[Televisionary]

FOX giveth and it taketh away. Thus was the moral yesterday when FOX announced that it had officially ordered a fourth season for crime drama Prison Break , with 22 episodes expected for the 2008-09 season. The news of an official pickup came after Prison Break writer Nick Santora spilled the beans on the renewal on his MySpace blog . While this past season's 13 episodes had Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) trapped inside Panama's bleak Sona prison, Season Four will find him and brother Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) on the run once again, with Michael out for revenge against the people who brutally murdered his lover, Sarah Tancredi. Production will relocate for Season Four from Dallas to Los Angeles; the series had been based in Chicago during its first season as well. Meanwhile, it was the end of the road for Amy Sherman-Palladino's struggling comedy The Return of Jezebel James , which starred Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose, and Scott Cohen. After two weeks of disas

Sigh. I love Amy Sherman-Palladino. I really do. I can't imagine a world without Gilmore Girls , the quirky and endearing drama she created for the WB; in the first episode alone, she proved that dramas needn't be stodgy or lack the sort of pop culture, hyper-real, breakneck-paced dialogue that her characters spout at the drop of one of Sherman-Palladino's trademark hats. Last year, when I watched the pilot episode of The Return of Jezebel James, Sherman-Palladino's new FOX comedy starring Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose, I was deeply disappointed. My critical review of the pilot drew all manner of responses from people anxious to see Sherman-Palladino's latest work who were quick to defend her... and those who had seen the pilot and were just as crestfallen as I was. While I offered suggestions last May about how best to fix the extremely awkward pilot episode , my criticism of the series centered mainly around Posey's shrill delivery, the women's bizarre

Snip. That sound you hear? It's the sound of FOX cutting back the episodic order for midseason comedy The Return of Jezebel James. After a disastrous pilot (read my advance review here ), I had pretty low hopes for this sadly middling series, despite a top notch cast (Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose, Scott Cohen, Dianne Wiest ) and a brilliant creator ( Gilmore Girls ' Amy Sherman-Palladino), so I can't say that I am surprised by FOX's announcement that they would trim the series' original 13 episode commitment to a mere six episodes (plus the original pilot). The seven episode order for The Return of Jezebel James. places the series on par with the order for FOX's other underwhelming midseason comedy entry, Unhitched (formerly known as The Rules for Starting Over ), whose sole distinction is that it's the first post- Office gig for Rashida Jones. The reason given for the unceremonious chop? FOX claims that it only needs seven episodes to fill its schedule, r

Emily Gilmore , prepare to meet your successor. FOX has announced that it has cast Dianne Wiest in a recurring role on Amy Sherman Palladino's midseason comedy The Return of Jezebel James . What's that? Dianne Wiest in a weekly comedy? Yep. Wiest will play Talia, the mother of children's book editor Sarah Tompkins (Parker Posey) and bohemian sister Coco (Lauren Ambrose). Wiest is best known for her roles in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters , Bullets Over Broadway , Edward Scissorhands , and The Birdcage (among many, many others). While I really hope that the series has been majorly reworked before its midseason launch (you can read my review of the pilot here ), I'm still a little curious to see what Sherman-Palladino does with her troika of indie stars in a multi-camera environment...

I can't tell you how heartbroken I am. It's always a sad day when something fails to meet your expectations and, while there were several pilots I was anxious to see, The Return of Jezebel James was definitely towards the top of my list. Let me begin by saying that I've been talking endlessly about Jezebel James for the past few months. As a huge Amy Sherman-Palladino fan, I've reported every single casting decision on the pilot and have been more than a little in love with the script since I read it back in December. Which made my recent viewing of the pilot all the more, well, upsetting. Quick 411 on the pilot: it's written and directed by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (she of the whip-smart dialogue and penchant for wacky hatwear) and follows the complicated relationship between two very different estranged sisters: older sis Sarah (Parker Posey) is a children's book editor for a major publisher (one of her series of novels revolves around th

With NBC and ABC announcing multiple series orders for their pilots, FOX had to get in the game as well, quietly ordering three dramas and three comedies to series yesterday. I'm thrilled to report that one of my favorite comedy pilot scripts , Amy Sherman-Palladino's The Return of Jezebel James , has received a series order for fall. The series, which stars Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose as estranged sisters who reunite when the older, more responsible one (Posey) asks the her flaky irresponsible sib (Ambrose) to carry her baby. It also stars Gilmore Girls ' Scott Cohen (remember Max Medina?) and features the series' trademark snap, crackle, and pop witty banter that made Sherman-Palladino a favorite in the Televisionary household. What else was ordered? The Kelsey Grammer/Patricia Heaton -led Back to You (a.k.a. Action News) , which had already received a 13-episode order from FOX earlier this year, was on the shortlist, along with The Rules of Starting Over , s

