[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Los Angeles Times ' Denise Martin is reporting that Party Down star Adam Scott is heading to NBC's Parks and Recreation , where he is slated to turn up in the final episodes of the season... alongside Rob Lowe, in fact. [Editor: could their sudden appearances in Pawnee be linked?] Scott, who will serve as as a series regular for Parks ' third season, has also signed a first-look deal with NBC and Universal Media Studios, under which he will develop new series projects. Parks and Recreation co-creator Mike Schur described Scott as "brilliant and funny -- and he's funny in a lot of different ways. There just aren't that many people with a comedic range that spans Step Brothers to Party Down ." As for Party Down fans worried that this would mean the end of Henry Pollard, Martin reports that "Scott said he'd be open to coming back to reprise his role should "Party Down" be renewed."

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Maria Bello, Simon Beaufoy, and Russell Crowe have teamed up to develop HBO drama project Emergency Sex , based on Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson's nonfiction book "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell on Earth," about "the larger-than-life exploits of expatriate nongovernment-organization workers who find their sanity tested in the face of atrocities, loneliness and primal desires." Bello ( A History of Violence ) will star in the project, which is being adapted by Simon Beaufoy ( Slumdog Millionaire ), who will executive produce with Bellow, Russell Crowe, and John Carrabino. ( Hollywood Reporter ) NBC has handed out pilot orders to two projects, both hailing from Universal Media Studios. One-hour drama The Cape , from writer Thomas Wheeler ( Empire ) and BermanBraun, revolves around an ex-cop in Los Angeles who is framed and sets out to become a masked vigilan

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. The Chicago Tribune 's Maureen Ryan has published the first part of a massive and fantastic Q&A with Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. The best part? It's 100 percent spoiler-free, so even the spoiler-averse among us can enjoy. [Editor: Go, Mo!] "We... spent a lot of time talking about how we don’t want the last season of the show to be didactic," said Cuse, when asked whether they anticipated a harshly critical reaction to the final season. "It’s very dangerous to basically create a checklist of answers and then start trying to tick them off, because we want to make sure we’re telling engaging stories. For us really, while the mythology is important, for us it’s a story about these characters. And so most of our focus has been on, how are we going to resolve the character stories?" ( Chicago Tribune 's The Watcher ) SPOILER ALERT! Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello t

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. For those of you Stateside, hope that you're feeling rested (and hopefully recovering from a few days of gluttony) after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Major changes afoot at USA, according to The Futon Critic's Brian Ford Sullivan. Rather than follow the plans the cabler had outlined for January, USA has chosen to revise its entire schedule, moving its series White Collar, Burn Notice , and Psych onto separate evenings, come January. White Collar will return to the lineup on January 19th, where it will move into its new timeslot of Tuesday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT. Meanwhile, Psych will take over the Wednesday night slot beginning January 27th and Burn Notice will remain on Thursdays, returning with new episodes on January 21st. The move gives the cabler original series on three weeknights. Perhaps a ploy to lure viewers from broadcast sibling NBC to some scripted fare at 10 pm? ( Futon Critic ) Aunjanue Ellis ( The Tak

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Bad news for Tim Riggins fans. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Friday Night Lights executive producer Jason Katims has confirmed that Taylor Kitsch will "will miss part" of the production of Season Five of Friday Night Lights , due to his role in Disney's feature film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's "John Carter of Mars." But there's still hope that they can work around Kitsch's schedule. "We are communicating with the [John Carter] production to work out the schedule so that Taylor can be in as much of season 5 as possible," said Katims. Production begins on the fifth season in March. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) HBO has given a pilot order to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films for an untitled drama about a woman who walks out on her perfect marriage and children in order to fulfill her secret fantasies in the seedy underbelly of Los Angel

