don't know about you but by Tuesday night, I'm usually in need of some comedy in my life. Why not stick around on Tuesday nights for BBC America's new comedy lineup, consisting of classic episodes of Coupling, new comedy Not Going Out, and Absolutely Fabulous? You'll thank me in the morning.

10 pm: Flipping Out on Bravo.

Season Two continues tonight with a brand-new episode ("Closer Inspection"), Jeff's suspicions of his employees intensify and he sets up a hidden camera, hoping to catch one of them performing some indiscretion... or failing to perform their work duties.

Where Pilots Go to Die: FOX's "The Oaks"

It's always sad when you watch a botched pilot of a script that you really, really loved and are just wholly disappointed by what you see.

In this case, I'm talking about the pilot episode for FOX's supernatural drama The Oaks, which wasn't picked up to series. Last I heard, studio 20th Century Fox Television was attempting to shop the project to other networks, but I would be surprised if anyone picks it up after what I've seen. (You can read my original review of the pilot script here.)

It's not that there isn't an interesting story there because there is. I was utterly captivated by David Schulner's gorgeously nuanced script for The Oaks, which tells the story of three very different couples living in the same house in three different decades: there's twenty-something couple Mike (Matt Lanter) and Sarah (Shannon Lucio) who have recently weathered the death of their young daughter and have fallen apart as a couple; middle-aged blue collar parents of two Frank (Michael Rispoli) and Molly (Romy Rosemont, who replaced Gina McKee) whose daughter Lucy (Mackenzie Milone) seems troubled and whose son Brian (Kyle Kaplan) is prone to spying on his developmentally challenged teenage neighbor Jessica (Shanna E. Braddy); and expectant professional couple Dan (Jeremy Renner) and Hollis (Bahar Soomekh) who are in the midst of completing renovations on their historic home even as they interview midwives for the arrival of their child.

Some interesting stories and the action often transitions seamlessly from each decade to the next, their plots often overlapping as they serve a dual purpose: the first to explore the invisible thread that seems to connect these couples to one another through time (the ghost story) and the second to explore that most fragile of states: wedlock. Each of the couples faces an enormous hurdle in their married life, from the loss of a child to the non-existence of a sex life to long-buried secrets that, in the case of Dan and Hollis, could threaten to derail the life they've build for one another.

See, Dan did Something Bad as a teenager growing up in the very same neighborhood that he has now moved back into with his wife, something that 1988's Little Brian witnessed and something that involved taking advantage of Jessica, who--in 2008--is all grown up but still living in her parents' house right across the street from Dan and Hollis' new house. Dan claims that he doesn't remember Jessica but it's clear that he does, even if Hollis isn't quite suspicious enough.

Add to this a secret room, an oak tree planted by Sarah in 1968 that refuses to be cut down in 2008, whispers and visions in the water, and characters showing up in various eras seemingly by chance and you have the makings of an interesting and provocative supernatural-tinged drama, albeit one that seems more designed for a limited run than an open-ended series.

So what doesn't work? The majority of the casting for one, sadly. While the script brings these characters to life in vivid detail, many of the actors seem strangely out of place or unbelievable in the roles. Yes, I get that Mike and Sarah are a young couple but I found it extremely difficult to accept Lanter and Lucio as adults old enough to own a house (even with his father's help) and have had raised and lost a child, even as producers have tried to age up Lucio a bit with some period-appropriate makeup, hair, and clothes. By the reverse token, I had a hard time feeling connected to Rispoli and Rosemont's, er, dumpier characters who seemed to have zero chemistry between them whatsoever; while their sexless marriage is a huge element to the plot, I didn't see the whiff of any previous attraction between them evident in their interactions.

As for Jeremy Renner, he just looks... distractingly odd in the 2008 segments and I wanted to see him express some sort of moral conflict going on inside him. Or anything really. Renner's Dan is meant to be wholly emasculated by his Blackberry-obsessed career-driven wife Hollis (Soomekh) but we don't even see a clue about this dynamic between them. They just seem like any other tech-savvy modern couple expecting a baby and paranoid about disabilities and end up little more than ciphers on screen.

The direction was also disappointing. I'm usually a fan of Michael Cuesta (Dexter) but here I didn't see any elements of his trademark flair; camerawork was pretty straightforward and pulled some cliche zooms and close-ups right out of the 1980s horror flick handbook. For such an evocative and imaginative script, the produced pilot of The Oaks felt wholly flat and unrewarding, a scenario that may have occurred since both writer David Schulner and executive producer Shawn Ryan (The Shield) were not on set during production, due to the writers strike.

I can understand why The Oaks didn't make it to series at FOX and I can also understand why studio execs would possibly want to scrap the filmed version, recast, and start over again at another network: the script and the characters are intriguing and the concept is original and thought-provoking. But like several of the characters in The Oaks, after watching this, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I needed a bath to wash off my disappointment.

