[Televisionary]

Just a quick reminder to be sure to set your DVRs (or, hell, tune in live!) to the series premiere of ABC's V tonight. Based on the classic 1980s sci-fi miniseries, V boasts an amazing cast that includes Elizabeth Mitchell, Joel Gretsch, Morris Chestnut, Scott Wolf, Morena Baccarin, and many others. But you needn't have watched any of the classic V in order to understand the intricacies of this new reimaginating. You can read my advance review of the pilot episode for V (written back in May) as well as my interview over at the Los Angeles Times /Show Tracker with series lead Elizabeth Mitchell about her character Erica Evans and what's coming up on the series, which will air four episodes this month before returning after the Olympics with nine additional installments. V launches tonight at 8 pm ET/PT on ABC.

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Looks like the TARDIS has deposited the Doctor on our shores. Outbound Doctor Who star David Tennant has signed on to topline NBC's legal dramedy pilot Rex Is Not Your Lawyer . Tennant, who departs from Doctor Who at the end of the year, will play the titular character, Rex Alexander, a Chicago lawyer who suffers from crippling panic attacks who begins coaching his clients on how to represent themselves in court. Project, from Universal Media Studios and BermanBraun, is written by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson and will be directed by David Semel, who executive produces with Barry Schindel, Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun, and Gene Stein. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Lost 's Naveen Andrews will guest star on an upcoming episode of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit . Details on his role are being kept firmly under wraps, though it's known that his episode is slated to air in January. ( TVGuide.com ) FOX has ordered rough...

I really believed that Matthew Weiner would leave that crucial moment in history--namely, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy--until next week's finale but I'm glad that he didn't as it allows the audience to see the fallout, both social and personal, from that Dallas killing, dragging the nation as it did into the into the harsh realities of adulthood. JFK's assassination has hung like a dark cloud over Season Three of Mad Men and each episode this season brought us that much closer to an end of innocence, knowing as we did that fateful day in Dallas was inching closer. With a shot that November afternoon, America had changed, perhaps forever. This week's episode of Mad Men ("The Grown-Ups"), written by Brett Johnson and Matthew Weiner and directed by Barbet Schroeder, pushed our main characters somewhat into the periphery, focusing instead on JFK's death and the ripple effect his passing had on the lives of the characters we've come t...

Looking to discuss the latest episodes of CBS' The Amazing Race and HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm ? You're in luck. Head over to the Los Angeles Times /Show Tracker site, where you can read my take on last night's episodes of both series. In "The Amazing Race: For Whom the Bell Tolls," I take a look at last night's episode which featured feats of strength, counting, and herring-eating as well as some tears. You can also read my take ("Curb Your Enthusiasm: Swan's Way") on last night's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm , which was a bit of a return to form for the absurdist comedy, which this week depicted Larry accidentally killing a man, somewhat intentionally killing a black swan, and basically making a mess of everything he touched, not least of which his mother's headstone. Head to the comments to discuss both.

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's PopWatch has an interview with Elizabeth Mitchell and Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about the ultimate fate of Mitchell's Juliet, last seen detonating the hydrogen bomb that may or may not have caused The Incident at the end of Season Five. While Mitchell is set to reprise her role as Juliet Burke on Season Six of Lost , it's been confirmed that Juliet is definitely dead. Still, there are still some mysteries about the good (or not so good?) doctor that still need to be resolved. "There’s still something very significant that we have not yet learned about the character," according to Cuse. ( Entertainment Weekly 's PopWatch ) Gregory Itzin ( The Mentalist ) will return to FOX's 24 in a multiple-episode story arc that finds him reprising his role as villainous former President Charles Logan, who was last seen being stabbed by his wife Martha (Jean Smart)...

Following up this morning's Doctor Who story , BBC America has announced that it will air Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars on Saturday, December 19th at 9 pm ET/PT. The news comes on the heels of BBC One's announcement that they will debut the David Tennant special, the first of three final Doctor Who installments featuring the Tenth Doctor, on Sunday, November 15th at 7 pm GMT, a full month ahead of the US transmission. Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars , written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford, will star David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Rome's Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide. The plot finds the Doctor arriving on Mars at the Bowie Base One where not everything is as it seems as the base falls under attack from a deadly water-based threat. ("Mars, 2059. Bowie Base one. Last recorded message: don't drink the water. Don't even touch it. Not one drop.") US airdates for the final two David Tennant Doctor Who specials will be made public in early December. As...

