[Televisionary]

So now we know just what happened all those years ago between Lily and Rufus. While their tortured almost-love affair is one of the main reasons I keep tuning in to Gossip Girl despite some truly overwrought plots (and some shrilly irritating characters in Vanessa and Serena's new BF Aaron), last night's episode of Gossip Girl ("O Brother, Where Bart Thou?") also gave Chuck and Blair opportunities to shine. I absolutely loved the scene between the two of them in Blair's bedroom when Chuck crashed Eleanor's wedding to Cyrus and then Blair wrapped him up comfortingly in her arms. I almost wish the episode had just ended right then and there with that gorgeous image of Blair barely containing the explosive Chuck in her tiny arms. So what did Chuck and Rufus learn about Lily's mysterious past? Let's discuss after the jump. I've suspected for quite a long time now that Lily had a child with Rufus and concealed it from him. As soon as CeCe mentioned th

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I'm now seriously behind on my telly-viewing as I was out last night at the West 3rd Street Holiday Walk, where I bumped into Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman, but I did manage to watch The Office and 30 Rock , naturally. Today's biggest headline is that CW has announced that it will pursue developing a spin-off of teen-centric drama Gossip Girl . Rather than shoot a pilot, however, the CW will use an upcoming episode of Gossip Girl to function as a backdoor pilot in order to save costs and test the concept before committing to a series order. One caveat: the untitled spin-off will not be an adaptation of novel series "The It Girl" and will not focus on Jenny Humphrey. So who could be the focus of said spin-off? It's likely that producers would select one of Gossip Girl 's main cast members to spin-off but it's difficult to figure out who the most likely candidate would be. Or producers could introduce a

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I'm still behind on telly so I haven't seen the latest episode of Dirty Sexy Money yet... That sound you hear? It would be the final nail in the coffin for Pushing Daisies ... Daisies creator Bryan Fuller has signed a two-year overall deal with Universal Media Studios, under which he will rejoin the staff of NBC's Heroes and develop new series projects for the studio. Fuller, who is completing post-production on WBTV's Daisies , will rejoin Heroes starting with episode 320 though it is unknown what his official position will be, other than that he will be working closely alongside showrunner/executive producer Tim Kring. ( Hollywood Reporter ) In other Pushing Daisies news, Kristin Chenoweth has joined the cast of FOX's animated midseason comedy Sit Down, Shut Up , where she will replace Maria Bamford as Florida high school science teacher Miracle Grohe, opposite Arrested Development 's Jason Bateman,

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Let's get to the headlines, shall we? Neve Campbell ( Party of Five ) will return to network television with NBC's midseason drama The Philanthropist , starring James Purefoy and Jesse Martin, about a renegade billionaire who uses his wealth to help people in need. The former Scream queen will play the wife of Teddy Rist's business partner and BFF Phillip (Martin), who runs the men's philanthropic organization and finds herself drawn to Rist (Purefoy). ( Hollywood Reporter ) ABC released some new footage from the Season Five premiere of Lost . ( Televisionary ) Samantha Who? (and former Ugly Betty ) writer Marco Pennette has three projects in development, including ABC drama pilot The Romeos , about four men in the 1960s who eventually become the country's biggest pop stars, which he'll write and executive produce with Brad Meltzer and Steve Cohen ( Jack and Bobby ), and ABC comedy Straight Up and Dirty ,

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. I'm still smarting from the reveal in last night's episode of Gossip Girl just who was involved in that oh-so-predictable accident rather than the, uh, party I'd rather get axed from the series. Sigh. Better news then for fans of Sci-Fi's Battlestar Galactica . The cabler has given a series order to spin-off Caprica , which is set fifty years before the action of BSG . Sci-Fi had earlier this year shot a two-hour backdoor pilot for Caprica , which stars Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, and Polly Walker, from director Jeffrey Reiner and plans to launch the series in early 2010. Production on twenty additional episodes is slated to begin in mid-2009 in Vancouver. "We want people to come to this who have never heard of Battlestar Galactica ," said Sci-Fi president Dave Howe. "I think, because [ Galactica 's] backdrop was space and spaceships, there was a barrier to entry for some viewers. Ca

While there might not be a new episode of Gossip Girl on tonight, it doesn't mean that we can't attempt to figure out just what's going to happen in next week's "unmissable" episode, slated to air on Monday, December 1st... which seems to indicate that the Grim Reaper is going to claim one of the series' Upper East Side denizens. (Or, well, Brooklyn inhabitants.) The CW's haunting promos ask viewers, "If you only had one night to live, who would you spend it with?" An intriguing question to be sure, but one made even more palpable by the unseen voice at the promo's end speaking about an "accident." Which to me, anyway, means that one of Gossip Girl 's cast won't be back in the New Year. So who am I placing my bet on to kick the bucket? Let's discuss. There's no way that Josh Schwartz and the Gossip Girl writers would kill off either Dan or Serena (or, well, Chuck, Nate, or Blair) so that leaves the supporting c

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I'm still depressed from yesterday's news about Pushing Daisies but another fantastic episode of 30 Rock (and the hilarious Nightman-laden season finale of It's Always Sunny ) helped remove some of the sting. One piece of good news: it seems like that Arrested Development feature film might actually be happening. After a host of rumors, there's finally some solid intelligence on the big screen adaptation moving forward. Series creator Mitch Hurwitz and executive producer Ron Howard have signed deals for the project, which would be released by Imagine and Fox Searchlight. Hurwitz will write the script and co-direct the feature with Howard. Me, I'm pleased as punch about this news. If there's one series that I feel could work on the big screen, it's Arrested Development . Hell, just think of the DVD sales alone. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Looking for a fix of Lost ? ABC has released a new promo for Season Five