Sigh.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (CBS); Baby Borrowers (NBC); America's Next Top Model (CW); Wife Swap (ABC); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Baby Borrowers (NBC); Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (CW); Supernanny (ABC)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Celebrity Circus (ABC); Primetime: Crime (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

9-10 pm: Secret Diary of a Call Girl/Weeds on Showtime.

As I am still catching up on telly that I missed during my honeymoon, I actually missed this week's episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Weeds on Showtime, so I'll be watching them tonight. On Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Belle is booked by a return client for the entire evening and gets to test out her time management skills. Over on Weeds ("The Whole Blah Damn Thing"), Nancy makes her first official run across the border for Guillermo and Celia is offered a deal by Captain Till.

HBO to Get "Bored to Death"

Hopefully we won't be bored to tears when HBO develops half-hour comedy Bored to Death.

The project, from novelist Jonathan Ames (who wrote "I Pass Like Night," "The Extra Man," and one of my personal favorites, the Wodehouse-inspired "Wake Up, Sir!), revolves around a writer who tries to get over a painful split with his girlfriend by following his dream to live his life as a character from a Raymond Chandler novel and becomes an inexperiences private investigator.

Lest you think Bored to Death will be some pay cable version of, say, Andy Barker P.I., think again: Ames is a master at subverting genre forms and I think this will be one project to keep an eye on. Project, from 3 Arts Entertainment has received a cast-contingent pilot order and casting is said to already be under way. Ames, who will write the pilot script, will also executive produce, along with Sarah Condon, David Becky, and Stephanie Davis.

HBO, under new president Sue Naegle (formerly of United Talent Agency) is definitely on a roll these days, reinvigorating the development process at the pay cabler and signing deals on several projects, including Hung from The Riches creator Dmitry Lipkin, a US adaptation of British women-in-prison series Bad Girls (previously set up at FX) with Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) on board to produce.

Naegle has also inherited a flock of pilot and new series projects including Suburban Shootout, from writer Michelle Ashford and director Barry Sonnenfeld, which will star Judy Greer and Kelly Preston, Alan Ball's True Blood, David Milch's period cop drama Last of the Ninth, and Little Britain USA, to name a few.

Stay tuned.

Jeffrey Tambor, Gary Cole Try on "Good Behavior" for Rob Thomas

My spider sense was tingling this morning as I perused the latest casting listings.

Imagine my surprise when I had a full on geek attack upon noticing that, just days after Baby Buster landed recurring roles on both Chuck and Samantha Who, George Bluth Sr. himself was just cast in one of the few midseason pilots that I am eagerly anticipating.

Apparently, it pays to be an Arrested Development vets these days. Jeffrey Tambor was cast in Rob Thomas' ABC dramedy pilot Good Behavior (based on the Kiwi series Outrageous Fortune), where he'll guest star as Hy, Jackie West (Catherine O'Hara)'s sleazy partner at a low-end pawn shop. I cannot wait to see Tambor and O'Hara face off against one another and hope that he'll stick around in a recurring capacity should the pilot get ordered to series.

Also joining the cast of Good Behavior: Desperate Housewives' Gary Cole, who will play Jackie's no-good husband who is sentenced to five years in prison, leading Jackie to push her family onto the straight and narrow path of decent members of society.

I have been super-excited about this pilot since I first read Thomas' brilliant script (back when Renee Russo was circling the role of Jackie West) and the above casting, paired with Catherine O'Hara and Mae Whitman (yay, Arrested Development mini-reunion!), and my love for Rob Thomas' work, make me hope that Good Behavior gets ordered to series post-haste.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); My Name is Earl/Last Comic Standing (NBC; 8:30-10 pm); Smallville (CW); So You Think You Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); Supernatural (CW)

10 pm: Swingtown (CBS); Fear Itself (NBC)

What I'll Be Watching

10 pm: Swingtown.

I wasn't crazy when I first saw the pilot to the 1970s-set drama last year but they've had a lot of time to retool so I will give it a second chance. On tonight's series premiere ("Pilot"), Susan and Bruce Miller move their kids into an upscale Chicago suburb and fall into the lure of an open marriage when they meet their sexy new neighbors.

Casting Couch: Harold Perrineau Gets "Unusual"

"You can go now, Michael."

Truer words were never spoken than on last week's season finale of Lost, which saw cast returnee Harold Perrineau's Michael seemingly killed after the freighter exploded after he got a send off from the mysterious and ghostly Christian Shepherd.

Perrineau's return to Lost--which he exited at the end of Season Two when he and Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) sailed off into the sunset after he betrayed his fellow castaways to secure freedom for himself and his son--seems phenomenally short-lived: his character's sole purpose in returning to the series was to be Benjamin Linus' man aboard the Kahana and to devise the plan to freeze the battery so as not to trigger a widespread C4 explosion.

Perrineau, in an interview with TV Guide, says that he was "disappointed" by the fact that producers killed off his character after bringing him back and said it was "disappointing and a waste to come back, only to get beat up a few times and then killed."

