[Televisionary]

Looks like Charlie's Angels is heading back to the small screen, courtesy of Sony Pictures Television and Smallville creators Miles Millar and Al Gough, who will executive produce alongside Drew Barrymore, Nancy Juvonen, and Leonard Goldberg. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC has given the pilot the official greenlight , with production slated to begin roughly in mid-January. The project has been in development for a year, with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles ' Josh Friedman originally set to oversee the project. Which brings us to the Angels themselves. Producers seem to be particularly keen to make this a multi-ethnic version of Charlie's Angels , with the casting breakdown indicating that the three leads will be African-American, Latina, and white. So just who are this latest batch of Angels? Let's find out, thanks to a look at the hot-off-the-press casting breakdown, courtesy of a tipster who wishes to remain anonymous, that I just got m

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Hulk smash... TV? The Hollywood Reporter 's James Hibberd and Brys Kit are reporting that ABC and Marvel are developing a television series based on comic "The Incredible Hulk," which was previously a 1978-82 television series that starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. Hulk is one of two projects, along with Cloak and Dagger (which is said to be in development at ABC Family), that Marvel Studios has in development, though the company is also said to be looking at other properties to develop as series, including Heroes for Hire, The Eternals, Agents of Atlas, Alter Ego, Moon Knight, The Hood, Ka-Zar, Daughters of the Dragon, and The Punisher , the latter of which is said to also be high on Marvel's radar, possibly as a cable series. [Editor: The story, however, fails to discern between several properties, which it has erroneously merged into single entities.] ( Hollywood Reporter 's The Live Feed ) Entertainment

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Today's briefing will be shorter than usual as I'm typing this on my iPhone, as my internet connection is down. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that ex- Lost executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are teaming up with co-creator Damon Lindelof to develop a drama pilot that's said to be "fairy-tale-themed" and will feature "a female lead." No other details are available, but it's thought that ABC Studios will be the studio behind the project as Kitsis and Horowitz have an overall deal there. Should the project get ordered to pilot, Lindelof would join the staff in a consulting capacity. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Vulture's Josef Adalian is reporting that NBC is developing an adventure/dating reality mashup that's being described as a blend of The Bachelor and Survivor . Project, currently being called Love in the Wild , hails from

Law & Order: SVU valentines, anyone? Over at The Daily Beast today, I offer a look at "TV's Pop Art Boom." In my latest feature , I talk to graphic artists Dyna Moe and Ty Mattson about their Mad Men -, Lost -, and Dexter -inspired artwork, which has redefined the term "fan art" and taken it to an entirely different level, where television-inspired pieces are challenging the way that we look at the medium and offering a new perspective to the atmosphere, characters, setting, and tone of some of our favorite series. Plus, I offer a gallery of television-inspired pieces of art from Dyna Moe, Ty Mattson, Brandon Bird, and others, including some must-see Law & Order -inspired pieces.

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. FX has renewed motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy for a fourth season. Series, which wraps up its third season on November 30th, is the most-watched series in the cable network's history. " Sons of Anarchy is the most popular show FX has ever had, and the No. 1 series in basic cable for our key demographic," said FX president/general manager John Landgraf. "It is also one of the best, most original series on television." ( Variety ) Elsewhere, Syfy renewed freshman drama Haven for a second season, with thirteen episodes on tap for next summer. Production is slated to resume in the spring in Nova Scotia on the sophomore season. ( Variety ) Robert Kirkman's zombie comic, "The Walking Dead," which is heading to the small screen later this month with AMC's television series of the same name, will also be transformed into a trilogy of original novels, the first of which will be released in 2011. K

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. While the focus so far this season has been on early cancellations, FOX yesterday announced the first full season pickup for this woeful fall season, granting comedy Raising Hope a 22-episode order. News comes a week after the network axed drama Lone Star after just two episodes. "With Raising Hope , Greg Garcia captures a smart take on the working-class family with a great mix of wild comedy and a big dose of heart," said Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly. "The show is running like a Swiss clock, and we're very happy with how well audiences have responded so far -- so we're confident it will build an even bigger audience throughout the season." Meanwhile, the fate of timeslot lead-out Running Wilde is still very much up in the air. ( Variety ) The news wasn't so good for the crew of NBC's struggling freshman drama Outlaw , as the production grinded to a halt after three low-rated instal

