[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Now that the ink has dried on Damages 's DirecTV deal, Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello talks to executive producers Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman about whether the format for the serpentine legal drama will be altered for its fourth and fifth seasons, whether the budget will be affected, why Ellen has gotten past the fact that Patty tried to have her killed, who will be returning, and a host of other issues. "DirecTV wants us to do the show that we’ve been doing," said Zelman. "If anything, they want us to push what we’ve been doing even further . They’re encouraging us to be as bold as possible, which is something we strive for anyway. There have been no discussions about altering the show in any fundamental way." Except for the fact that the episodes will be longer, that is. "What’s exciting for us as creators is that on the 101 Network there are no commercials, so it’ll

San Diego Comic-Con International 2010 kicked off last night with the annual Preview Night, an opportunity to walk the convention floor before the true madness begins. Which is funny in a way because the floor was already teeming with people who were either after the latest freebies or checking out the behemoth booths and merchandise offered by a slew of studios, television networks, comic sellers, and, well, anything and everything under the sun. Missed Preview Night? Here's a selection below of photography capturing some of the highlights of the convention floor--from Green Lantern and Tron: Legacy to The Walking Dead --courtesy of Mark DiFruscio. WBTV Booth Tron: Legacy The Walking Dead FOX Booth Green Lantern Salt/Priest

FOX today announced the launch dates for its new and returning series this fall. House and Lone Star will be the first two scripted series to launch on the network this autumn, with their respective seasons kicking off on Monday, September 20th. The following night brings the second season premiere of Glee and the launches of new comedies Raising Hope and Running Wilde on Tuesday. Hell's Kitchen takes over the two-hour block on Wednesdays, beginning September 22nd and Bones and Fringe return Thursday, September 24th, followed the next night with Human Target and The Good Guys . The full press release from FOX can be found below. FOX ANNOUNCES FALL PREMIERE DATES FOR THE 2010-2011 SEASON NEW DRAMA “LONE STAR” DEBUTS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 NEW COMEDIES “RAISING HOPE” AND “RUNNING WILDE” TO PREMIERE TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 Award-Winning Drama HOUSE Checks In Monday, September 20; GLEE Begins Sophomore Season Tuesday, September 21; Gordon Ramsay Serves Up New Season of HELL’S K

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. True Blood 's Alan Ball is furthering his relationship with HBO. Ball, who created the pay cabler's vampire drama (based on the novels by Charlaine Harris), has signed on to direct and executive producer noir drama pilot All Signs of Death , which is based on Charlie Huston's novel "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death." Huston himself will pen the pilot script, with production set to begin next month in Los Angeles... though there are no current cast attachments on the project, which will revolve around "a knockaround twentysomething who discovers he has a knack for being a crime scene cleaner, and his life gets messy from there." ( Variety ) Bubs Alert! Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Andre Royo ( The Wire ) has been cast as a guest star in the third season premiere of FOX's Fringe , citing unnamed sources. Royo will reportedly play Henry, described as &quo

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. To those of you who celebrated the Fourth of July, welcome back to work after a long weekend. (Sigh.) Javier Bardem ( Vicky Cristina Barcelona ) will guest star next season on FOX's Glee , according to Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello (and Dave Karger), who reports that the Academy Award-winning actor will appear as "a rock star who befriends Artie (Kevin McHale)." In fact, it was Bardem who approached Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy about dropping by the 20th Century Fox Television-produced musical-comedy when they worked together on Eat Pray Love . “We’re going to rock the house,” Bardem told Entertainment Weekly . “We’re going to do some heavy metal — Spanish heavy metal, which is the worst." ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) TV Guide Magazine 's Will Keck writes that Brian Austin Green ( Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles ) is weighing a potential role on ABC's Desperate House