Ouch.

Luckily, ABC seems to have realized that they are lucky to have the talented actor on their network and have cast Perrineau in drama pilot The Unusuals, where he'll play Detective Leo Banks, a cop plagued by paranoia that he'll be killed. It's a bit of a role-reversal for the actor, especially after we saw Michael unable to die all season on Lost.

In other casting news, Rick Gomez (What About Brian) has joined the cast of Rob Thomas' dramedy pilot Cupid, where he'll play Felix, the owner of a dive bar who rents a room above the bar to Trevor (Bobby Cannavale), despite thinking he's a complete nutter for claiming to be the titular god of love.

And Gail O'Grady (Boston Legal) has landed a lead role on the untitled Dave Hemingson legal dramedy pilot; she'll play cutthroat attorney Susan Oppenheim, who is married to one of the firm's partners. Also cast in the pilot episode as guest stars: George Segal (Just Shoot Me), Lolita Davidovich (Dirty Sexy Money), and Alexandra Holden (Friday Night Lights).

I'm actually very excited to see how this one turns out. Fingers crossed that it's a keeper.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother (CBS); Gossip Girl (CW); The Bachelorette (ABC; 8-10 pm); Bones (FOX)

9 pm: Two and a Half Men/Rules of Engagement (CBS); Dateline (NBC); One Tree Hill (CW); House (FOX)

10 pm: CSI Miami (CBS); Dateline (NBC); The Mole (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Gossip Girl.

Looking to relive the freshman season of the teen soap? On tonight's repeat episode ("The Wild Brunch"), Blair tells Serena she knows all about her past betrayal and shuns her; Chuck hosts a fundraiser brunch, to which Serena brings an unwelcome Dan.

Where Pilots Go to Die: FOX's "Spaced"

Ah, schadenfreude. There is something innately satisfying about watching a terrible pilot project go down the tubes when it was doomed from the very start. And there were few more misguided and foolhardy attempts this past pilot season than that of the US adaptation of UK cult series Spaced.

Created by Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson), and Edgar Wright, the original Spaced was a brilliant and hyperkinetic pastiche: at once a tongue-in-cheek satire of sitcoms, an inversion of social stereotypes, and a collection of astounding sight gags, blink-and-you'll-miss-'em pop culture references, and endearingly quirky characters. It was most definitely a product of its time as well, fused into the fabric of 1990s Gen-X slackers and offering a commentary on both American and British cultural sensibilities of the time.

In a word, it was brilliant.

Cut to 2008, following a rough development year, in which the stars/creators of Spaced spoke out against the US version of the series after they weren't consulted about the remake and in some cases (Hynes) weren't even mentioned in any press releases about the series. I managed to get my hands on the completed pilot for the American update of Spaced and I was curious to see if it warranted the ire of Pegg and Co.

And that's where schadenfreude comes in. To call Spaced a pale imitation of the original is actually quite insulting to pale imitations everywhere. No, this US remake--written by Adam Barr (Will & Grace) and directed by Charles Stone (Lincoln Heights)--is quite possibly one of the worst things I've ever seen and that's saying quite a lot.

Quick recap on the action: two strangers, both post-breakup with significant others, meet at a coffee shop as they look for a new place to live when they stumble onto a dream apartment. The only catch is that it's only being offered to a married couple, so they pose as newlyweds in order to land the place. It's a deceptive simple premise that, in the original anyway, never falls into Three's Company-type sitcom gags and instead uses it as a springboard to explore the relatonship between Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes) and their friendships, hopes, dreams, and bizarro fantasies.

It was with a great deal of trepidation that I sat down to watch Spaced's busted pilot over the weekend... and was amazed by how wrong the production team had gotten every element of the series, even from the script stage. While the original Spaced had an effortlessly cool vibe, every line of dialogue in this awful pilot reeks of overwriting and reaching to try to approximate something trendy and cool... only fall completely flat. Adding in cutaway scenes in which San Francisco's Transamerica rotates for no real reason or an invisible force appears next to a trolley car do not a smart quirky comedy make. Instead, these remain head-scratching examples of just how wrong the producers (which include Wonderland Sound & Vision's McG) got it and perhaps how little they understood the underlying material in the first place.

Onto the actors then. Never have two actors been more miscast as Josh Lawson (Chandon Pictures) and Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect) than they have been here. As Ben, Lawson is completely unbelievable as a sad sack wannabe comic book artist/slacker... who clearly has spent more time at the gym than at a drafting board. And unfortunately, he doesn't become more believable when he dons trendily nerdy glasses that only make him look slightly more like Matthew Perry in The Ron Clark Story. As for Rue, her Apryl isn't at all sympathetic and merely irritates every time she's on screen; the same goes for Ben's sidekick Bill (Will Sasso) who lacks all of the nuance of the original's Nick Frost. His sole characteristic seems to be that he enjoys (A) playing video games, (B) re-enacting the bullet scene from (ahem) The Matrix, and (C) pretending to shoot people with a gun made out of his hand. Yes, this is real character development time, people.

