[Televisionary]

Televisionary is proud to be a member of the TV Blog Coalition. At the end of each week, we'll feature a roundup of content from our sister sites for your delectation. This week, I took an early look at the third episode of Season Five of Lost ("Jughead") and hinted at some surprising twists to come ! I also had comments from Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about Season Five of Lost and Team Darlton's spoiler-laden thoughts about the first two installments . (Along with my own theories and feelings about the two-hour premiere .) I shared news about Michelle Ryan ( Bionic Woman ) joining the cast of the Doctor Who Easter Special ("Planet of the Dead") and gave her my approval as the possible companion for the Eleventh Doctor next year. And recounted the recent press call with Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore and the actor playing the Final Cylon . Also, I discussed the latest installments of HBO's Big Love , FX's Damages , a...

The sound of the collective gasp last Friday when Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica revealed the identity of the fabled Final Cylon could have broken the stratosphere, so unexpected was its raw power. For those of you who saw "Sometimes a Great Notion," the end of the episode featured Colonel Tigh (Michael Hogan) experience a vision after wading out into the ocean on the newly discovered planet Earth. A vision in which he sees the face of the Final Cylon, long hidden from the humans, the skinjobs, and the other members of the vaunted Final Five. (And if you haven't yet seen the episode, consider yourself warned at this point.) Written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, the episode was gorgeous and somber and featured a jaw-dropping flashback from Colonel Tigh as he recalled the final member of their disparate group. A few days later, Battlestar Galactica co-creator/executive producer Ronald D. Moore and Kate Vernon, who plays Ellen Tigh, a.k.a. the Final Cylon, gath...

Adding more gristle to the rumor mill that Bionic Woman 's Michelle Ryan will take over as the new companion for the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), the BBC today announced that Ryan will guest star in the next Doctor Who special featuring the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), entitled "Planet of the Dead," which is slated to air in the UK at Easter. Ryan will play the enigmatic Lady Christina de Souza, who "joins the Doctor on a bus trip which takes an unexpected detour into danger." "Michelle is one of the most sought after young actors in the country and we are delighted to announce that she will be joining the team," said executive producer Russell T. Davies. "As always the script is being kept strictly under wraps, however we can reveal that Lady Christina is a woman with a mysterious past who's going to have a huge impact on the Doctor!" As in she sticks around when he regenerates into Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor? Hmmm... Inbound he...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I'm super-excited for the weekend to be here after a hectic week and thrilled that we have a brand-new episode of Battlestar Galactica to head us into the weekend. Angie Harmon ( Women's Murder Club ) has been cast in a potential recurring role on ABC's Samantha Who? , where she will play Gigi, "the infamous (and crazy) ex-wife of Sam's current honey, Funk (Billy Zane)." Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello also alludes to the fact that Gigi plays a "critical role in the show's mythology." Hmmm... Could it be that Sam is learning just what caused her amnesia after all? ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) ABC has handed out a pilot order to Eastwick , loosely based on the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick , about three women who receive magical powers after a stranger visits their small town. Project, from Warner Bros. Television, will be written by Maggie Friedman. ( Hollywoo...

Yes, Lost is back. And, yes, we've all got questions. The fifth season of ABC's labyrinthine drama Lost kicked off with two back-to-back episodes ("Because We Left" and "The Lie") that set up the new format and action for Season Five. (You can read my advance review of the first two episodes of Season Five here and read what Damon and Carlton had to say about this episode here .) The two-hour season premiere also seeks to answer the two sides of a single question: do bad things happen because people leave (as Jack believes) or because people lie (as Hurley believes)? Is one truly worse than the other? And are their actions to blame for the horrors that befall them? Or is it fate? You've already read my advance review of these episodes , which teased some developments, but let's discuss now in depth. While I've already seen the third episode of the season, the usual rules apply: I won't be spoiling anything from that episode below and will ...

Welcome to Part Two of my write-up of the Lost panel from the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour with executive producer/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Having asked the press not to reveal spoilers from the series' first three episodes of Lost , I followed Team Darlton's request and kept certain questions and answers out of Part One of my coverage of the TCA panel . What follows is a fairly spoiler-ridden discussion of Lost 's two-hour season premiere ("Because You Left" and "The Lie"), so if you haven't yet seen the fifth season premiere and don't want to be spoiled about some key elements, don't read any further. (You've been warned!) One of the most interesting discoveries of "Because You Left" and "The Lie" isn't just that the island has moved through time, it's that the island--or possibly just the people on the island--are constantly hopping through time, finding themselves in...

