[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Syfy is said to be exploring the possibility of spinning off its Battlestar Galactica franchise once more and is said to be developing another spin-off series--besides for the currently airing Caprica --that would this time be set in space. "We're looking for other ways to spin off Battlestar beyond Caprica ," Syfy's Mark Stern told The Hollywood Reporter . "That world is so rich. We're sitting down with (executive producer) Ron Moore and his team. It would not necessarily be a traditional series." No other details were available. The cabler also ordered a 90-minute pilot for drama Three Inches , from writer Harley Peyton and executive producer Bob Cooper. Project, from Fox Television Studios, revolves around a slacker who can move objects three inches with his mind and who teams up with other people who have useless superpowers. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. It was only a matter of time before someone snapped up River Tam. Former Firefly and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles star Summer Glau, who most recently appeared in a multiple-episode story arc on Dollhouse this season, has landed one of the leads in NBC's vigilante drama pilot The Cape . Project, from writer Tom Wheeler and directed by Simon West, revolves around a a disgraced former cop (David Lyons), framed for a crime he didn't commit, who becomes a costumed vigilante in order to clear his name. Glau will star opposite Lyons, James Frain, and Dorian Missick, and will play Orwell, described as "a cute and intrepid investigative blogger who fearlessly goes after corrupt cops and costumed bad guys" and who "gets physical and is quite capable of kicking ass." If that isn't a part made for Glau, I don't know what is. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Los Angeles Times ' Denise Martin talks to Pa

With my head spinning after this week's episode of Lost on Tuesday night, I didn't get a chance to watch White Collar 's fantastic first season finale until last night. It was definitely worth the wait. The season finale of White Collar ("Out of the Box"), written by Jeff Eastin and directed by Kevin Bray, offered further pressure to the already strained central relationships within the series, pushing both Neal (Matthew Bomer) and Peter (Tim DeKay) to make some hard choices, as Neal pursued the music box and his always-just-out-of-reach true love Kate and Peter sought to bring down the shady OPR Agent Garrett Fowler (Noah Emmerich) and stop Neal from making a disastrous decision. Plus, it featured the long-awaited return of Marsha Thomason's Agent Diana Lancing, who I've missed terribly since she disappeared after the White Collar pilot. (No worries, Diana fans, she's sticking around for Season Two.) So what did I think of the season finale? Let

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. HBO has officially announced that Academy Award winner Kate Winslet ( The Reader ) has come aboard the pay cabler's five-hour miniseries Mildred Pierce . Based on the novel by James M. Cain (which was the basis for the 1945 melodrama starring Joan Crawford and Eve Arden), Mildred Pierce will star Winslet as the titular character, a self-made millionaire who struggles to earn her daughter's love. Project will be directed by Todd Haynes ( Far From Heaven ), who will write the script with Jon Raymond. Production on the five-hour miniseries, to be executive produced by Haynes, Christine Vachon, and John Wells, is set to being in New York in April. ( Variety ) The Wrap's Josef Adalian breaks down the current crop of series that are said to be on the bubble for renewal next season, including Chuck, Fringe, V, FlashForward , and Community and names the five series he feels are worth saving. "Being on the bubble is incredi

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Daniel Dae Kim won't be leaving the island. Or, Hawaii, rather. The Lost star has landed a lead role in CBS drama pilot Hawaii Five-0 , where he will play Detective Chin Ho Kelly. Kim's co-star, however, is still unknown. Reports have indicated that former Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin had been offered the role of Detective Steve McGarrett, but no deal has been reached yet for him to star in the remake project, which hails from executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Peter Lenkov. ( Hollywood Reporter ) FlashForward co-creator David S. Goyer is leaving the ABC drama series, where he has served as showrunner since taking the creative reins from Mark Guggenheim in October. No replacement has been named for Goyer on the series, which still has roughly five more episodes to produce for this season's 23-episode order. Goyer, meanwhile, will segue back into film but will retain his executive producer credit

Not everything is what it appears to be, even on White Collar . You had the chance to read my advance review of last night's winter premiere , but now that the episode has aired, I'm curious to hear what you thought. Did you think that Jeff Eastin and the writing staff managed to keep the tension throughout the hour while also keeping Neal and Peter's partnership intact? Did the episode live up to the fall finale cliffhanger? Is Kate playing Neal and secretly working with Fowler or does she really love Neal? Just where is this mysterious amber music box and what will Neal have to do to obtain it? And, most importantly, are you hooked once more on White Collar ? Talk back here. Next week on White Collar ("Bad Judgment"), Peter and Neal discover a connection between Fowler and an estate judge who's committing mortgage fraud and set out to take them both down.

