[Televisionary]

OH. MY. GOD. That's really all I could formulate after seeing last night's second season finale of Lost . Over two of the most stressful, tense hours of television (take that, American Idol!), we saw the return of Desmond (and a few other familiar faces), learned what really caused the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, and left half of our beloved characters in some serious peril. First things first: the sailboat. The beautiful little sailboat (named Elizabeth, from Newport Beach) that appeared in the castaway's ocean backyard last week did in fact end up belonging to poor Desmond, who's been attempting to sail away to Fiji for the last few weeks, only to end up right back at the island. And apparently he's been drunk the entire time. Down in the hatch, Locke and Eko fight over the continued pushing of the button. Eko believes that it is the most important work in the world, but Locke thinks that it's all a joke. With the counter at four minutes, Locke won't let

For those of you who are looking forward to this fall's Brothers & Sisters , my advice is: don't get too attached to Jonathan LaPaglia... or Betty Buckley for that matter, as both actors are being recast. It's a process that happens every year. As networks pick up pilots and make the move from ordering shows to actual production on them, there are bound to be some tweaks, including a few nips and tucks in the casting department. As to the whys, that's anybody's guess. But it's a fact of life in the TV biz that not everyone in the pilot will make it to the series intact. Today's issue of The Hollywood Reporter details some of these changes, including the recasting the two actors above, who played Kevin Walker and matriarch Iva Walker respectively on ABC's new fall drama Brothers & Sisters (reviewed here ). Additionally, THR is reporting that the role of Kimberly in the ABC drama Traveler will be recast as well. In the pilot, Kimberly was play

It's moments like these when you just have to gloat and say things like, You read it here first at Televisionary ! (No, I mustn't gloat, it's not attractive.) I had reported several weeks ago about Desperate Housewives showrunner Tom Spezialy walking off the set of the ABC drama and the rumors coming to me about nearly all of the show's writing staff receiving their walking papers. I had also reported on a rumored replacement for Spezialy: former Out of Practice and Frasier producer Bob Daily . In a rather juicy turn (fitting given the soapy series in question), I can now say that the above rumors have been confirmed as fact. Variety is today reporting that Daily has signed a deal to join Desperate Housewives full-time as a co-executive producer, replacing Spezialy. Additionally, Joe Keenan, Daily's colleague on Out of Practice (he was the co-creator of the now-cancelled sitcom), and former Will & Grace showrunner Jeff Greenstein are in discussions to jo

Let me begin by saying that I'm not usually a fan of forensic procedurals, those CSI -type shows that seem to have multiplied like bunnies and now fill up the majority of CBS's schedule. For the most part, they're standalone, tidily resolved formulaic mysteries that bare little resemblance to the character-centric nature of drama that I love so much. The same can't be said, thankfully, for British import Waking the Dead , which is currently re-airing its fifth season on BBC America. I could say things like, "If you like Cold Case , you'll LOVE Waking the Dead ," but I won't sink to that level, though the BBC's Waking the Dead , which preceded the arrival of the CBS forensic drama by a few years, is a far superior show. Both concern the cold case squad of a police authority and both solve crimes long left unsolved by their colleagues, but look at that title: Waking the Dead . Could any title be more evocative and compelling? In this case, the title

It seems like the island is getting a little smaller... Just a day after Touchstone Television, the studio behind ABC's hit drama Lost , announced that they had signed a deal with French videogame maker Ubisoft to release a Lost videogame in December 2007, Variety is today reporting that the studio has partnered with toy manufacturer McFarlane Toys to create an action figure line based on characters on Lost . First to be released will be six-inch articulated versions of Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), and (huh?) Shannon (Maggie Grace); their release will be tied in to Lost 's third season premiere this fall. (Future offerings will include Sawyer, Eko, and Jin.) Each action figure will include a full-scale prop that is connected to their character: Kate's will include the model airplane, while Hurley will have a lottery ticket with those mysterious numbers. (Um, they do know that he

In his film Trust , writer/director Hal Hartley once said, "A family is like a gun; you point it in the wrong direction and you could kill someone." I think Hartley's statement applies nicely to ABC's new family drama Brothers & Sisters , which follows a wealthy Los Angeles clan as they do what families do best: eat together, bicker, love one another, fight, and then fight some more. This being a television series, there's naturally more lurking beneath the seemingly idyllic surface of the Walker family than initially meets the eye. Told through the voice of outspoken daughter Kitty (Calista Flockhart), the series explores the many secrets and lies that exist in every family. Think of it as My So-Called Thirtysomething Relativity Once and Again . Or something to that effect. What got me initially intrigued was the truly amazing cast that the show's producers had managed to assemble here, a trend which seems to be keeping in touch with this season's man

Of the current batch of fall pilots in my possession, the one I was really looking forward to watching was NBC's Heroes , which many have touted as NBC's answer to drama juggernaut Lost . I can safely say that the cast and crew of the J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof-created drama doesn't need to lose any sleep at night. Lost this is not. For those of you in the dark, here's the basic pitch: seemingly overnight, ordinary people suddenly develop extraordinary powers and represent the next step in humanity's evolution, but there's something else afoot here as forces beyond their control seem to be drawing them closer together (a theme that seems to be so extremely common this season that it's the basis for no less than three pilots). The genetic mutation line is straight out of X-Men (one character even references the long-running comic book series, using Uncanny X-Men #143, in which Kitty Pryde travels to a dystopian future, as an argument for time travel); t