I've never been much of a Halloween guy. Some people love to dress up and head out to parties but I've always taken the view that Halloween is one of those holidays that you either believe in with all of your being or you can't quite wrap your head around. Last night, NBC's two-hour Thursday night comedy block all offered Halloween-themed diversions but happily each did so in their own inimitable way with Community focusing on a Mexican Day of the Dead after-school party, Parks and Recreation splitting its focus between Leslie stalking a notorious Halloween teen vandal and Ann throwing a costume party, The Office keeping it all confined to the cold open, and 30 Rock offering a celebration of "gay Halloween." I have to say that I thought that Community and Parks and Recreation were by far the funniest two entries in last night's comedy block, comprising a strong one-two punch of humor that seems to be gathering more confidence week to week. Last night...

Just a quick reminder to be sure to take a break from your Halloween festivities to tune in to two of the weekend's best television offerings. Tonight, be sure to catch USA's crime procedural White Collar , which airs its second episode at 10 pm ET/PT. Neal and Peter infiltrate New York's Fashion Week to stop a criminal from selling security data that is stored on a piece of technology woven into the fabric of a runway dress. Given that White Collar is already one of the most gorgeously stylish series on television, the addition of a sartorial-themed plot can only be the icing on top. While not forgetting of course about HBO's comedy duo of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bored to Death and CBS' The Amazing Race , be sure to tune into Part One of PBS' extraordinary mystery mini-series Place of Execution on Masterpiece Contemporary on Sunday evening. (Check your local listings for details.) You can read my advance review of the two-part mystery , which I called ...

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. ABC has released the first promo for Season Six of Lost , the series' final season. But, be warned, the fifteen-second clip doesn't contain any new footage, which many believe is proof positive that the network will be going out of their way to avoid revealing just what happened after Juliet detonated the hydrogen bomb at the end of last season. There's still no premiere date for Season Six of Lost , but it's expected to debut roughly around the end of January. ( Hollywood Reporter 's The Live Feed ) BBC One has announced today that it will air the latest David Tennant Doctor Who special, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars , on Sunday, November 15th at 7 pm GMT. No word yet on when BBC America will schedule the special, which will feature Tennant in one of his last appearances before his final two-part story at the end of the year. As soon as BBC America announces their scheduling plans, I'll let you know. Novelis...

Season Three of True Blood might be a long ways off but I was able to get a taste of what we can look forward to in the meantime. I was lucky enough to be in attendance last night at the Paley Center's event Inside the Writers Room: True Blood , featuring True Blood writer/producers Alan Ball, Raelle Tucker, Alexander Woo, Bryan Buckner, and Nancy Oliver. Expertly moderated by Entertainment Weekly 's divine Alynda Wheat, the panel pulled back the curtain to reveal the creative process behind HBO's vampire drama, with the panelists teasing some information about the series' upcoming third season, which will launch sometime around June of next year and is currently being written. (They've so far broken about half of Season Three.) Asked what the major theme of Season Three of True Blood is, Ball joked that it was "helmets and racism," and admitted that they just tell HBO that it's about "identity." (Which it is, in actuality, as Ball told me...

First off, I am not a vegetarian. I've flirted with vegetarianism at certain points in my life (perhaps, most notably, a reaction to dining hall food at university), but I've been a blissfully happy carnivore for the majority of my life and I don't see that changing anytime soon. That said, vegetarians often get a raw deal in restaurants and sometimes have to deal with chefs that don't understand how to satiate someone's hunger without the inclusion of meat. But vegetarian cuisine can be just as nourishing, comforting, and filling as carnivorous dishes; it's just a matter of replacing protein with protein and making sure that the dish is more than a collection of cooked vegetable side dishes. Last night's episode of Top Chef ("Meat Natalie") found the cheftestants grappling with the unexpected. After arriving at Tom Colicchio's craftsteak in Las Vegas, they all made a very big assumption and believed that they would be creating steak-based dis...

FOX has unveiled their first official promo for Day Eight of 24 , which launches in January. The 45-second promo clip for Day Eight, which can be viewed below, doesn't focus on the new characters played by Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze Jr. next season, instead placing the emphasis squarely on Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer and Elisha Cuthbert's Kim (sans cougar, natch). Will Jack ever get a chance to settle into the quiet comfort of grandparenthood and time with his family? Not this day, anyway, as Jack is once again called upon to save the nation. Are you excited about Day Eight? Curious about the new characters? And wondering whether Jack will make it through the season alive? Discuss. Day Eight of 24 is scheduled to launch on Monday, January 17th on FOX.