[Televisionary]

New details have emerged about NBC's post-Super Bowl hour-long episode of The Office , which will guest Jack Black ( Tropic Thunder ). The special one-hour Office installment will be titled "Stress Relief," and is set to air at 10:30 pm ET (and air simultaneously in all time zones) on Sunday, February 1st. In a meta-theatrical twist, Black will play himself in a Hollywood film alongside several other "notable Hollywood actors," according to an NBC press release. In one of the hour-long episode's plots, several Dunder-Mifflin employees attempt to screen a bootlegged version of the film at the office during the day. The Office 's "Stress Relief" will air immediately after Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday, February 1st.

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I'm still trying to get the idea of hallucinatory killer butterflies out of my system after last night's episode of Fringe by thinking of tomorrow's turkey feast. I'll keep the SPOILER ALERT on for the next few posts as not everyone may have seen last night's season finale of The Shield . Michael Ausiello chats with series creator Shawn Ryan about that ending, Shane and Vic's fates, Andre Benjamin's character attempting to run for mayor, and why Ryan knew there had to be a final confrontation between Claudette and Vic. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) TV Guide also talks with Ryan about his work on the series finale with some questions about justice, not knowing what the end of the series would be, what's next for the writer/producer, and Ryan's favorite TV series on the air at the moment. (Hint: Lost, Mad Men , and 30 Rock are some of them.) ( TV Guide ) The Office 's Mindy K

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I had a fantastically relaxing weekend, filled with some holiday-related events and a lovely private screening of the new film Slumdog Millionaire in my own living room. Good times. Battlestar Galactica fans, hold on your hats. BSG 's slinky seductress Six, a.k.a. Tricia Helfer, has signed on to guest star in an upcoming episode of NBC's Chuck , where she will play Special Agent Alex Forrest, a sexy-yet-by-the-book agent who is assigned to guard the Intersect after General Beckman becomes concerned about Sarah's feelings for Chuck. Look for Casey to fall for Alex's charms... and perhaps Chuck himself. Helfer is slated to appear in the 18th episode of the season, scheduled for next spring. Also appearing this season on Chuck : Jonathan Cake ( Six Degrees ), who has signed on for a multiple-episode story arc as a "Gerard Butler-esqe British MI6 agent by the name of Cole Barker" who quickly finds himself drawn

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I hope everyone watched the season premiere of Bravo's Top Chef , which nearly made up for yet another week without a new Pushing Daisies ... though from what I gather, there's going to be quite a lot of those come soon. Sigh. NBC has canceled freshman drama My Own Worst Enemy , which starred Christian Slater in the dual role of Edward/Henry. Series will wrap production after shooting its current episode, the ninth of the initial 13-episode order. No word yet on what NBC will substitute in the Monday 10 pm timeslot. ( Variety ) As for the fate of sophomore drama Lipstick Jungle , NBC has also given the drama the sack as well. Ouch. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Should Pushing Daisies be canceled tomorrow, creator Bryan Fuller says that the series' storylines will be wrapped up in comic book form. "The idea would be to finish out the season's story arcs in comic books," said Fuller, "to satisfy the fans and o

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I hope you all tuned in to the launch of HBO's new comedy series Summer Heights High ; I've already seen the series several times but tuned in once again (it's just that funny) and also caught upon Skins (how cute was Chris' drawing of him and Jal?) and The Amazing Race . Kate Walsh's Addison Montgomery will return to Seattle Grace... at least as part of a multiple-episode crossover story between Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice that's scheduled to air during February sweeps. ( TV Guide ) FOX has delayed the start of animated comedy The Cleveland Show , a spinoff of Family Guy , until next fall. But the network has also ordered an additional nine episodes for Cleveland , bring its episodic total to a full 22 for the 2009-10 season. If that weren't enough Cleveland -centric news, Arianna Huffington has been added to the cast. ( Variety ) Less than four months after premiering, NBC's Knight Rider

This week's episode of The Office was a masterclass to me on how not to plot a television series. The latest installment of the creatively flagging NBC comedy ("Employee Transfer"), written by new writer Anthony Farrell, undid all of the creative spark the series had rediscovered by adding Amy Ryan to the cast for a brief time. And while I didn't imagine that Ryan would stick around longer than her six-episode commitment, I thought that the writers would be able to competently plot out her arc much better than they actually did. Why have her and Michael get together as a romantic couple at all, just to have them split up a scant two episodes later when they're confronted (off-screen, I might add) by Dunder Mifflin corporate about their inappropriate relationship? Ryan has proven to be a wellspring of creative energy and her presence on the series has imbued it with a fresh energy and a new direction for Michael's character. And yet the way in which she was le

I have to say that I really quite enjoyed last night's episode of The Office ("Crime Aid"), written by new writer Charlie Grandy ( Saturday Night Live ) and directed by first-time director Jennifer Celotta (who also serves as an executive producer and writer on the series), who turned out a gorgeously filmed episode and has proven that she's just as talented behind the camera as she is writing dialogue for the employees of Dunder Mifflin. (Well done, Jen!) While the Jim and Pam fluff bored to me to tears (is anyone quite as sick of these two as I am?) and the cold open was a whole lot of nothing, the rest of the episode was filled to the brim with the stuff I love best about The Office : genuine emotion (as opposed to forced or trite sentimentality), hysterical moments, and character growth. How fantastic was it that Holly tricked Michael into returning to the office so she could make out with him without the cameras filming them? (I also loved the fact that they dir