When we last watched USA's White Collar , the fun and frothy crime series might have seemed as though it had itself taken a swan dive onto a bakery awning, offering a cliffhanger reveal that called into question everything that we had seen up until that point, most notably the tenuous partnership between semi-reformed criminal Neal Caffrey (Matthew Bomer) and gruff g-man Peter Burke (Tim DeKay). Fortunately, tonight's brand-new episode of White Collar ("Hard Sell"), the series' winter premiere, deals head-on with that pesky reveal over the course of the hour via a series of plot twists that test the characters' preconceptions and their own trust issues. Lest you worry that White Collar has jumped the shark, that couldn't be further from the case. With a facile ease and a gleeful wink at the shock of the viewing audience, the writers not only explain why a ring-clad Peter met with Kate but just what the significance of that scene really was. In other word

I've fallen for the charms of USA's crime procedural White Collar , although I have to admit that I'm usually more enamored of the winning chemistry between series leads Matthew Bomer and Tim DeKay than the cases of the week, which tend to be predictable and a bit flat. The fall finale of White Collar ("Free Fall"), which airs Friday night on USA, was perhaps my favorite episode of the procedural series since the sensational pilot, which introduced the very unlikely partnership between master thief Neal Caffrey (Bomer) and Peter Burke (DeKay), the dogged FBI agent who had managed to catch Neal not once but twice. This week's episode of White Collar will definitely put that partnership to the test when Neal is suspected of orchestrating an elaborate jewel heist from Manhattan's most exclusive boutique. Will the duo be able to trust one another long enough to clear Neal's name? Who is putting him in the frame? And how does all of this connect to Neal&#

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 Wednesday morning television briefing. Just a few headlines to get through today as the Hollywood PR machine begins its annual shutdown for Thanksgiving. Futon Critic yesterday broke the story that Fringe will go on a seven-week hiatus beginning February 11th in order to accommodate the seven-week run of reincarnation drama Past Life . Fringe will return for the remainder of its run on April 1st and will air all-new episodes for the rest of the season. Sadly, FOX has opted to keep Fringe in its Thursday night berth rather than move it out of the line of fire. ( Futon Critic ) FOX announced its full midseason schedule yesterday afternoon, which included news that Glee will be returning with new episodes in April after wrapping up its initial thirteen-episode commitment in December. ( Televisionary ) In other FOX-related news, the network has given sophomore drama series Lie to Me a full season order, bringing the episodic total this season to 22 installments. News co

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. USA has renewed dramedy Psych for a fifth season, set air in summer 2010. The series, which is set to become USA's longest running original drama series in production, will air the second half of its fourth season beginning in January. ( Variety ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that ABC has temporarily halted production on drama series FlashForward , which again hit a new series low last week and has seen some behind-the-scenes drama with the departure of showrunner Marc Guggenheim. The production shutdown will last six days. "They started production early so that they could have the luxury to do this," an ABC spokesperson tells Ausiello. "They want to maintain the high quality of the show, and this gives the writers the opportunity to do so." ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) No truth to rumors that Drea de Matteo is going to be written out of ABC's Desperate House

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. Former Battlestar Galactica star Michael Trucco has been cast in USA drama pilot Facing Kate , where he will play the charismatic ex-husband to Kate, a former lawyer (Sarah Shahi) who leaves her job to become a mediator after the death of her father. Also cast: Virginia Williams ( Lie to Me ), who will play Kate's younger stepmother, a domineering woman who is desperate to hold onto her late husband's law firm. Bronwen Hughes will direct the pilot, which hails from Universal Cable Prods. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Desperate Housewives will offer a flashforward of sorts in their first episode after the December 6th cliffhanger that will explore several "what if" scenarios. "Two Wisterians featured prominently in the alternate reality sequences will be Gaby and Carlos’ youngest daughter, Celia, and Mike and Susan’s son, MJ," writes Ausiello. "I