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Jason Lee ( My Name is Earl ) has been cast as the lead in TNT drama pilot Delta Blues , where he will play Dwight Hendricks, a Memphis cop who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator and lives with his mother. Pilot, from Warner Horizon and Smokehouse Pictures, is written by Liz M. Garcia and Joshua Harto and will be directed by Clark Johnson, who will executive produce with George Clooney and Grant Heslov. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Proving that the series' casting directors have inherited the comedy casting mantle from Arrested Development and 30 Rock , Fred Willard ( Back to You ) has signed on to guest star on an upcoming episode of ABC's Modern Family , where he will play the father to Ty Burrell's Phil. [Editor: look for Willard to turn up, oh, before the end of the calendar year.] ( Fancast ) Gretchen Mol ( Life on Mars ) has joined the cast of HBO's upcoming period drama Boardwalk Empire in the recurring role of

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. ABC is developing a US adaptation of British hit comedy series Gavin and Stacey , about the romance between two very different lovers from two very different places (in the original it was Essex and Wales) who fall in love over the phone and begin a relationship, against the advice of their eccentric friends and families. US version, from BBC Worldwide, will be written by Stacy Traub ( Notes from the Underbelly ) and Hayes Jackson ( According to Jim ). Elsewhere at the Alphabet, the network has given a pilot order to 18 Years , about a young couple who become parents and must "adjust to their new life as parents -- trading their fast-paced existence for a more domesticated lifestyle," from Sony Pictures Television and writer/executive producers Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith ( The King of Queens ). ABC is also developing an untitled comedy, from Samantha Who? executive producer Don Todd, ABC Studios, and Brillstein Entertai

After weeks of anticipation (and speculation), Warner Bros. Television Group has finally announced which series they will be bringing down to San Diego Comic-Con next month. All of the usual suspects-- Chuck, Fringe, Supernatural, Smallville , and The Big Bang Theory --will be in attendance along with new series from the studio including V, Human Target, Past Life, Eastwick , and Vampire Diaries and animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold . Additionally, Warner Bros. Entertainment (WBE) will once again have a nearly 3,000-square foot, two-story booth right on the convention floor and will naturally be giving away those exclusive and ubiquitous Comic-Con Bags. The full press release from Warner Bros. Television Group, along with dates, times, and locations (as well as full descriptions) of their panels can be found below. WARNER BROS. TELEVISION GROUP RETURNS TO COMIC-CON IN 2009 WITH STAR-STUDDED LINEUP FEATURING A RECORD 11 SHOWS Stars and Creators of “The Big Bang Theory,” “C

Welcome to your Wednesday television briefing. AMC has handed out a twelve-episode series order to political thriller Rubicon , starring James Badge Dale, Miranda Richardson, Lili Taylor, Dallas Roberts, and Peter Gerety. Series, from Warner Horizon, writer/executive producer Jason Horwitch ( Medical Investigation ), and director Allen Coulter ( Six Feet Under ), revolves around an analyst (Dale) of a top-secret government think tank "whose work leads him to uncover a clue that points him toward an unfolding global conspiracy." Series, which will be shot in New York, is expected to launch in 2010. "The pilot is beautifully done and we are very, very excited to move forward with the series," said Joel Stillerman, SVP of programming and production at AMC. "It's a major challenge to find the right balance to take that into a serialized drama format, where you have to pose more questions than are answered but do it in a way that is still satisfying to the audie

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. (Following a week that included the 2009 network upfronts, I think we are all looking forward to a three-day weekend.) SPOILER! Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello has the dish on the actual set-up of the new Melrose Place series, kicking off this fall on the CW, and it will either make you squeal with delight or make you want to scream, well, bloody murder. "Sources confirm to me exclusively that the dead body found floating face down in Melrose 's trademark pool in the opening minutes belongs to none other than Laura Leighton's bitchtastic ex-stripper," writes Ausiello of Melrose's seemingly resurrected Sydney. "I'm told her death will set in motion a season-long murder mystery that finds nearly all of the show's principal characters -- particularly Syd's ex, Michael (Thomas Calabro) -- a possible suspect." Leighton, meanwhile, will continue to appear on the series via flashback