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I had a lovely day yesterday sorting through the many, many comments left by readers about this week's episode of Chuck and settled in for an evening that included a well lush episode of Gavin & Stacey and a brand-new episode of Fringe . NBC has renewed soap Days of Our Lives for an additional 18 months, a significantly shortened renewal when the previous deal had the Peacock picking up the long-running skein for five years. The new pact will keep Days on the air until September 2010 but there is a clause in the deal for an additional year-long extension if certain terms are met. ( Variety ) E's Kristin has a new 15-second promo spot for the upcoming fifth season of Lost with some new footage, including a shot of Locke seemingly with a compass embedded in his hand. Just what does it mean? Who knows but I'm happy to see some new shots in the mix. ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) Dexter 's Desmond Harrin

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. While not totally TV-related, you can see a sneak peek of the cover of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (which hits newsstands tomorrow) to the right, depicting Heroes ' Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine as Spock and Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek . The issue also features an in-depth interview with Abrams, in which he talks about Star Trek , his YouTube-fueled feud with William Shatner, and also features quotes from Leonard Nimoy and Quinto about the new film. Are you GOB Bluth? FOX is said to be in final negotiations for a talent/development deal with Will Arnett ( Arrested Development ); under the deal, FOX would develop a comedy vehicle for Arnett or cast him in a pre-existing project at the network. Arnett, who is currently recurring as Devon Banks on NBC's 30 Rock , also stars (or his voice does, anyway) in FOX's upcoming animated comedy series Sit Down, Shut Up . ( TV Week ) Not such good news, however, f

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. I hope you all tuned in to watch the third episode of Chuck last night as well as a pretty soggy installment of Gossip Girl in which the laws of college applications, logic, and, well, sense of any kind sort of went out the window. But at least the kids looked fabulous, right? Rob Thomas is proving himself to be quite prolific, in the post- Veronica Mars universe. Pay cabler Starz has ordered ten episodes of half-hour comedy series Party Down , written by the Veronica Mars creator, who is set to executive produce with John Enbom, Paul Rudd, and Dan Etheridge. (Enbom will act as the series' showrunner.) Series follows the lives of six Hollywood wannabes as they attempt to pursue their dreams while trying to get by day by day with their shared catering company. Party Down will likely launch in March 2009. ( Variety ) Brenda will be returning to 90210 . Yep, Shannen Doherty has agreed to appear in two additional episodes of the

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I will admit that I felt the loss not having a new installment of The Office to watch last night and I still have Episodes Two and Three (next week's episode) to watch of Ugly Betty , but I did laugh my butt off watching the one-hour It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia last night, which not only gave us Mac and Charlie faking their own deaths but the very odd sight of Mac in a pawn shop wedding dress. (Congrats, BTW, to Rob McElhenny, who wed his Sunny co-star Kaitlin Olson this week.) While the ratings for the launch of Pushing Daisies , were not exactly as sweet as honey for ABC, fans of the brilliant series can look forward to, among other things, a cross-over with Bryan Fuller's tragically-missed Wonderfalls in the eighth episode of the current season, according to Fuller in an interview. Just what this means and which Wonderfalls characters have been cast (an interesting dilemma as Lee Pace starred on that series a

I was really looking forward to last night's episode of Gossip Girl ("The Serena Also Rises") as it promised not only a potential showdown in the escalating war between former BFFs Serena and Blair, with the backdrop of New York Fashion Week, but also because it promised to finally bring together bitter enemies Chuck and Dan for a night on the town. Right? Not quite. While I was riveted by the Serena/Blair/Jenny drama (though, honestly, Laurel should be fired for leaving an intern in charge of readying the models and did no one check any of the models' ensembles before they went out on the runway?), I found the Dan storyline to once again be a leaden mess and a complete misuse of what could have been a hilarious and fun storyline that had the two of them hitting the town, Chuck Bass style. Instead, we're force-fed another plot about what a fantastic writer Dan is but how Yale's admission office won't be impressed with any of his recent writings (despite,

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I spent last night holding my sides from laughing so much during the season premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (more on that in a bit) and was on the edge of my seat watching the much anticipated season premiere of The Amazing Race (which kicks off on CBS on September 28th). Sci Fi has ordered 11 additional episodes of sci-fi dramedy Warehouse 13 , which already shot a two-hour backdoor pilot earlier this year. Series, about Secret Service agents tasked with protecting a top secret South Dakota storage facility that contains a seemingly endless supply of supernatural artifacts (hint: like the TARDIS, the place is bigger on the inside), stars Eddie McClintock ( Bones ), Joanne Kelly ( Vanished ), CCH Pounder ( The Shield ), and Saul Rubinek ( Blind Justice ). Look for Warehouse 13 --from writer/executive producer David Simkins, writers Brent Mote and Jane Espenson, and Universal Cable Prods.--to air in July 2009 as a c

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I was absolutely riveted by last night's episode of Fringe (more on that in a bit) and not so riveted by another dull installment of 90210 . Meh. The CW's buzz-worthy Gossip Girl scored the highest numbers ever in the life of the series, drawing in 3.7 million viewers on Monday, an increase of nearly 500,000 from the week prior and 300,000 above Gossip Girl's second season premiere on September 1st. Those numbers are even more palatable for the netlet when you realize that it's a full one million viewers more than tuned in to the third episode of the first season. Not doing quite as well? FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles , which lost 800,000 viewers from last week's season premiere to sink to a low of 5.5 million, off 36 percent from its Season One average. Ouch. ( Entertainment Weekly ) More talk from NBC chiefs about the quality work co-chairman Ben Silverman is doing (in between "[party