Supporting characters get just as much short shrift and aren't nearly as imaginative or credible as their counterparts across the pond. Apryl's best friend, a sticky-fingered wannabe thief named Vivienne (Yara Martinez) lacks any defining characteristics whatsoever and remains, at the end of the pilot, still a complete and utter cipher. Tortured artist/downstairs neighbor Christian (Frederico Dordei) is completely predictable in his overwrought "quirkiness." Hell, even landlady Marsha is a wet blanket in this without any of the humor or flair of Julia Deakin's brilliant original.

I feel incredibly happy that this project will never make it to air and never sully the good name of Spaced. Fans of the original UK series have waited for years for a Region 1 DVD release of the series (which will finally be released on July 23rd) and would have been aghast at what American producers did to their beloved series.

Can some international formats transition nicely onto American screens? Sure, just look at NBC's The Office but for every one that does work there are likely ten or so that are mindblowingly awful adaptations of successful series. Spaced distinctly falls into the latter camp and I'm happy to see it buried in some fallout bunker six miles beneath the Earth where it can't infect anyone with its shoddy and unfunny perspective on urban living arrangements. It's as saccharine and artificial as the cream puffs in the painfully dumb "gunfight" that comprises the pilot's conclusion.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (CBS); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW); Wife Swap (ABC); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Dateline (NBC); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW); Supernanny (ABC)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Dateline (NBC); Men in Trees (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

9 pm: MI-5 on BBC America.

If you missed MI-5 (aka Spooks) when it aired on A&E a few years back, you can catch it tonight on BBC America. On tonight's installment ("The Special, Part Two"), Adam rescues Tash (Martine McCutcheon) from the terrorists and realizes he must unmask the mole within MI-5.

10 pm: Top Chef on Bravo.

On tonight's episode ("High Steaks"), the chefs have to clean and butcher a slab of meat during a Quickfire Challenge and then work on the line in a restaurant, creating a series of dishes that exceed chef Tom Colicchio's expectations, and Rick Tramonto of Osteria Di Tramonto, Gale's Coffee Bar, Tramonto's Steak & Seafood, and RT Lounge turns up as a guest judge.

Pilot Inspektor: HBO's "True Blood"

It's funny how your expectations can completely derail your perceptions of a series' strengths or weaknesses. As longtime readers of this site know, I have been beyond excited to watch the pilot for HBO's upcoming series True Blood since I first read the pilot script during the winter/spring of 2007. (Yes, it's really been that long since I first started blathering on about it.)

So imagine my shock and chagrin when I sat down to watch the pilot for True Blood--written and directed by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and based on the novel series by Charlaine Harris--last week and was royally disappointed. Consider me a vampire faced with the prospect of feasting on an anorexic: all of the pieces were there but it was just flat, empty, and remarkably tasteless.

Sure, Anna Paquin (X-Men) is absolutely cute as a button as telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse; she's a blonde, perky barmaid at Merlotte's, a backwoods bar in post-Katrina Louisiana, and a social pariah, rejected by most of the townspeople for the unnerving way she is able to hear people's innermost thoughts in a constant cacophony of sordid audio details. But her luck takes a turn for the better when a vampire--named Bill, no less, and played by NY-LON's Stephen Moyer--comes into the bar one evening.

Sookie's amazed that she can't hear Bill Compton's thoughts and then is called upon to rescue him from some predatory lowlifes who want to drain him for his narcotic-like blood and sell the plasma to the highest bidder. (In this world, vampires have "come out of the coffin" and walk among humans, thanks to a Japanese-created synthetic blood called Tru Blood that's sold at most liquor stores.)

It's a convincing setup for a series that aims to be a mature, pay cable version of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer-meets-Dark Shadows or similar, but the inclusion of graphic sex into the mix makes the entire thing play more like soft-core porn. A storyline involving Sookie's lothario brother Jason (Summerland's Ryan Kwanten) having sex with local bad girl Maudette Pickens (Dirt's Danielle Sapia)--a woman addicted to having sex with vampires and filming it--turns into a gruesome S&M-charged affair that doesn't jibe at all well with the innocence of Sookie or the off-kilter humor of the rest of the episode. Maudette is found strangled and a tape of her having rough sex with Jason is found at the scene and he becomes the chief suspect in her murder... even though we now know there are several vampires hanging around town, including Bill and a mysterious female vampire who comes to Sookie's aid after she tries to free Bill.

(Aside: It bothered me that Maudette and Sookie supposedly went to high school together; the woman playing Maudette looks like she has about twenty years on Paquin and that little revelation threw me for a loop and took me off page for a few minutes.)

