[Televisionary]

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: it pays to be an actual viewer of The Amazing Race if you're going to actually be on the show. And it drives me absolutely batty when the players on this reality series don't pay attention to the clues. After all, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who IMMEDIATELY knew there wasn't going to be a pit stop as soon as Tyler and James read the clue leading them to the Olympic Stadium. According to what the cameras showed anyway, not a single member of any of the teams twigged to the fact that they would have to keep racing after reaching the stadium. After all, the clue said nothing about the stadium being a pit stop or that one of the teams may be eliminated, all usual language on every single leg of the race. I was thrilled by this twist, one of the older ones in the Race 's bag o' tricks, because it forces already exhausted teams to keep going, even when the only thing that may have motivated them in

After weeks of industry-wide speculation, NBC has finally put the matter to bed and ordered the back nine episodes of struggling freshman drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , which had been dogged by (credible) rumors of cancellations. But you can bet your bottom dollar that NBC didn't walk away from the bargaining table without an economic upside. Sources are reporting that NBC and studio Warner Bros. TV only came to a deal for Studio 60 's full season order thanks to a lower license fee for the additional nine installments, at a price much lower than the $2.5-3 million they paid per episode of the original order. And NBC is mulling possibly moving the struggling series out of its Mondays at 10 pm timeslot as it explores other options. The Peacock, which also ordered three additional scripts for struggling frosh series 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights , is expected to release its midseason lineup in the next few days. UPDATE: NBC has since ordered the back nine episodes of F

Did anyone else expect that, based on the Top Chef promos Bravo had been airing, that it would be poor Betty accused of cheating this week? I certainly didn't (nor did I expect everyone to nearly gang up on her) but we'll get to that in a few minutes. Before we get to the cheating issue, there's the matter of the Quickfire Challenge. This week's installment of Top Chef had the contestants prepare an amuse bouche, but there was nothing amusing about most of their efforts. The guest judge this week, Suzanne Goin (of fabled Los Angeles restaurants AOC and Lucques) is no stranger to the amuse bouche. Its purpose is to literally amuse the mouth and it's meant to kickstart your appetite at the start of a meal with a small, usually bite-sized parcel of deliciousness; it's also a chef's calling card, an opportunity to create a lavish signature dish that leaves the diner craving more than the little bite you've provided. The biggest mistake that some of the che

Smith fans, you might just be in luck. Just don't celebrate... quite yet. Beginning today, CBS will begin streaming the remaining four episodes of now-cancelled crime drama Smith on their broadband channel, Innertube. Those four episodes represent the installments that were produced before CBS cancelled the series. The first three episodes of Smith , which had aired in the US, will also be streamed online in an effort to get (would-be) viewers up-to-date. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind Smith , will also be offering all seven completed episodes of Smith for download beginning this month on iTunes, AOL, and Amazon as well. (Additionally, CBS.com is offering synopses of the episodes that were never actually, you know, filmed, so that fans can read how the uncompleted episodes would have played.) Just don't expect any filmed resolution to the storyline. Smith was never intended to be a seven-episode series so I somehow doubt any of the story arcs begun i

It had to happen. That grueling 13-week period is upon us while we're forced to wait for the return of Lost in February. While I knew that we only had 62 minutes (well, including commercials) of Lost -related goodness this week, I tried really hard to put the hiatus out of my mind. Not to say that I didn't scream with rage when the screen went black at the end of last night's episode. Thirteen weeks is, after all, a really long time to wait, regardless of whether or not we're getting no repeats whatsoever. Sigh. In any event, I thought that last night's installment of Lost ("I Do") was another fantastic spin around the island this season, though I was hoping for just a little bit more out of the fall "finale" cliffhanger. Was I on the edge of my seat? You bet. But Damon and Carlton promised such a huge cliffhanger that I was expecting something more like last week's climactic showdown between the Monster and Mr. Eko (something momentous),

Looks like maybe you can launch a series on Fridays, after all. That is, if you intend to move it to a better timeslot once one opens up. ABC has announced that it will move drama Men in Trees from its Friday night timeslot (one of the very worst berths in all of Television Land) to the plum post- Grey's Anatomy timeslot on Thursdays at 10 pm, beginning November 30th. And a further vote of confidence in the drama, ABC has ordered the back nine episodes of Men in Trees , bumping the series to a full 22-episode season in the process. It's the first full season pickup for a freshman series for Warner Bros. TV, the studio behind Men in Trees, and the third pickup for ABC , which previously announced it had ordered full seasons of Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters . (ABC is still weighing pickups on fellow freshman series The Nine and Help Me Help You .) So what does that mean for the current holder of the post- Grey's Anatomy timeslot, the struggling drama Six Degree

Okay, you've got to hand it to the producers of Veronica Mars and the CW promo department. Between last night's title of "Hi, Infidelity" and some well-edited moments showing a jealous Veronica, a seemingly red-handed Logan, and a perky blonde who was not our intrepid sleuth, it definitely seemed as though this episode was going to focus on the shattering of Veronica and Logan's relationship. But it didn't turn out that way at all. (Whew.) Talk about some rather canny editing though: by playing up that 15 second scene at the hotel which was apropos of nothing, the network created the indication in my mind that it was the focal point of the episode. Not so. In fact, the infidelity in question was of a more adult nature: that between Keith and the still-married Harmony... and between Professor Landry and Dean O'Dell's wife (more on those in a sec). First up, I need to say just how much I loved last night's episode ("Hi, Infidelity") and ho