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. And another one bites the dust. The axe has fallen on Noah Hawley's drama My Generation , which was cancelled by ABC after just two episodes. Production has come to a screeching halt on the series, which debuted to more than 5 million viewers in its initial airing and then plummeted a staggering 31 percent for the second episode. ABC has yet to announce a replacement for My Generation , which had the Thursday evening at 8 pm ET/PT timeslot. News comes on the heels of FOX's decision to can Lone Star after two airings, while all eyes are on ABC's Whole Truth and NBC's Outlaw , which mark the two most likely targets for cancellation, should ratings not improve. ( Hollywood Reporter 's The Live Feed ) Better fire up that invisible plane: The Hollywood Reporter 's James Hibberd and Borys Kit are reporting that Warner Bros. Television is said to be developing a modern-day take on DC Comics' Wonder Woman for te

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. File this under: oh my god. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello and Andy Patrick are reporting that Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller is developing an update of--wait for it-- The Munsters . NBC has ordered a pilot for the project, which is being described as " Modern Family meets True Blood ." If that wasn't enough to whet your appetite, Ausiello and Patrick also report that Guillermo del Toro ( Hellboy ) might executive produce as well. Jaw officially on the floor... ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos talks to Undercovers executive producer J.J. Abrams about the NBC espionage drama and about several topics on everyone's minds: namely that rumored Alias reboot and the Terry O'Quinn/Michael Emerson NBC drama pilot. News of a potential Alias reboot were news to Abrams, despite unnamed sources at the network telling Dos Santos that they're still

While the cancellation of FOX's con man drama Lone Star took no one watching the ratings by surprise, some pointed towards the fact that FOX didn't let the show find an audience, axing it after just two low-rated airings. While such early cancellations might be rare, it doesn't mean that they don't happen. Over at The Daily Beast, I take a look at ten other early cancellations from the last ten years, from Viva Laughlin to reality duds like The Will . (Remember that gem?) You can read my latest feature "10 Most Quickly Axed Shows of the Last 10 Years" here. (And, before you say it, I know that Wonderland and Girls Club were also canned after two episodes. Couldn't fit everything in there, sadly!) Also, out of morbid curiosity: do any of the entries on this list ring a bell to you?

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... Michael Chiklis jumping over a building. Now that ABC has launched its family-friendly superhero drama No Ordinary Family , I'm curious to hear what you thought about the Greg Berlanti/Jon Harmon Feldman-created pilot episode. I was very frank about my own feelings about the pilot , which I've now seen no less than three different versions of since it was picked up to series in May. But now that the premiere has aired, I want to hear what you thought about the episode in question. Did you enjoy the pilot? Were you bothered at all by the tonal inconsistencies? What did you make of the various coincidences that sprung up throughout the pilot, from the appearance of other super-powered types to that final reveal at the very end? What did you think about the fact that their powers were all connected to their internal struggles and did you find that to be on the nose at all? And, most importantly, will you tune in again next week? Talk

ABC's superhero dramedy No Ordinary Family might be all the more frustrating because it has the potential to be something fun and irreverent, but instead is tonally inconsistent and plays too heavily with the sentimental and saccharine. To borrow some superhero parlance, rather than leaping tall buildings in a single bound, it thuds to earth with a sonic boom. Creators Greg Berlanti and Jon Harmon Feldman want to have it both ways: he wants a superhero spectacle that borrows liberally from the success and charm of Pixar's The Incredibles but he also wants to tackle familial issues as well. When the Powells crash their plane into a remote section of the Amazon, they're granted extraordinary powers that separate them from mere mortals. Which would be enough of a suspension of disbelief but the powers they receive just happen to coincide with their particular cross to bear in life. Father and husband Jim (Michael Chiklis), a police sketch artist by trade, has lost his spark

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Summer Glau ( Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles ) is set to guest star on NBC's Chuck this season, where she will turn up in the eighth episode as the latest Greta, the rotating CIA/NSA joint intelligence task force agent assigned to the Buy More. Glau, who stars in NBC's midseason action drama The Cape , follows in the footsteps of Olivia Munn, Stacy Keibler, and Isaiah Mustafa. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Jeff Zucker is out and Steve Burke is in. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' right-hand man Burke, will succeed Jeff Zucker as CEO of NBC Universal once the merger deal--valued at $30 billion--is completed. Zucker announced that he would be stepping down from the position on Friday once the merger transaction is closed. "Steve Burke is an experienced, talented and visionary leader with over 25 years in the media and entertainment indus

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. It's official: that Michael Emerson/Terry O'Quinn hit man drama pilot from executive producer J.J. Abrams and writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec ( Alias, Happy Town ) is heading to NBC after the Peacock landed the rights to the pilot from studio Warner Bros. Television. The untitled project--which had a working title of Odd Jobs --stars former Lost adversaries Emerson and O'Quinn. Which means that your Dharma-branded fantasies of seeing John Locke and Benjamin Linus on television again might not be coming true exactly, but you may get to see these two in action side-by-side again. ( Vulture ) [Editor: Meanwhile, Deadline's Nellie Andreeva has some further details about Abrams' and Elizabeth Sarnoff's Alcatraz , which landed at FOX earlier this week with a pilot order. According to unnamed sources, the project is described as "a show about mysteries, secrets and the most infamous prison of all time:

