[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. NBC has pulled freshman drama Kings from its schedule, effective immediately. The drama was originally set to air on Thursday evenings but the Peacock shifted it to Sundays, where it aired four low-rated episodes before being pushed to the graveyard on Saturday nights. NBC has once again managed to surprise, this time by pulling Kings from its lineup altogether, although the network has pledged to return Kings to the schedule on June 13th, when it will begin to burn off the remainder of the series' unaired installments on Saturday nights at 8 pm. In the meantime, NBC will air repeats of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Southland, and Law & Order on Saturdays. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Variety 's Season Pass has a brand-new Q&A with Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as they look back at the five seasons that have gone by and the final season yet to come. "I think our hope is that

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Dollhouse star Tahmoh Penikett and Laura Vandervoort ( Smallville ) have been cast in Sci Fi's four-hour mini-seres Riverworld , from RHI Entertainment, which will function as a backdoor pilot of sorts for a possible series order (much in the way that the original Battlestar Galactica mini-series did). Also cast in the mini-series, based on a seires of novels by Phillip Jose Farmer: Alan Cumming, Jeanne Goossen, and Mark Deklin. Penikett will play Matt Ellman, a war correspondent who, along with his fiancee (Vandervoort) is killed, but they both awaken in a strange world inhabited by everyone who has ever lived on Earth. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Meanwhile, Ryan Carnes ( Desperate Housewives ) will star as the titular character in the four-hour mini-series The Phantom , also from RHI Entertainment. Also cast: Isabella Rossellini, Cameron Goodman, and Sandrine Holt. ( Hollywood Reporter ) David Tennant and executive producer Rus

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. AMC has renewed drama Breaking Bad for a third season, only four episodes into the series' sophomore season, which launched with 1.7 million viewers, a 21 percent increase over the series premiere episode. Series, which stars Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, RJ Mitte, Dean Norris, and Betsy Brandt, will join the ranks of AMC drama Mad Men , also renewed for a third year. ( Hollywood Reporter ) The battle over Project Runway has finally ended and now that the dust has cleared, it's Lifetime who will air the sixth season of the reality series this summer. "I couldn’t be more excited that Lifetime will bring its viewers an amazing, all-new season of Project Runway this summer," said Lifetime president/CEO Andrea Wong in a statement. "As the highest-rated cable network for women, Lifetime is the perfect home for this outstanding program as well as its companion series Models of the Runway . All of us at L

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Mischa Barton ( The O.C. ) has joined the cast of CW drama pilot A Beautiful Life , where she will play Sonja, a supermodel who is trying to stay on top of the modeling world but who is finding it not so easy as she thought. Barton was originally up for a role on the netlet's revival of Melrose Place but did not land a role on that pilot. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Joel Gretsch ( The 4400 ) will co-star in ABC sci-fi pilot V , from writer/executive producer Scott Peters, co-creator of The 4400 , and Warner Bros. Television. Gretsch will play a Catholic priest who sees a sudden resurgence of faith among the human population following the arrival of The Vistors. Elsewhere, Donald Faison (Scrubs) will star opposite Cedric the Entertainer in ABC comedy pilot The Law , where they will play reserve LAPD officers; Ben Koldyke ( Boldly Going Nowhere ) has scored a lead role in CBS comedy pilot Big D ; and Natalie Martinez ( Saints & Sinn

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Jason Dohring ( Veronica Mars ) and Minka Kelly ( Friday Night Lights ) have signed on to star in CW drama pilot Body Politic , from CBS Paramount Network Television. Dohring will play a Washington Post reporter while Kelly will play Hope, a young woman who leaves Michigan after the death of her mother to take a position in Washington in as a staffer for a senator (Tim Matheson), who has just been named Attorney General. Fans of Friday Night Lights shouldn't worry, however: Kelly's casting here doesn't signal the end of FNL as she was not set to return as a series regular next season but will instead turn up in Season Four in a multiple-episode story arc should the series be renewed. ( Hollywood Reporter ) ABC has confirmed that Ashley Jensen will leave Ugly Betty at the end of the season; it's no secret that the actress was "less than thrilled" when Betty moved production from Los Angeles to New York la

