[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Quite a fair amount of headlines and stories to get through today, so let's get cracking! E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos is reporting that Joshua Jackson is possibly contemplating making a trip to Mystic Falls next season. The Fringe star is said to be weighing a possible guest stint on the CW's Vampire Diaries . "We talked about it," said Jackson about a conversation he had with Kevin Williamson at Comic-Con. "It turns out that he's not making a comedy with Vampire Diaries and it might be too inside baseball comedy if I popped up. But who knows... They're all too handsome." Meanwhile, was Dos Santos able to get any clues about Season Three of Fringe out of Pacey-Con's Jackson? "It picks up literally where it left off last year," said Jackson, "and our show just continues to get greater and more bizarre and strange and disgusting and wonderful every time we put it on the ai

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello talks to CSI: NY executive producers Pam Veasey and Zachary Reiter about the departure of Melina Kanakaredes from the crime procedural and how they'll handle Stella's exit, given that Kanakaredes will not be reprising her role this fall. "We’re giving her a noble exit,” said Reiter. "We chose not to go the route of killing her off or having her go missing. We felt that would weigh too heavily on the team." However, the action will instead pick up a few months after the events of the season finale and reveal that Stella moved to New Orleans. "She left to run a lab there," Veasey told Ausiello. "And she picked that city because it’s the city of Katrina, the city of BP oil, the city where people are looking for someone to lend a hand. She’ll essentially be Mac in New Orleans. We wanted to do something that was respectful and made a lot of sense." (

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

Appearing on SFX's SFX presents The British Invasion panel, Toby Whithouse, the creator of the BBC Three supernatural drama Being Human , responded to a question about his feelings surrounding the American adaptation of Being Human , which is currently being cast and which will air on Syfy. "It will be a wrench, but I will console myself with the money," joked Whithouse when asked by moderator Dave Bradley about how it would feel to see his series adapted for American audiences. Whithouse's full answer to to the question can be found below, courtesy of Televisionary special correspondent Mark DiFruscio, who was on hand to film Whithouse's response. Season Two of Being Human launches tomorrow night on BBC America.

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. A few things to get through before I hit the road for San Diego and Comic-Con. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Olivia Munn (the newly minted Daily Show correspondent) will guest star on NBC's Chuck this fall when the series returns for its fourth season on September 20th. Munn, who is a series regular on NBC's midseason comedy Perfect Couples , will play "an impossibly cool, smart, and pretty CIA agent who intimidates and schools Chuck and Morgan" in the same installment that features Dolph Lundgren. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) In other scoop, Ausiello writes that former Friday Night Lights star Scott Porter will be joining the cast of CBS' The Good Wife this fall. Porter, whose CW pilot Nomads was not ordered to series, will play Blake, described as "Kalinda’s private-eye counterpart at the D.C. firm that’s merging with Lockhart & Gardner" w

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. They have... returned? V star Laura Vandervoort will reprise her role as Kara on the CW's Smallville for the series' tenth and final season, reports Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello. But don't get too excited, Supergirl fans: Vandervoort is only expected to appear in one installment of the Warner Bros. Television-produced superhero drama, scheduled to air in October. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Just what is going on with FOX's Terra Nova at Comic-Con? After the official San Diego Comic-Con 2010 schedule was announced over the last few days, 20th Century Fox Television opted to pull the panel for its upcoming prehistoric/time-travel drama starring Jason O'Mara from the convention. "Since production on the Jason O’Mara starrer isn’t expected to start until September, the producers don’t have any footage to show the fans in San Diego," writes Entertainment Weekly 's L

Looking for more information about Syfy's newest drama series Haven ? Head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my latest feature, entitled "Stephen King's Haven on Syfy: Is It the Next Twin Peaks ?" where I talk to executive producers Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn as well as series lead Emily Rose about the spooky supernatural drama, based on Stephen King's novella "The Colorado Kid." Haven premieres tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on Syfy.