While everyone is bound to being freaking out over the two-hour fifth season premiere of Lost , I'm hoping that fans of FX's Damages haven't forsaken the legal thriller this week as the series once again delivered a fantastic installment that filled in some of the blanks in the backstory between Patty Hewes and Daniel Purcell. On this week's episode of Damages ("I Knew Your Pig"), the case against Daniel Purcell mounts as the police--embodied by dogged cop Detective Huntley (Tom Noonan)--clearly thinks he is their prime suspect while Daniel makes a discovery about Christine's murder and Patty learns that Daniel is lying to her about a number of things... and possibly everything. All this and Ellen digging around into Patty's past vis-a-vis a seventeen-year-old case that involved Patty AND Daniel Purcell. Hmmm... Let's discuss. Michael. I just *knew* that Michael was Daniel Purcell's son, after that totally awkward and charged encounter betwee...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I'm sure many of us didn't get a very good night's sleep after the last night brought us the two-hour premiere of Lost , new installments of Damages and Top Chef , and the launch of FOX's Lie to Me . Since when did Wednesday become the go-to night for top-notch television programming? George Clooney is filming scenes this week on NBC's ER , where he will reprise his role as Dr. Doug Ross. He last appeared on the series in an uncredited cameo in 2000. No word on whether he'll bring Ross' Caesar cut with him. ( Entertainment Tonight ) Season Two of HBO's Flight of the Conchords has lined up a host of intriguing guest stars including Saturday Night Live 's Kristin Wiig, My Boys ' Jim Gaffigan, and Lost 's Alan Dale. Also of note: Michel Gondry ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ) directed the February 15th episode, in which Jemaine dates an Australian (shock horror!). ( Chicago Tribune...

The biggest Lost mystery of all has been solved: actor Nestor Carbonell, who plays the Others' putative leader under Jacob, does not wear makeup. "Do you want to hear something shocking?" asked said executive producer/showrunner Damon Lindelof. "And this is the honest truth. When we first saw dailies of Nestor, we said that someone has got to talk to him about the eyeliner situation, but he does not wear any eyeliner or mascara. He is 100 percent sans make-up. That’s the truth." That's, ahem, a relief. The notion of whether Carbonell was wearing makeup and whether we'd be seeing more of him (a resounding yes) were two of the many burning questions thrown at Lindelof and executive producer/showrunner Carlton Cuse, Lindelof's partner in crime, during last week's Lost panel at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, following a screening of the fifth season's third episode , slated to air next week. Of the Lost 's fifth seaso...

I won't lie to you: I am not typically a fan of procedural series. I'm usually more interested in the sort of character development and long-term plotting that are involved in a serialized drama but every now and then a procedural mystery comes along with a unique enough premise that it makes me question my standpoint. Tonight, FOX launches its new procedural drama series Lie to Me , starring Tim Roth, Kelli Williams, Brendan Hines, and Monica Raymund. Unlike those cops on CBS, this squad of sleuths isn't solving crimes using the latest in forensic technology. Rather, their characters comprise a crack team of, well, human lie detectors. Instead of ultraviolet wands searching for blood splatter, the team uses videotaped interviews with suspects and witnesses and reads the almost imperceptible micro-expressions that each of them make. Suspects can lie with their words but it's pretty hard to lie with your body language and facial expressions, especially when some of them ...

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I don't know about you but I'm still on a high after yesterday's amazing presidential inauguration. While the nation joined together yesterday to bear witness to the 44th president taking the oath, there are still a few television-related headlines to get through this morning. Entertainment Weekly 's Doc Jensen (a.k.a. Jeff Jensen) continues his video interview series with Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Up today: a segment focusing on Season Four, including discussions about the coffin, the donkey wheel, and the freighter. ( Entertainment Weekly ) Jason Priestley will direct the eighteenth episode of 90210 this season, which will feature a crisis involving several characters. "I have a lot of challenges ahead of me on how to shoot this, it's big," said Priestley, who wouldn't confirm whether said crisis is an earthquake or a car accident. "Yeah, we're in a hosp...

Just a few quick words about tonight's episode of Fringe ("Bound"), which is more or less the second half of a two-part episode that began last fall, in which we saw Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) kidnapped for reasons unknown by the nefarious Mr. Jones, who managed to escape his German prison by, well, teleporting out. Those looking for some answers as to Mr. Jones' plan or, well, whereabouts will be sorely disappointed by tonight's episode, but "Bound" does feature perhaps the first real example of serialized storytelling in the series to date. With Olivia seized and bound, there's no way to have wrapped up the previous episode's storyline in that very same installment so it's nice to see things spill over more than just a bit. (New viewers will have the benefit of catching a rather exposition-laden recap of the events so far at the outset.) "Bound" also picks up the pieces of various other dangling subplots over the last few weeks bu...