What I loved about the script was the interplay between the characters and how well each of the supporting characters were developed: how Sookie's boss Sam (Sam Trammell) sublimates his obvious desire for Sookie even though he's shouting his love for her inside her head; how alternately attracted and repelled Jason is by the notion of vampire sex; or how Sookie's friend Tara (Passions' Brook Kerr, who was later replaced by Rutina Wesley) can't censor her thoughts at all, either inside her head or when they're spoken aloud. But intsead, in the filmed version of the pilot, I find that none of the supporting characters are particularly sympathetic. They're all loud, irritating, and shrill. It's like they're all shouting all the time inside Sookie's head. Only, like Sookie, we're doomed to hear them all the damn time. (Kerr is definitely hellishly annoying; her Tara won't shut up for a single second she's on-screen.)

Tonally, the pilot was all over the place: a sex-fueled drama, off-kilter comedy, and a serious exploration of class warfare in small-town Americana after the storm. Then you throw in telepathy, vampires, and murder--not to mention some seriously cheesy special effects (they make the vampire transformation in Buffy look like the work of CGI geniuses)--and what you're left with is a bit of a muddle.

It's a bit of a headscratcher whether this will be seriously reworked (or, hell, completely reshot) before True Blood launches... well, whenever it will inevitably launch after such a long delay. But given the recent regime change at HBO, I wonder whether Sue Naegle will step in to fix this bloody awful mess. Pun definitely intended.

Drive By: Judy Greer Lands Lead in HBO's "Suburban Shootout"

Holy Judy Greer, Batman!

The former Miss/Guided star has been cast in HBO's comedy pilot Suburban Shootout, the US adaptation of the darkly comic UK series about warring gangs of, um, homicidal suburban housewives in a seemingly idyllic and picturesque town.

In a fantastic twist of fate, Greer has been cast as the lead in Suburban Shootout, where she will play the wife of a police chief who moves from urban sprawl for quieter pastures, only to learn that the 'burbs are just as every bit dangerous as the city.

The script, from writer Michelle Ashford and executive producer/director Barry Sonnenfeld, was absolutely fantastic and pitch perfect (they did have amazing underlying material to work with, after all) and I am glad that rather than cast some faceless ingenue for the lead, they went with the quirky and adorable Greer, who will bring a distinct edge to the role.

Casting on the pilot for Suburban Shootout has become a hotbed for solid female actors, with Kelly Preston, Kerri Kenney, and Rachael Harris already booked.

I haven't been so happy about a Judy Greer casting since she first lit up the screen as disturbed glasses-on-hair-up executive assistant Kitty Sanchez on the still-much-missed Arrested Development. I'm extremely eager to see how HBO will translate the comedy format of Shootout to the US. Fingers crossed that it's more in line with The Office and less with Coupling...

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW); Lost (ABC; 8-10 pm); American Idol (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8-10 pm: Lost.

Missed the last two episodes of Lost or just itching to watch them again? You're in luck as ABC does us a solid and reairs both "Cabin Fever" and "Something Nice Back Home." Now if only they were airing the fourth season finale this week instead of next week. I'm going insane from anticipation.

9 pm: MI-5 on BBC America.

If you missed MI-5 (aka Spooks) when it aired on A&E a few years back, you can catch it tonight on BBC America. On tonight's installment ("The Special"), the gripping fourth season opener, the team rushes from Danny's funeral after a terrorist detonates a bomb in a market and threatens to explode more if their demands are not met.

10 pm: Top Chef on Bravo.

On tonight's episode ("Restaurant Wars"), the chefs are forced to work on the line at a diner during the breakfast rush; Jose Andres stops by to put the chefs to the test; the contestants must open and run competing restaurants in one of the all-time favorite Top Chef elimination challenges.

Pilot Inspektor: ABC's "Life on Mars"

ABC had very little to announce for next season at this year's upfronts; most of its pilots have yet to have been shot and won't film a single frame until later this summer. And the few things that ABC did end up ordering were either picked up from another network (Scrubs) or had been shot last year (Life on Mars).

What's my point? I finally sat down last night to watch the pilot for Life on Mars with bated breath. After all, longtime readers know how bloody much I love the UK original series of Life on Mars--starring John Simm, Liz White, and Philip Glenister--and I had pretty low expectations for this David E. Kelley-created US remake, which keeps the basic plot intact (detective Sam Tyler gets hit by a car whilst investigating a serial killer and wakes up in 1972... or does he?), along with much of the dialogue, shot compositions, and graphics. (Kelley, for his part, won't be involved with the series; ABC has hired Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg, the executive producers/creators of the recently axed October Road, to come on board as showrunners.)

I wasn't sure how the action would really transport from 1970s Manchester with its Northern accents, creepy Test Card girl, and satirical humor intact (not to mention a rocking soundtrack from David Bowie et al). It's an odd juxtaposition with Los Angeles, which lacks the same essential temperament as Manchester and was undergoing a very different transition of its own in the 1970s. The essential look of the show, with its sunshine and palm trees, seems very much at odd with the sort of haunting, slow burn atmosphere of the plot. The fact that Sam Tyler is quite possibly laying in a coma in a present day hospital seems to lend itself better to the wet, damp, grey atmosphere of Northern England than sunny Southern California.