As I said over on Twitter early this morning, "Six years ago today, Oceanic Flight 815 left Sydney for Los Angeles...and took our hearts with it. Happy birthday, Lost ." It's hard to believe that it's been six years since the passengers of the doomed Oceanic Flight crashed on that mythical, magical island and launched not only a television saga for the ages, but also a series of copycat programs that the original far outlived and an enduring legacy. While my feelings about the series finale are no secret (you can read my behemoth 4000-plus word post about the finale here and my shorter late-night take at The Daily Beast ), I still have a deep love for this series, which challenged the conventions of network drama series and introduced an overarching mythology whose spell many of us fell under in the years to come. My relationship with the series dates back more than six years to when I first viewed the feature-length pilot episode in a tiny office in May of 2004. I w

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Break open the moonshine! HBO has renewed period drama Boardwalk Empire for a second season, after airing just one episode of the Terence Winter/Martin Scorsese crime drama, which averaged 4.8 million viewers in its premiere broadcast. “All the ingredients aligned for this one, from Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson’s initial pitch, to Martin Scorsese’s enormous contributions as director and executive producer, to the genius of Terry Winter and the expertise of Tim Van Patten, to a stellar cast led by Steve Buscemi,” said Michael Lombardo, President of HBO Programming, in a statement. “The response from the media and our viewers has been nothing short of amazing.” (via press release) In other renewal news, USA has finally closed a deal to renew Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a tenth and final season of eight episodes, with original series lead Vincent D'Onofrio set to reprise his role as Detective Robert Goren, while pro

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos is reporting that Gwyneth Paltrow is in talks to join the cast of FOX's Glee in a two-episode story arc in which she would play a potential love interest for Matthew Morrison's Will Schuester. "According to rock-solid Glee sources, Gwyneth would play a substitute teacher in two episodes airing in November," writes Dos Santos. "Mr. Schuester gets sick, so Gwyneth's character steps in and takes over the glee club. The kids love her, and Will starts to fall for her... complicating his relationship with Emma (Jayma Mays)... I'm told Glee creator/executive producer/creative badass Ryan Murphy wrote this role expressly for Gwyneth, as the two are friends. If it all comes together, Ryan will be directing her first episode, which begins shooting in two weeks." Should the deal close, Paltrow would appear in two episodes slated to air in November. ( E! Online's Watch

With so many new fall series premiering over the next two weeks, it's possible to forget that some of our favorites are heading back to the airwaves as well. Can’t remember how Grey’s Anatomy or 30 Rock ended? Head over to the Daily Beast to read my latest feature, "Here Comes the TV Season!" , in which I round-up 13 cliffhangers for returning shows—and offer previews of what’s to come. (It goes without saying: minor SPOILERS aheads.) The series in question? Oh, the usual suspects, including Dexter, The Good Wife, Fringe, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Chuck, Private Practice, Brothers and Sisters, Friday Night Lights, Bones, Community, Castle , and 30 Rock , presented in order of premiere dates. (Which means Chuck is up first.) Plus, you can watch video previews for all 22 new network series , to boot. Which returning series are you most excited about watching this fall? Head to the comments section to discuss.

My fall TV preview--or at least part of it, anyway--is finally up. Head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my latest feature, "Nine Shows to Watch, Six Shows to Shun," where I offer up nine new series to watch this fall and six shows to avoid like the plague. Just which ended up on which list? Hint, The Event ended up on my worst-of list, while things like Boardwalk Empire, Terriers, Nikita, Sherlock, Luther, Undercovers and others ended up on my watch list. (While The Walking Dead is on there, I still--like every other critic--have not seen a full episode, so there's that to consider.) But while this is my list, I'm also extremely curious to find out what you're looking forward to this autumn. What are you most excited about watching this fall? Head to the comments section to discuss, debate, and tear into my list.

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. It's official: TBS has cancelled comedy My Boys after four seasons. News comes after series stars Jordana Spiro and Kyle Howard had to withdraw from pilots that had been ordered to series due to their first position on the TBS comedy, whose days many suspected were already numbered. According to Variety 's Jon Weisman, roughly 14 months passed between the end of the third season and the beginning of the fourth season, which kicked off in July. One cast member--Jim Gaffigan--left between the seasons. Spiro's role on Love Bites was eliminated when she was unavailable as the show under went some retooling. ( Variety ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that John Schneider ( Smallville ) has been cast in a multiple-episode story arc on ABC's Desperate Housewives this season, where he will play the father to Brian Austin Green's Keith, the new handyman/contractor overseeing the remodeling of