[Televisionary]

It seems the Simpsons rumors were true after all and not an April Fool's Day prank, as many has thought... though the fact that Nelson Munz could be heard laughing didn't make it easy to believe. Variety is (again) reporting that periennial animated series The Simpsons is heading to the big-screen, after a trailer for the film--due in 2007--began airing in theatres on Friday and popped up last night during a new (albeit pretty lame) episode of the series on FOX. The feature film, set to open worldwide on 27 July 2007, will feature regular castmembers Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardly Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille. Also supplying voices for the film are Albert Brooks, Minnie Driver, and Erin Brockovitch, which could give some hints to the feature film's plotline. The official announcement comes after a leak in 2001, when it became known that the actors' contract renegotiations contained a clause for a fea

Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your knifes. Bravo's recent reality entry, Top Chef , charts the dicing, slicing, and backstabbing among a group of chefs selected to compete for a profile in Food & Wine magazine, $100,000, and bragging rights to the dubious title of Top Chef, proving that, like revenge, a culinary competition is a dish best served cold. Okay, I promise I'll stop using food allusions (or at least try). I caught the first episode of Top Chef when I was in Aspen (coincidentally, the home of the Food & Wine Classic that the show's opening narration refers to) and watched it at around 2 a.m. when I had had a little bit too much to drink. So I wasn't the best judge of whether or not I liked the show. However, since returning to Los Angeles, I've watched the most recent batch of episodes and have to say that, strangely, the show is growing on me. What isn't growing on me is Top Chef 's painfully obvious dubbed dialogue (and I thought The App

Astute viewers (or at least those that don't use TiVo to fast forward through the commercials) may have caught the fake PSAs that the gang from The Office shot for April Fool's Day, covering a number of topics ranging from office romances and bear attacks to the definition of average height. My personal favorite of the bunch remains the dueling messages of the office romance PSA, delivered with deadpan accuracy by writer-actors B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling (who play star-crossed would-be lovers Ryan and Kelly), each of whom shares a contradictory feeling about the good/bad of an office crush. NBC.com is hosting these and the other hilarious Office PSAs that are currently airing on the network, along with a plethora of online exclusive ones. Check out Ryan's admonition not to film yourself having sex or Jim's feelings about how good of a movie The Fugitive is. Never has April Fool's Day been funnier. And for once, I found a (fake) commercial I would actually wan

You can call off the search party, Michael. Missing Lost castaway Walt ( Malcolm David Kelley ) has been found... in Camden County. Well, not quite. But phenom Malcolm David Kelley did show up last night on a new episode of Thursday night favorite My Name is Earl , in an inspired bit of guest casting. (Whoever does the casting for Earl deserves a medal... or at the very least a commendation from the viewing public; the guest shots never seem gratuitous--cough, cough, Will & Grace , cough, cough--or forced.) In last night's episode ("Boogeyman"), Kelley played Alvie, a rich kid terrified of the dark. Back in his thieving days, Earl traumatized him by hiding under his bed while trying to rob his house, an act Alvie has never recovered from. And this being Earl , there's a twist: Earl first makes it up to Alvie by being his personal slave for a day but ends up liking the kid and talks with him each night. Slowly, Alvie begins to be afraid less and less as they keep

Fox Scurries onto "Vantage Point" Variety is reporting that Lost 's resident holier-than-thou doctor, Matthew Fox (Jack Sheppard), has signed on to co-star with Dennis Quaid in the feature film Vantage Point . Pete Travis ( Omagh ) is directing. The film is described as a " Rashomon -style thriller that depicts the attempted assassination of the president from five different points of view." Quaid and Fox will both portray secret service agents. This is the second feature that Fox has signed onto; he's currently in pre-production on the Warner Bros. football movie We Are Marshall , which also stars Matthew McConaughey. No word on whether the assassin is a creepy, black-smoke monster that can see into your past. Midseason Network Scorecard #1 For those of you who are keeping score of series either picked up, cancelled, put on hiatus, or burned off, here is the latest: Hit FOX procedural series Bones has received an early pickup. The series, which stars Emi

Faced with declining ratings this season for the classiest of reality shows, CBS is pushing The Amazing Race to Wednesdays, reports Variety. Beginning as early as next week, Amazing Race will leave its current Tuesdays at 10 pm timeslot for a new, earlier, family-friendly timeslot on Wednesdays at 8 pm. CBS claims that the shift is in due to viewer complaints that the show airs too late for family viewing. (While I don't have a kids to worry about, my girlfriend and I are always complaining that we preferred when the show aired earlier in the evening. Yes, we're getting old.) The move is expected to increase the ratings of Amazing Race , though the series faces tough competition from NBC's bizarro game show Deal or No Deal and the return of ABC's Alias in three weeks. And, no, Race contestants Eric and Jeremy won't seem any less annoying at the earlier hour.

As if I didn't love Veronica Mars enough. Rob Thomas, writer John Enbom, and the entire Veronica crew not only turned in a simply fantastic episode last night ("The Rapes of Graff"), but also managed to snag Arrested Development 's Alia Shawkat (Maeby Funke) and Michael Cera (George-Michael Bluth) in guest starring roles. Which was especially comforting to me coming on the heels of yesterday's official announcement from 20th Century Fox Television that production would not be resuming on a fourth season of Arrested Development . So it was a particular pleasure then to see Arrested 's kissing cousins George-Michael and Maeby on Veronica Mars last night. Michael Cera was wonderful as affable-yet-bumbling Hearst College tour guide Dean and it was fabulous to see Alia Shawkat in a dramatic turn as rape victim Stacy. Theories abound on whether or not she actually shaved off her magnificent mane, but I can't see Shawkat allowing herself to be sheared; it ha