Talk about some inspired casting. Every now and then there's a pilot or two that manages to snag a truly stellar cast. Dirty Sexy Money is one (Peter Krause, William Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh, Donald Sutherland, and Samaire Armstrong, etc.) and the other is The Return of Jezebel James . Lauren Ambrose ( Six Feet Under ) has been cast in the comedy pilot The Return of Jezebel James , created/written/directed/executive produced by Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls). I've already followed the previous casting announcements with a certain amount of relish: Parker Posey as children's book editor Sarah and Scott Cohen as her affirmed bachelor boyfriend Marcus. Completing the triumvirate: Ambrose, who fills the very tough role of Sarah's estranged sis Coco. Plot in a nutshell: Sarah's got a great job, great sex with no strings thanks to Marcus, and while she might still be reeling from the loss of a ten-year relationship, wakes up and realizes that she wants kids. She

So it seems my little campaign to get Lauren Graham to play the lead in Amy Sherman-Palladino's new comedy pilot, The Return of Jezebel James , didn't exactly get off the ground. But no matter. While Graham's recently been upped to producer over on Gilmore Girls (making the possibility of her signing the contract to do Season Eight more likely), Sherman-Palladino has found a different leading lady for Jezebel James , one that you wouldn't ordinarily expect to sign on to a multi-camera half-hour comedy. Yes, ladies and gents, I am talking about the one and only Parker Posey. Posey ( Best in Show , Party Girl , and a zillion other films I love) will play Sarah, a successful children's book editor who, after learning that she can't conceive a child, tries to convince her hellion sister to carry the baby for her. She joins the already cast Scott Cohen , who plays her boyfriend (and lifelong bachelor) Marcus. "I can't believe it's happening," Sh

I might be sounding like a bit of a broken record at the moment regarding Amy Sherman-Palladino's new comedy pilot The Return of Jezebel James , but I just can't get Lauren Graham out of my head. Mainly because Graham would just be so insanely perfect for the lead role of Sarah Thompkins in ASP's latest project and I'd love to see Graham and Sherman-Palladino reunite on a different project, one that didn't involve a certain formerly beloved mother-daughter relationship going ever so unsubtly off the rails in recent years. Indispensable industry resource TV Tracker today released the first installment of their patented Track Vision (a boon during pilot season for overworked and overwrought buyers like yours truly) and listed Gilmore Girls as an "expected cancellation." Rumors have been swirling for months about the fate of this WB/CW dramedy staple, but after seven seasons and increasingly mounting production costs, it seems like this May will be the end

Because I've gotten so many emails asking me if I knew about this latest bit of pilot casting news, I figure I might as well share it with the rest of you out there. Scott Cohen has signed on to star in Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedy pilot The Return of Jezebel James for FOX. For those of us that follow such events, it's a blessed marriage and the reunion of two TV greats. Scott Cohen, of course, memorably played Lorelai's doomed lover and almost-husband Max Medina on Gilmore Girls . The two met at Rory's private school Chilton where Max was a tweed-wearing teacher and he and Lorelai nearly tied the knot (he proposed with 1000 daffodils in the days when there was an Independence Inn on the show), but she jilted him and instead took a road trip to Harvard with Rory. Ringing a bell? As previously reported, Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedy The Return of Jezebel James has been ordered to pilot ; it's about two estranged sisters who reunite when the elder sister

While there are a number of pilot and series orders worthy of keeping one's eye on during this busy pilot season-- The Sarah Connor Chronicles , The Canyons , and The Bionic Woman being the first three to come to mind--every now and then there's a certain project that comes along that you can't help but root for, especially when it comes from the fertile minds of one of your favorite television creators. Especially when said creator has let you down a wee bit by leaving the series that made them a mythic name around the Televisionary household after sort of sinking the show a bit. If you couldn't guess who I was talking about just from that sentence above (or if you don't bother reading the title, I suppose), here goes. Fox has ordered a multi-camera pilot from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino with the working title of The Return of Jezebel James . First of all, I'm extremely curious to see how Sherman-Palladino will handle a traditional half-hour m