[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. The Chicago Tribune 's Maureen Ryan is reporting that former Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles star Lena Headey has signed on to star in HBO's fantasy drama pilot Game of Thrones , based on the novel series by George R.R. Martin. Headey, who toplined the now-canceled Terminator , would play Cersei Lannister, described by Ryan as "a woman of royal blood who is every bit as smart, cunning and devious as the powerful men around her." She joins a cast for the pilot (directed by The Visitor 's Tom McCarthy) that includes Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Mark Addy, Jennifer Ehle, and a slew of others. Headey's character is the sister of Jamie Lannister (Coster-Waldau) and the wife of King Robert (Addy). ( Chicago Tribune 's The Watcher ) Elsewhere at HBO, the pay cabler has given a series order to period drama Boardwalk Empire from executive producers Martin Scorsese and Terence Wint...

Pour yourself a scotch; there's some good news for the gang at Sterling Cooper. Cabler AMC has announced this morning that it has renewed period drama Mad Men for a fourth season. The series, created by Matthew Weiner, is currently nominated for no less than sixteen Emmy Awards. The news doesn't come as a surprise as the third season of Mad Men , which launched three weeks ago, scored a record 4.5 million viewers overall, so a fourth season renewal was seen as pretty much a dead cert. "We always saw the potential for Mad Men , and believed in and supported the series because of our strategy of developing cinematic television that complements our library of the most entertaining movies, from every genre, on television," said AMC president/general manager Charlie Collier in a statement. "It’s been extremely gratifying to see the show develop in to such a pop-cultural phenomenon with such a passionate fan base. With this early fourth season renewal, we’re excited t...

What a weird, strange journey it's been this season on Weeds . Between pregnancies, marriages, assassinations, overdoses, teenage STDs, and thievery, Season Five of Showtime's dark comedy Weeds has been a sometimes bizarre and uneven mix of shifting timeframes, over the top characters, and increasingly complicated inter-personal relationships. (Hell, you almost need a flowchart to keep track of the vagaries of the Nancy/Esteban/Andy/Audra storyline this season.) Last night's season finale of Weeds ("All About My Mom"), written by series creator Jenji Kohan, looked not to shift the action elsewhere but to create a new status quo all the same that would switch up the characters, their motivations, and their state of mind. And it did so with one hell of a croquet mallet swing. Yes, I'm referring to that final scene in the season finale, a.k.a. the mallet swing heard round the world as the insidious Pilar (Kate del Castillo) threatened to have Nancy's "...

Just a few quick words about this week's gorgeously evocative episode of Mad Men , which I loved. On this week's installment of Mad Men ("My Old Kentucky Home"), written by Dahvi Waller and Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, we bear witness to three very different weekends, although all of them captured a portrait of people engaged in business-driven activities, despite the social setting. There was the opulent Kentucky Derby-themed "soiree" of newlyweds Roger and Jane, the dinner party hosted by Joan and Greg aimed at impressing the chief of surgery at Greg's hospital, and the marijuana-fueled weekend brainstorm session between Peggy, Paul, and Smitty at Sterling Cooper. Three very different gatherings, yet there was no mistaking any of these events for anything other than an outgrowth of business itself. So what is Matthew Weiner saying then about the true nature of social gatherings? That they're all at their heart based in commer...

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. ABC has emerged victorious from a fierce bidding war over an untitled legal dramedy from executive producers Josh Schwartz and Ali Adler ( Chuck ). The project, which received a put pilot commitment from the network, is about a female attorney in Los Angeles who "has observed enough misery in her divorce and family law practice to vow never to take the plunge into matrimony." Script will be written by Adler ( Chuck ), who will executive produce along with Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Sheldon Turner, and Jennifer Klein. ( Variety ) Saturday Night Live 's Fred Armisen will reunite with Amy Poehler on NBC's Parks and Recreation this season. Armisen will guest star in an upcoming episode in which he'll play the counterpart to Leslie Knope (Poehler) in Pawnee's sister city. "Leslie arranges for [Armisen and his colleagues] to come for a visit, but they’re from a city in Venezuela," Parks executive prod...