[Televisionary]

Buh bye, Linda Hamilton. And hello, Lena Headey. Lena Headey has landed the sought-after role of Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles , FOX's pilot based on the Terminator franchise. Series would focus on Sarah and her teenage son John as they battle villains from the future in contemporary Los Angeles. Action is said to be set between T2 and T3 installments. Project comes from Warner Bros. Television. Josh Friedman ( The War of the Worlds ) has written the pilot script and David Nutter ( Supernatural ) will direct the pilot for 2007-2008 consideration. The Bermudan-born Headey is herself no stranger to playing action roles. Last season, she starred in the botched pilot Ultra for CBS, in which she played a female superhero with a number of abilities. She's also appeared in many features, including The Brothers Grimm , Ripley's Game , and Gossip . Does anyone else find it strange that the two actresses who have now played Sarah Connor share the same initials? Coincid

I'm a sucker for a well-made travel program, especially when the series in question revolves around food and even more so when that show is hosted by St. Jamie himself. (That would be Jamie Oliver, the ex-Naked Chef.) When he's not at his restaurant fifteen or helping to solve the nation's school lunch dilemma (and attempt to fix the poor dietary conditions of an entire generation), he's writing cookbooks, filming television series, launching a line of cookware, and generally being an all-around culinary workhorse. Which often leaves little time for downtime with his adorable family (wife Jools and daughters Poppy and Daisy) or recharging his batteries. What Jamie needs desperately, just a hair shy of his thirtieth birthday is some new inspiration. So he does what any great chef would do. He packs up and heads off to Italy in search of new experiences and flavors. In his new series Jamie Oliver's Great Italian Escape (premiering tomorrow on Travel Channel), Jamie

Looks like the gang at Dunder Mifflin will be sticking around for a little longer this week... online anyway. NBC has announced that it will launch a "producer's cut" of this week's episode of The Office ("Branch Closing") online at NBC.com, which will feature several added scenes and additional footage not shown in the scheduled broadcast. Immediately following this week's episode, the extended cut of "Branch Closing" will be made available at 9 pm to visitors of NBC.com. No word on whether these producer's cut versions will also eventually make their way to iTunes or if the availability is limited to streaming them over the Peacock's website. Since last year, The Office has always been in touch with its online fan base; it was one of the first series last Decemeber to be offered for download through iTunes' Music Store and NBC offered a series of ten webisodes featuring Angela, Oscar, and Kevin ( "The Accountants" ) ov

Okay, so it's not totally a television-related post, but I've been dearly missing Spaced , one of my favorite Britcoms lately and needed a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost fix. I ran into Simon back in August at a BAFTA/LA event and he was thrilled that someone over here in the States had even heard of his upcoming feature Hot Fuzz , let alone was excited to see it. Personally, I can't wait and might even have to fly over to England to see it when it's released over there on February 16th. As for those of us Stateside looking for a companion piece to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's follow-up to the gleefully gory Shaun of the Dead , the current release date is scheduled for March 9th. In the meantime, you can check out the teaser trailer for Hot Fuzz on You Tube here and here and the Working Title official site features video blogs from Pegg and Wright et al. While it's not Spaced (and BBC America STILL hasn't told us when we're getting Season Two), it's e

While it was bound to happen eventually, I couldn't help but get a little teary after the ending of last night's episode of The Amazing Race . There was no conceivable way that coalminer and wife David and Mary would ever be able to win the entire Race , but they brought with them a genuine joy for the cultures and people they encountered along the way and they'll be missed. (More on them in a bit.) This week, the racers arrived in the island nation of Madagascar (known to many, including Mary, as the setting for that, um, charming cartoon with the animals). Once again, the teams managed to catch up to one another and get lumped together, as they all managed to board a 11:00 am flight out of Kuwait to Madagascar. And once again, Rob and Kimberly managed to astound me with their particular breed of xenophobia and ignorance when discussing the dangers of carbon monoxide and lack of protein on the indigenous population, whose brains are malformed and underdeveloped as a result

Every once in a while there's a pilot that comes along that amuses you to no end but just doesn't end up getting ordered by the network. Nobody's Watching was one, and Lookwell another, but one that I think that never got a chance was the wacky reality/comedy hybrid The Papdits , from creator Ant Hines, one of the writers on the current #1 movie in America. (That would be Borat , of course.) So, it's no coincidence that following the HUGE opening this weekend of Borat that CBS has launched the twenty-plus minute pilot of The Papdits on its broadband network Innertube. The pilot, made available today for free streaming to all visitors of Innertube, follows a fictional Kashmir family as they travel around on a cross-country RV expedition of the United States, interacting with real people along the way. The series originally began life at FOX, at the time under Gail Berman's reign, which gave the project, from Ant Hines, Tom Nunan, and Cathy Schulman, a six-episode

I'd like to begin by saying how very much Marcel irritates me. Possibly even more so than Stephen Asprinio last season. Well, about the same anyway. And anyone who knows me knows that Stephen irked me like very few people have ever done. Perhaps it's the way that Marcel endlessly pontificates about every little thing, from his love of molecular gastronomy to the fact that, yes, deep fat fryers tend to drop in temperature after several batches. We GET it. I always just want to slap that smug smirk off his werewolf-by-night face. That aside done, I thought that this week's Top Chef brought us yet another fantastic episode, even if the challenge was a little... um, downmarket. That said, I do believe that Betty was correct when she said that someone with the title of Top Chef should be versatile to be able to cook in any style, not just four-star haute cuisine or, well, dessert (more on Marisa in a bit). Have I said how very much I love Betty? My question for all of the Top C