Jason O'Mara (Men in Trees) plays Sam Tyler who, like his predecessor, is on the hunt for a serial killer in the present day when his colleague/girlfriend Maya (BSG: Razor's Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen) is kidnapped by the madman; distraught, Sam pulls over onto the side of the road (or in this case a median on a completely deserted road by the Disney Concert Hall) and, while listening to Bowie's "Life on Mars" in unexpectedly hit by a car. While the shots are almost perfectly lifted from the original, that version shocked and disturbed me when Sam was struck out of nowhere; here, it's laughably bad and telegraphed a mile away. O'Mara isn't bad as Sam Tyler but he lacks the intensity and rapid-fire thought of Simm's interpretation; he's more brawn than brains here.

Sam wakes up in 1972 Los Angeles and wanders the streets in a dazed, bewildered state before ending up at the police station where he (A) discovers that he is still a detective and has been transferred (from where?) to this precinct and (B) meets the adorable Annie (What About Brian's Rachelle Lefevre) and gruff boss Gene Hunt (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Colm Meaney).

While Lefevre is absolutely charming as sweet-as-pie Annie (though doesn't quite match the kewpie doll innocence of the original's Liz White), Meaney is a pale imitation of Glenister's Gene Hunt; while Hunt is an amoral psychopath in his own right, he manages to still be sympathetic and fascinating at the same time, no small testament to the acting prowess of Philip Glenister. Meaney plays Hunt as an aggressive thug but with little of the charisma that has made the character so memorable on not one but two series (including Life on Mars spinoff Ashes to Ashes). When Hunt slams his fist into Sam's stomach as a way of introducing himself it just didn't ring as true, especially as O'Mara towers over Meaney physically and isn't as slight or wiry as Simm was in the role.

Overall, I was deeply disappointed by Life on Mars' pilot episode. The original had such spark, creativity, and vision--from the overarching plot to the set design, costumes, and visual look of every shot--while the US version seems fairly... generic. It's dully colored puddle of an episode that looks to have been shot on a soundstage and has none of the nail-biting tension, subtle satire (of British cop series like The Sweeney, among other things), or the psychological drama of the brilliant original.

No, Life on Mars seems more like mass-produced, microwavable fare; it's boxed macaroni and cheese: loaded with calories and fat but no soul.

Life on Mars launches this fall on Thursday nights at 10 pm on ABC.

FOX Finally Announces Fall Schedule, Ends Days of Speculation

After days of speculation and very little news about how their actual schedule would shake out, FOX has finally announced their new primetime lineup for the 2008-09 season, just a few hours ahead of unveiling the sked to advertisers.

While I was hoping there would be an eleventh hour reprieve for a fall slot for Joss Whedon's highly anticipated new drama Dollhouse, such was not to be; the series will launch on Monday nights in January, but we will be getting a full season of J.J. Abram's drama Fringe beginning in the fall. (That's got to count for something, no?)

Let's take a look at how the schedule breaks down night by night.

FOX PRIMETIME SCHEDULE FOR 08-09:

MONDAY
8 pm: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (Midseason: Dollhouse)
9 pm: Prison Break (Midseason: 24)

TUESDAY
8 pm: House (Midseason: American Idol)
9 pm: Fringe

WEDNESDAY
8 pm: Bones (Midseason: House)
9 pm: 'Til Death (Midseason: American Idol Results)

9:30 pm: Do Not Disturb (formerly known as The Inn) (Midseason: TBA Comedy)

THURSDAY
8 pm: Moment of Truth (Midseason: Hell's Kitchen)
9 pm: Kitchen Nightmares (Midseason: Secret Millionaire)

FRIDAY
8 pm: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? (Midseason: Bones)
9 pm: Don't Forget the Lyrics (Midseason: 'Til Death/Do Not Disturb)

SATURDAY
8-9 pm: COPS

10 pm: America's Most Wanted

SUNDAY
8 pm: The Simpsons

8:30 pm: King of the Hill (Midseason: Sit Down, Shut Up)
9 pm: Family Guy
10 pm: American Dad (Midseason: The Cleveland Show)

Contenders for Midseason Orders:
Lie to Me, Courtroom K, Boldly Going Nowhere, Outnumbered

New Series:
Dollhouse, Fringe, Do Not Disturb, Secret Millionaire, Sit Down Shut Up (midseason), The Cleveland Show (midseason)

Renewed Series:
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Prison Break, 24, House, American Idol, 'Til Death, Moment of Truth, Hell's Kitchen, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, Don't Forget the Lyrics, COPS, America's Most Wanted, MADtv, Talkshow with Spike Feresten Show, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, American Dad, So You Think You Can Dance

Canceled Series:
K-Ville, Back to You, Canterbury's Law, Nashville, Next Great American Band, New Amsterdam

Reactions:
I'm actually very pleased with the strength of FOX's schedule. While we all know that much of it will change over the coming months (not to mention the arrival of ratings juggernaut American Idol), I really love the combination of Fringe and House on Tuesdays (though the folks at Warner Bros. TV must not be too happy with their baby Fringe going up against fellow WBTV drama The Mentalist). Fringe is simply put: dazzling visionary television. But don't take my word for it: you can watch the trailer for Fringe right here.