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. The Los Angeles Times talks to Lost 's Terry O'Quinn about the reveal that his character, John Locke, wasn't quite as dead as it initially seemed in a very interesting interview that peels back some of the layers of motivations behind the enigmatic character. "Well, it appears to be at least a version of living," admitted O'Quinn. "It's interesting that I find post-death Locke up to this point much more relaxed and confident. I guess dying does that to you. I don't think he's too worried anymore. I think he might believe that he has the answers he's been looking for." ( Los Angeles Times ) In other Lost -related news, TV Guide talks to new cast member Reiko Aylesworth ( 24 ) about what to expect on this week's episode, entitled "LaFleur." "There are so many reveals in this [episode]," said Aylesworth. "This episode opens up many cans of worms... [and

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Is there life on Mars? Turns out not so much: ABC has canceled the US adaptation of BBC series Life on Mars after seventeen episodes. The series, which will (rather unusually) air its five remaining episodes before the timeslot is taken over by The Unusuals in April, will not return for a second season. However, Life on Mars ' producers have been given the go-ahead by the network to write their season finale as a series finale that will answer some questions about Sam Tyler's travel to 1973 and possible return to the present day. ( Variety , Hollywood Reporter' s The Live Feed ) Scott Wolf ( The Nine ) will star in ABC's re-imagining of classic sci-fi series V . In the drama pilot, produced by Warner Bros. Television, Wolf will play Ryan, a man who is keeping a rather dark secret from his girlfriend, according to Michael Ausiello. [Editor's SPOILER note: Said secret is that Ryan is in fact a member of the alien

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Amy Acker, who currently recurs on FOX's Dollhouse , has been cast in ABC supernatural mystery pilot Happy Town , where she will play the wife of small town cop Tommy Conroy (Geoff Stults). Elsewhere, Eric Christian Olsen ( Brothers & Sisters ) will play the lead in ABC's untitled Ricky Blitt comedy pilot, about a 30-something guy in a state of arrested adolescence who is stuck between the demands of his needy best friend and his new girlfriend, who has teenage children; Taylor Schilling ( Dark Matter ) will play the lead in NBC drama pilot Mercy , where she will play Veronica Callahan, a nurse who was previously stationed in Iraq; and Dakota Goyo ( Ultra ) has been cast as NBC's untitled Daniel Cerone drama pilot (formerly known as Brothers & Detectives ), where he will play an 11-year-old genius who helps his older brother, a police detective (Jimmy Wolk), solve crimes. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Ming-Na ( ER ) an

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Dana Delany admitted that none of Wisteria Lane's residents feel exactly safe these days, following the announcement that Nicollette Sheridan will leave Desperate Housewives . "Everyone is vulnerable on Wisteria Lane -- any of us could go," said Delany. "Every single person in that cast feels like their days are numbered. I think [Marc Cherry] likes to keep people on their toes." An upcoming storyline will find Delany's Katherine in potential jeopardy. "It's good," said Delany of the upcoming plot, "because that sense of not knowing keeps the actors on their toes and it keeps the audience anticipating." ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Pilot helmer alert: The CW has given an official pilot order to Melrose Place , an update of the soap to be overseen by Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin ( Smallville ). Pilot, from CBS Paramount Network Television, will be directed by Dav

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Just a few quick headlines to get through today on this rather quiet programming-news-related morning. Looking for one more reason to turn into Starz's upcoming comedy series Party Down , from co-creator Rob Thomas ( Veronica Mars ) ? Turns out that Veronica herself--Kristin Bell--will be appearing on the series, according to Kristin Dos Santos. "I'm about to guest star on Rob Thomas' new show, called Party Down ," Bell told Dos Santos. "It's on Starz...a lot of old Veronica Mars people are on it and some really cool comedians like Adam Scott." Starz has confirmed the casting coup saying, "Kristen Bell will be appearing in our new original comedy series, Party Down , premiering on Friday, March 20." Bell's episode, the season finale, is slated to air May 22nd and it's thought that Bell will play Veronica Moon, a rival caterer. ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) Rome 's L

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Cabler FX is developing a series adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's comic series Powers , about two police detectives in the homicide division assigned to cases involving super-powers. “ Powers is in active development as a pilot at FX,” Bendis told MTV. “I just handed in a draft to the network and we’re getting our notes from the network as soon as this thing is over. So next week I’ll get the notes, and as long as they don’t involve sock puppets and some sort of orgy scene that I’m not interested in, then hopefully it will go in the right direction.” ( MTV's Splash Page ) More discussion about Tom Zarek's motivations during the recent two-episode arc on Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica , this time from Richard Hatch himself, who eloquently commented on Maureen Ryan's thread about the most recent episode ("Blood on the Scales") over at the Chicago Tribune 's site. "First