[Televisionary]

Confession time. While there is a whole plethora of new summer series to watch this season (including next week's launch of Damages on FX), the one show I keep finding myself watching is none other than Veronica Mars . Yes, I've started over at the very beginning and have been steadily working my way back through Season One of Veronica Mars this summer, relishing in every single plot twist and turn as Veronica and Papa Keith investigate the murder of Lily Kane and, you know, solve a few dozen other mysteries along the way. While I never forgot how much I loved the now-canceled Veronica Mars (which, sadly, had its final send-off on the CW last Tuesday), it's been brilliant fun going back and watching all of the set up for the eventual reveal of Lily's killer. And little things too: seeing Logan and our girl Veronica go from hostile animosity to full-blown lust over the course of 16 episodes or so. Remember when he vandalized her car in the pilot episode? And when they

NBC's returning drama Heroes has again expanded its cast, adding another young actress to the mix. Dana Davis, whom some of you might remember from this season's drama debacle The Nine (or from the pilot episode of CW's cancelled summer skein Hidden Palms ), has signed on to NBC's Heroes as a regular. She'll play new hero Monica but NBC and Universal Media Studios are keeping details about what exactly her powers are firmly under wraps. However, according to The Hollywood Reporter , Davis' character "would give up everything to help the people around her." So... some sort of healing ability? Davis joins a slew of recent Heroes cast announcements that include Dania Ramirez, Nick D'Agosto, David Anders, Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca, and Dianna Agron. Just one word of advice: don't get too attached to any of them. What's On Tonight 8 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); 1 vs. 100 (NBC); WWE Friday Night SmackDown (CW; 8-10 pm); Set for Life (ABC

Can you believe it's that time again? I can. But then again, I got up at the ungodly hour of 5:35 am to see Jon Cryer and Kyra Sedgwick unveil the nominees for the 2007 Emmy Awards this morning. So who made the cut in some of the top categories? Let's grab a cup of coffee and find out. Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series Extras • HBO • BBC and HBO Entertainment Ricky Gervais as Andy Millman Monk • USA • NBC Universal Television Studio in association with Mandeville Films and Touchstone Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk The Office • NBC • Deedle-Dee Productions, Reveille, LLC, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio Steve Carell as Michael Scott 30 Rock • NBC • Broadway Video, Little Stranger, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy Two And A Half Men • CBS • Chuck Lorre Productions, Inc., The Tannenbaum Company in association with Warner Bros. Television Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper This is a seriously tough category

A few things off the top of my head about last night's episode of Top Chef ("Latin Lunch"): I was actually pretty impressed with the chefs during the Quickfire Challenge and not so much during the elimination challenge, Howie and Joey seem to have buried the hatchet, and I'm not quite sure who drilled that arrogance into Hung's skill but it appears to be completely unwarranted. The Quickfire Challenge was to take a frozen pie crust and transform it into something delicious. That's it. No other rules or guidelines; it was up to the chefs to determine whether they were going to make something sweet or savory. I loved that Dale was immediately irritated by the challenge, coming as it did on the heels of last week's pastry disaster; these are not trained pastry chefs by any stretch of the imagination, so I was rather impressed with what some of them managed to pull off with just frozen pie crust. Joey really did step it up in this challenge, creating a trio o

Starbuck fans, take note. Jamie Sommers shouldn't get too comfortable; her nemesis Sarah Corvus will be returning... more often that we originally thought. Battlestar Galactica 's Katee Sackhoff has signed a deal to return to sci fi drama Bionic Woman as a recurring player. The Hollywood Reporter has indicated that the deal nearly didn't come together and was only signed in the eleventh hour. While Sackhoff has appeared prominently in NBC's promos for Bionic Woman , there was no deal in place to keep Sackhoff with the series, except for a handful of episodes, and she and studio Universal Media Studios (nee NBC Universal Television Studio) were said to be "far apart on terms." Whatever the differences of those terms, a deal was signed yesterday that will return the scene-stealing Sackhoff to the series. Sackhoff, who was due to appear at NBC's Bionic Woman panel of the TCA yesterday, failed to turn up due to a "scheduling conflict." Speculatio

So I finally got around to watching NBC's backdoor pilot/one-hour special, V ictoria Beckham: Coming to America last night. (For those of you who missed it, it repeats this Thursday or can be watched--in its entirety-- online .) I have to say, off the bat, that I am surprised that the former Posh Spice isn't a train wreck, but a rather funny, somewhat polished personality who came across at times as refreshingly down to earth. I had expected to tune in to find her having a Paula Abdul-sized breakdown after being forced to shop at Kitson in full view of the papparazzi or crying her eyes out for the mean things that Perez Hilton said about her. Instead, she handled the above, along with taking her drivers license test, getting pulled over by police, and house-hunting, with an aura of calm. And that's perhaps the crux of the problem with Victoria Beckham: Coming to America . She comes across as, well, a little too nice. Part of the reason people tune into these shows is for t

The guessing game to see who would replace poor Mae Whitman in Bionic Woman is over. Lucy Hale ( The Apostles ) has been cast in Bionic Woman , where she'll play Jamie's troubled younger sister, a role originated by Mae Whitman ( Arrested Development ). It was widely known that Whitman would be replaced but many thought the role would be rewritten to make Jamie's sister a hearing role. Not so, according to the Hollywood Reporter , who reports that the role will still be that of "Sommers' deaf younger sister." Whether that's true or not remains to be seen, especially as I don't believe the producers would cast another hearing actress in a deaf role. UPDATE: Hale's character, Becca, will not be hearing impaired and the character will now have a proficiency for computer hacking. (Hmm, Veronica Mars ' Mac was too busy?) Hale, who will be a regular on the series, joins fired Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington, who will board Bionic Woman