Holding Dollhouse for the midseason may be a wise cautionary move but it does make me sad not to get my Joss fix now. Following the trailer for Fringe, the sneak of Dollhouse looked a little less glossy and polished but that might be just because the first episode wrapped late last week and they've had less time to get a trailer ready for airing. Still, I have every confidence in Joss and in this brilliant drama project.

Otherwise, it's a mixed bag. I don't think that Do Not Disturb will be around for very long, regardless of however many name changes the series has. I have the pilot episode in my possession so will have to watch it before I give my final judgment but I wasn't impressed with what I've seen so far. I want to like Sit Down, Shut Up because of the pedigree of the creator and talent but I'm having a hard time finding the funny. Though having Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler together again (even in animated form) is pretty darn awesome.

What I am very excited about is the Remote-Free TV initiative that Ligouri unveiled today, which will add six minutes of commercial ad time back into the program. That means, rather than 42 minutes of content, select FOX series (like Dollhouse) will run 48 minutes out of a one-hour slot. To call this a gamechanger is to completely underestimate what this will mean for creative, compulsory series and for ad revenues (supply and demand, my friends).

What do you think? What are you excited for? What do you think of Fringe? And were you as mostly underwhelmed by the upfronts this year as I was? Talk back here.

Dancing with the Upfronts: FOX Makes Several Pickups, ABC Debates Renewals

While FOX isn't due to unveil their fall schedule until tomorrow, the network got a head start this weekend by announcing several series orders, a series renewal, and a surprising cancellation.

FOX is slated to announce their fall slate on Tuesday but word got out about a few expected orders, including J.J. Abrams-executive produced drama Fringe--starring Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, and Mark Valley--which had received a series commitment from the net last fall. (You can read my original review of the pilot script here.)

Project, from Warner Bros. Television, creators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers) and director Alex Graves (Journeyman) is viewed by many as the network's best hope at recapturing the sci-fi audience it once commanded back in the day with The X-Files; the drama revolves around a female FBI agent paired with an estranged father and son team of rogue scientists who investigate cases involving unexplained phenomena.

Joss Whedon's "brilliantly evocative" action drama Dollhouse is on the schedule but sadly not until midseason. It could be paired with 24 (which returns in January 09) on Monday nights. In the meantime, it's thought that Mondays could be filled with Fringe and Prison Break. But I'm crushed that we'll have to wait until next year for the next Whedon oeuvre. Darn schedulers.

Also getting series stripes is comedy The Inn, from writer/executive producer Abraham Higginbotham (Arrested Development), about a posh Manhattan hotel and the Upstairs/Downstairs-like intrigues of the staffers and guests. Helmed by Jason Bateman, the pilot stars Niecy Nash, Jerry O'Connell, Molly Stanton, Jolene Purdy, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Brando Eaton.

FOX has also ordered animated comedy Class Dismissed (fka Sit Down, Shut Up), from creator Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development) and featuring the voices of Arrested alums Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler, plus Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, Nick Kroll, Tom Kenny, and Maria Bamford. Project, based on a live-action Aussie series, revolves around the self-absorbed teachers at a high school who are all more invested in solving their own issues than those of their students. (I wish I had liked the painfully unfunny pilot script more but it just left me completely dry.)

For midseason, FOX has granted a cast-contingent pilot order to Inseparable, a Jekyll & Hyde-like project from Shaun Cassidy (American Gothic) about a paralyzed forensic detective whose alter ego is a vicious criminal mastermind. Personally, I loved this script when I read it last fall and am sad that the option on British actor Toby Stephens has expired. I'm hoping that they find a series lead as compelling as Stephens who can do justice to the dual character format.

In a bit of a bait and switch, FOX renewed 'Til Death for a third season but has canceled fellow sitcom Back to You, starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. While many expected both series to return next season in a one-hour block, it was felt that Back to You was too expensive of a proposition to renew it for a sophomore season.

Sadly, The Oaks will not be going forward as a series... at least not at FOX. The network has passed on the drama project, about three couples living in the same house in three different decades linked by a ghostly presence; studio 20th Century Fox Television will pitch it elsewhere.

Over at ABC, Boston Legal has been given a reprieve and WILL return for a fifth season during the 2008-09 season, likely joined by David E. Kelley's new series, a US adaptation of hit British drama Life on Mars, and exiled comedy Scrubs, making the move from NBC.

Also possibly returning at the Alphabet: drama Eli Stone and, in a surprise move, Judy Greer-led comedy Miss/Guided. Definitely not returning: Women's Murder Club. I dare say that not many people will be shedding a tear over that one.