I'm completely in love with Amy Ryan. There, I said it. Whether she's all grungy and fierce as in Gone Baby Gone , low-key and aching for excitement (as in Season Two of HBO's The Wire ), or all awkwardness and longing as Holly Flax in The Office , I'm always entranced by her subtle and amazing performance. Which brings us to this week's episode of The Office ("Business Ethics"), which was written by first-time Office scribe Ryan Koh who previously worked on this summer's Kevin-centric webisode series. It certainly wasn't the best Office episode we've ever seen and it wasn't the worst, but I did feel like it could have used a hell of a lot of tightening and another polish or so. The basic premise this week found Holly (the aforementioned Amy Ryan) attempting to oversee a branch meeting to discuss business ethics ("Let's get ethical!"), which Michael quickly turns into a situation where everyone is spilling their guts about

I was extremely nervous to watch last night's season premiere of The Office ("Weight Loss") for a number of reasons. First, the series had burned me badly by last year's seriously uneven episodes, lackluster humor, and bizarro writing that had Michael acting far too improbably rather than just being an obnoxiously over-the-top employer who seemed somewhat rooted in reality. And, second, it was another one-hour installment, which to me, meant that the Peacock had not learned its lesson from last season, which proved that the one-hour format rarely works for a comedy like this. In fact, what kept me watching the NBC series was last season's superlative season finale ("Goodbye, Toby"), which--while an hour in length--managed to keep the action moving swiftly and kept the humor grounded and realistic. (No pizza boys were harmed in the making of that installment.) And it introduced one of the single best characters in the history of The Office : Holly Flax,

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I spent last night watching Fringe (more on that in a bit), catching up on Gossip Girl , and sitting through another dull installment of 90210 . At least it took the bad taste out of my mouth from Knight Rider . (Shudder.) The Season Three premiere of NBC's Heroes (9.9 million viewers, 4.9/12 in adults 18-49) was down 25 percent from its sophomore launch , landing it second in the hour behind ABC's Dancing with the Stars . The slide for Heroes was not unexpected, coming as it did after a season that many fans found creatively lacking and middling and a curtailed season due to the writers strike. ( Hollywood Reporter ) CBS will air the original pilot of new drama Eleventh Hour , starring Rufus Sewell and Marley Shelton, as its opening installment, after all. The Eye had previously announced that it would wait to air the original pilot of Eleventh Hour ("Resurrection")until later in the season but the network h

Good morning and welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I hope that most of you decided to stay in last night and watch the premiere of FOX's new J.J. Abrams project Fringe ; I watched the second episode of 90210 and was decidedly less-than-impressed again. Sigh. If you did miss Fringe , fret not: FOX will be reairing last night's series premiere on Sunday evening at 8 pm... along with a sneak peek at the first four minutes of Episode Two, as well as an extended scene from feature The Day the Earth Stood Still (the Keanu Reeves version, natch) and a preview of the two-hour 24 movie 24: Redemption . ( Variety ) Regardless of how Fringe did in the ratings last night, it will have done significantly better than the launch for HBO's vampire drama True Blood from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball. The pay cabler only drew 1.44 million viewers to the series premiere of True Blood , significantly less than the axed John from Cincinnati did in its initial outin

I'll admit that I was far from thrilled with last season on NBC's The Office , which seemed to meander and consistently lose focus from its winning premise as the season wore on. But they managed to turn my doubts around with the brilliant season finale ("Goodbye, Toby") , which introduced new Dunder-Mifflin HR rep Holly Flax ( The Wire 's Amy Ryan). I had the chance to catch up with Amy Ryan and Office executive producer/writer Paul Lieberstein (who, along with Jennifer Celotta, crafted the season finale) about what to expect for Holly, Toby, and the entire gang at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton. First up, while I'm beyond tired of the Jim and Pam romance storyline, I know that many of you are still entranced by their courtship. Look for Pam to take that internship in New York when Season Five begins later this month and for Jim and Pam to try to make their long distance relationship work, though there will be a number of obstacles in the way. (Though one of those

Good morning and welcome to your Monday television briefing. Steven Moffat, who has taken over the reins at Doctor Who from Russell T. Davies , has said that he wouldn't rule out a feature film spin-off of Doctor Who so long as it didn't interfere with production on the series itself. "It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it was great and fantastic," said Moffat, speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. "But a film is on [for] 90 minutes and that is not as important as the series. But so long as it doesn't get in the way of the show we could do it. If it got in the way of the show that would be appalling." The series itself has already had two feature spin-offs in the 1960s: Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD , both of which starred Peter Cushing as the Doctor. ( The Guardian 's Organ Grinder ) There's a fantastic interview with J.J. Abrams about his new FOX drama Fringe and about

Good morning and welcome to your morning television briefing. Universal Media Studios has signed The Office writer/producer Michael Schur to a hefty seven-figure overall deal, under which he will create, develop, and executive produce comedy series for the studio. The newly minted deal includes Schur's writing/producing services on the untitled comedy that he and Greg Daniels are developing for Amy Poehler; he'll serve as co-creator/executive producer on the pilot, set to shoot in January (after the birth of Poehler's baby in October), alongside Daniels. Four writers so far have been hired on the untitled Poehler comedy (which will also star Aziz Ansari), which seems to have neither a title nor an available concept. Schur, meanwhile, will continue to write occasionally on The Office and could appear on-screen again as Dwight's cousin Mose. ( Variety ) CBS has revealed its lineup of sixteen contestants for the thirteenth edition of reality series The Amazing Race , whi