Warner Bros. Television today announced their full programming slate for San Diego Comic-Con 2010, taking place in just a few weeks now. Among the offerings, Warner Bros. Television will host panels for The Big Bang Theory, Chuck, Fringe, Human Target, Nikita, Smallville, Supernatural, V (which I'll be moderating, in fact), The Vampire Diaries, Children's Hospital, Unnatural History, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, MAD , and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated . (Whew.) I can also now officially announce that the V panel I'll be moderating--which will feature Elizabeth Mitchell, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Logan Huffman, Laura Vandervoort, Charles Mesure, Morena Baccarin, Scott Wolf and executive producers Scott Rosenbaum and Steve Pearlman--will be taking place Saturday from 2:30-3:15 pm in Ballroom 20. (Hope to see you there!) Earlier that day, be sure to stop by Ballroom 20 at 10 am for the Chuck panel, which will feature Josh Schwartz, Chris Fedak, Zachary Levi, Yvon

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Rand Ravich's ABC drama pilot Edgar Floats , which recently received an order for six additional scripts, will be completely reconceived, with nearly all of the original cast--including series leads Tom Cavanagh and Alicia Witt and supporting players Derek Webster, Alex Solowitz, and Raoul Trujillo--getting the axe. (Only Robert Patrick will remain.) Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, meanwhile, has some further insight into the decision made by ABC. "People have been divided on Cavanagh's performance, while Patrick has been almost universally hailed as the pilot's scene stealer," she writes. "I hear ABC brass like the idea of Edgar Floats and the central character but the project is being re-conceived, with the six additional scripts still being written." [Editor: seeing as Edgar Floats was my favorite broadcast pilot of the development cyc

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that Amy Ryan ( The Office, The Wire ) has landed a role on Season Three of HBO's psychiatric drama In Treatment , where she will play the new therapist for Gabriel Byrne's Paul. That role was formerly supplied by Dianne Wiest's Gina, who was Paul's mentor/psychotherapist for the first two seasons. (Wiest has departed the series.) [Editor: it's about high time that Ryan had a regular gig on a series. She's been a favorite since her turn on The Wire as Beadie, so it's only fitting that she returns to HBO for In Treatnment .] ( Deadline ) E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos has an interview with Glee 's Jessalyn Gilsig, who plays Will's scheming ex-wife Terri. So will Terri be returning for Season Two of Glee ? And just what was up with her potentially inappropriate interest in Finn (Cory Monteith)? While Gilsig admits that she hasn't yet received her

Where did the broadcasters go wrong this season, and what did they do right? Good question. Head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my latest piece, "TV's Winners and Losers," as I break down the network's performance in the 2009-10 season and (via a nifty gallery) take a look at the season's winners--including Modern Family, Chuck, Vampire Diaries, Fringe, Bones, Parenthood, NCIS (and NCIS: Los Angeles), The Good Wife , and others--and the losers (such as FlashForward, Heroes, Melrose Place and medical dramas in general, as well as the draws. Where did your favorite series end up on the list? And what's your take on the 2009-10 season? Head to the comments section to discuss.

"I don't belong here... but I don't belong there, either." Throughout the two seasons thus far of FOX's trippy sci-fi drama Fringe , we've associated the world of Olivia Dunham and the Bishops pere et fils with the color blue, a somber color that's been reflected in the main title sequence, the frequent colored flares that have appeared on the the screen at dramatic or pivotal moments, and the general muted color palette of the world in which these characters live. On the other side, the alternate dimension from which a young Peter Bishop was kidnapped by a desperately grieving Walter Bishop, we see a world that's rather like ours on the surface but which is different in so many ways that matter. There, the color of choice is red, a deep crimson that's echoed in the opening credits for the two-part season finale of Fringe , the comic-book heroes whose stories line the walls of an apartment Walter has furnished for Peter (Red Arrow and Red Lantern b

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Hitfix's Alan Sepinwall has a fantastic (and lengthy) interview with Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about this week's divisive "Across the Sea" episode and the end of the series. "We told the story the way we wanted to. Like David Chase, we tried to make the show to entertain the audience. That was our primary goal," said Cuse about making the sixth and final season of Lost . "We kind of planned this episode to come at this period of time because we actually wanted to take a break after the deaths of these major characters. It felt like this was the perfect time to take a time out from the main narrative. And since this was the final big mythological episode that we were going to do, we felt like it was a good placement for it, and now we'll roll into the finale. We make no apologies. We planned this to be the way it is. Again, it is funny, because there are a lot of people who