Given the stability of ABC's lineup--and the fact that most of its series, including dramas Pushing Daisies, Private Practice, and Dirty Sexy Money, will be returning next season--the network is only expected to pick up Life on Mars at this time and will shoot several pilots during June and July for possible midseason consideration.

CBS is eying Eleventh Hour, the US adaptation of yet another British series which stars Rufus Sewell and Marley Shelton (replacing the original's Patrick Stewart and Ashley Jensen) and The Mentalist. I quite liked Eleventh Hour (then again, I liked the original mini-series), though I found The Mentalist--written by Rome's Bruno Heller--to be utterly insufferable.

Other contenders for pickup include Mythological Ex, Can Openers, and murder-mystery/horror hybrid Harper's Island, none of which I really cared for in the script stage. I would be amazed if all three ended up on the lineup though Mythological Ex--from Veronica Mars scribe Diane Ruggiero--is definitely the strongest of the three, though definitely the most female-oriented.

On the comedy side, My Best Friend's Girl, Worst Week, and the untitled Ed Yeager comedy (starring Jay Mohr) have all been gathering steam the past few days. I think all three pale in comparison to the comedies that CBS currently airs so they will definitely have to work on improving scripts should any of them get ordered to series.

Look for The Unit to return for another season and for Shark to swim into the sunset.

Over at The CW, the netlet has ordered the Tyra Banks fashion-based reality competition series Stylista as a companion series for America's Next Top Model and given a series order to Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff--which original actress Jennie Garth has signed on for (ending several months of annoying speculation, given the fact that Kelly Taylor appeared in the pilot script).

I'm thinking that 90210 will end up on Mondays with Gossip Girl but that could change. I'm very curious to see what MRC (Media Rights Capital) will do with the Sunday night block it has bought from the netlet; it is expected to program two comedies and two dramas in primetime, rather than the second-window repeats the CW has aired this past season.

Also looking like a likely order is How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls.

Casting Couch Sci Fi Edition: "Warehouse 13," "Revolution," and "Caprica"

Casting is ramping up on several Sci Fi Channel pilots this week, including Warehouse 13, two-hour backdoor pilot Revolution, and Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica.

Drama pilot Warehouse 13 has nabbed its two leads: Eddie McClintock (Bones) and Joanne Kelly (Vanished) have been cast as two FBI agents--headstrong Peter and buttoned-up Myka--who are "rewarded," after saving the life of the US president, by being relocated to the titular Warehouse 13, a government-controlled depot that houses supernatural and extraterrestrial artifacts that the feds have gathered over the centuries. Together, their job is to retrieve missing objects and investigate the discovery of new items.

Project, from NBC Universal Cable Studio, is written by Rockne S. O'Bannon (Farscape); Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Jane Espenson worked on previous drafts of the pilot script. Jace Alexander (Burn Notice) will direct.

Over on Revolution, Peter Fonda has been cast in the role of a robber baron at a 22nd century outpost in this space-set adaptation of the American Revolution.

I've also been keeping my eyes open for casting notices on Caprica, Ronald D. Moore and Remi Aubuchon's gripping two-hour backdoor pilot prequel to Battlestar Galactica.

Deadwood's Paula Malcomson--that workhorse actress recently seen on John from Cincinnati as Jerri, on ER as Meg Riley, and on Lost as Colleen Pickett as well--will star in Caprica as Amanda Greystone, a surgeon and wife to the inventor of the first Cylon prototype, as well as the mother to teenage Zoe, whose exploits kick-start the action of the pilot.

I'm also hearing from sources that an offer is out to Rome's Polly Walker (!!!!) to join the cast of Caprica as Sister Clarice Willow, which if the deal closes--would be phenomenal casting for this intriguing and complex role. Suffice it to say, like Battlestar Galactica, Caprica deals in real world analogies and religious conflict, so look for those complexities to emerge in the prequel as well.

Fingers crossed that Sci Fi and Walker (like Malcomson a true chameleon--just look at her varied roles in Rome, Emma, State of Play, and Cane) are able to come to a deal as this brilliant project just got even hotter.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Most Outrageous Moments/Saturday Night Live (NBC; 8:30-10 pm); Beauty and the Geek (CW); Dancing with the Stars Special: Judges' All-Time Top 10 (ABC); American Idol (FOX)

9 pm: Shark (CBS); Reaper (CW); Dancing with the Stars (ABC); Hell's Kitchen (FOX)

10 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Women's Murder Club (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

9 pm: Last Restaurant Standing on BBC America.

On the penultimate episode of this addictive British import, two couples head to Raymond's celebrated restaurant, Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons, where they must work in the kitchens and front of house, stepping up to meet the standards of one of the very best restaurants in the world and producing food and service to rival those of Raymond's in his two-star Michelin establishment. There will be tears, tantrums, and demanding customers and only one team will advance to the final rounds with Raymond's blessing.