Tonight, Syfy launches two series, one returning favorite and a new offering, both of which are set in small towns that conceal the truth about their nature. Syfy itself has had more success with its light procedurals such as Eureka and Warehouse 13 (which itself returned to the lineup earlier this week) than with the sort of doom-and-gloom of fellow original series Caprica , but that doesn't mean that the network should slide permanently over to to the sunny side of the genre. (After all, there does need to be not only a balance between light and darkness in terms of tone but also a sense that there's a variety of programming on offer at the cable network.) However, summer might just be the perfect place for such sci-fi jocularity and off all of Syfy's series, the one that best achieves the blend of humor and action (along with a real sense of speculative fiction) is Eureka , created by Andrew Cosby and Jamie Paglia. Eureka returns tonight with its fourth season premier

Welcome to your (slightly delayed) Thursday morning television briefing. A few headlines to get through on Emmy nomination day... Score another genre hit for Mark Pellegrino. The former Lost and Supernatural co-star is heading to Syfy's US adaptation of supernatural drama Being Human , where he will play Bishop, described as the "charismatic and menacing mentor" to Sam Witwer's vampire Aidan. Pellegrino's casting nearly rounds out the cast for the American adaptation, though there's still one role outstanding (that would be Josh, the werewolf, though there have been rumblings about several actors auditioning for the role). Elsewhere, Patrick J. Adams ( Friends With Benefits ) has been cast as the lead in USA legal drama A Legal Mind , where he will play Mike Ross, described as "a brilliant but unmotivated college student who gets recruited by a top Manhattan corporate law firm despite not being a lawyer" and who must "use his book and street s

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. TV Guide Magazine 's Will Keck is reporting that former Lost co-star Henry Ian Cusick has signed on for a multiple-episode story arc on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , where he will play Erik Weber, a graphic artist. Cusick is expected to appear in at least two episodes of the procedural drama and will cross paths with Mariska Hargitay's Detective Olivia Benson. "There might be some flirtation," executive producer Neal Baer told Keck. "Erik meets Olivia when he comes to someone's aid. And then we'll see how it goes. Olivia is devoted to her job and knows that comes first." ( TV Guide Magazine ) It's official: Academy Award nominee David Strathairn will star in Syfy's 90-minute action pilot Alphas , according to a network press release. In the pilot, written by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow and directed by Jack Bender, Strathairn will play the "unconventional, eccentr

Syfy has had a lot of success of late with quirky, humorous dramedies where the science fiction often takes a backseat to the trappings of traditional drama. Think of them more as extraordinary dramas than say, purely speculative fiction. This is particularly true with Syfy's original series Eureka and Warehouse 13 , both of which return to the schedule this week with new seasons. In their own ways, both series have served to push the network further into the mainstream, fusing together the supernatural/speculative elements of the genre with mass appeal to create a new sub-genre that's heavy on the humor and light, well, in general. While Eureka focuses on a town of super-scientists hidden in the Pacific Northwest, Warehouse 13 using somewhat similar trappings: a tiny town in the middle of nowhere hides a massive government-sponsored secret. In this case, that secret is the Warehouse itself, a depository of arcane and mysterious artifacts, each with their own abilities. It&#

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Steve Carell has confirmed that he will leave NBC comedy The Office following the conclusion of next season, the series' seventh. "I just think it's time," Carell told E! Online's Kristina Guerrero while promoting his new film Despicable Me . "I want to fulfill my contract. When I first signed on I had a contract for seven seasons, and this coming year is my seventh. I just thought it was time for my character to go... It doesn't certainly mean the end of the show. I think it's just a dynamic change to the show, which could be a good thing, actually. Add some new life and some new energy... I see it as a positive in general for the show." Carell pointed to the series' ensemble cast and the strength of the writers and didn't seem to feel that his departure would negatively affect The Office at all. ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) Wait, what? Entertainment Weekly 's Michael A

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Judy Greer ( Miss/Guided ) is heading to CBS. The actress--whose voice appeared this season on FX's animated comedy Archer --has signed on to star in CBS ensemble comedy Mad Love , which has been picked up for thirteen episodes and will launch in midseason. Greer replaces Lizzy Caplan, who had only signed on to appear as a guest star in the pilot, and will star opposite Sarah Chalke (who herself replaced Minka Kelly), Jason Biggs, and Tyler Labine (who replaced Dan Fogler). Project, from writer/executive producer Matt Tarses, revolves around a group of Manhattan friends looking for love. ( Variety , Deadline ) Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that David Strathairn ( Matadors ) is in talks to topline Syfy's action-adventure pilot Alphas , which revolves around a team of people with extraordinary abilities. Strathairn would play the "the overseer/team leader/prescribing doctor and all around mother hen to the tea