[Televisionary]

As there have been a lot of new visitors popping up here at Televisionary lately, I thought I'd take the opportunity this Fourth of July to take a look back at some recent posts that may have given you a reason to take a break (or sneak one) from work. (Not that I'm advocating that or anything, mind you.) Hopefully, you're off from work today, with the family, celebrating the birth of the US of A. But if you happen to be stuck inside (it's a another scorcher here in Los Angeles), below are a few Televisionary moments to keep you entertained... Pilot Inspektor: CBS' Smith CW's Runaway CW's Hidden Palms FOX's Vanished ABC's Six Degrees ABC's The Nine NBC's 30 Rock NBC's Kidnapped NBC's Heroes ABC's Brothers & Sisters Showtime's Dexter Where Pilots Go to Die: CBS' Ultra CW's Aquaman Hot Topics: TV (Not on DVD) Hold The Ballots: An Emmy Award Wish List Barbarians at the Gate: Why the Frack Haven't I Been Watching

While I'm off enjoying a glorious (if infernally hot) Fourth of July weekend, some of you unlucky office worker types might be stuck inside. To that end, here's a little something to perk up your Monday morning: namely a video montage of The Office 's David Brent (Ricky Gervais), set to Beck's classic tune, "Loser." I think it speaks for itself. What's On Tonight 8 pm: The King of Queens / How I Met Your Mother (CBS); Treasure Hunters (NBC); 7th Heaven (WB); Wife Swap (ABC); Mr. Deeds (FOX; 8-10 pm); Major League Baseball (UPN) 9 pm: Two and a Half Men / The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS); Treasure Hunters (NBC); 7th Heaven (WB); Supernanny (ABC) 10 pm: CSI: Miami (CBS); Medium (NBC); How to Get the Guy (ABC) What I'll Be Watching 8 pm: Spaced on BBC America. If you missed Friday's Stateside airing of the hilarious and surreal 1999 sitcom Spaced (starring Shaun of the Dead 's Simon Pegg), here's your chance to catch the th

Former WB watchers, mark your calendars. It's time to say goodbye. Those of us who can remember a day when the WB was the place to catch vampire slayers, randy teens, and preoccupied college girls with amazing hair will undoubtedly want to tune in to the WB on September 17th for the netlet's send-off. Variety is reporting that, before the WB and UPN morph into a single entity, the WB is taking a trip down memory lane and airing the original episodes of the network's long-gone critical darlings Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the two-hour pilot), Dawson's Creek , Felicity , and Angel in a single block. The event will occur on Sunday, September 17th, the night before the offical launch of the CW, from 5 pm to 10 pm. The WB's sign-off schedule, which will include classic promos from the netlet's 11 year history, is as follows: 5 pm: Felicity ("Pilot") 6 pm: Angel ("City of...") 7 pm: Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Welcome to the Hellmouth"/

Here in the States, we've only recently embraced (to a certain extent anyway) the zany madcap nature that's found in a plentiful number of British television comedies. Shows like Arrested Development , Scrubs , Andy Richter Controls the Universe , and My Name is Earl come close to approximating that surreal humor of Britcoms like Brittas Empire , Black Books , or my latest favorite find: Spaced , a 1999 comedy that recently started its run on BBC America. The above three shows take simple concepts that could have easily lent themselves to traditional, mundane situation comedy--man runs a leisure center ( Brittas Empire ), man runs a failing bookstore ( Black Books ), couple moves in together ( Spaced )--but instead turns them on their heads, creating a topsy-turvy world for their obliviously, confused, or misanthropic characters to inhabit. The result is often pure comedy gold, the sort of thing that we Stateside are only just now beginning to experiment with, but which has be

I'm really not sure about Entourage's new character Dom. After all, it's taken me this long to stop getting annoyed every time that Turtle appears on-screen. But Entourage 's producers have seen it fit to introduce a fifth wheel into the Entourage gang (not counting Ari, of course): namely ex-felon Dom (guest star Domenick Lombardozzi of The Wire ), who made his first appearance in Sunday night's episode ("Dominated"). Whether Dom will be staying permanently is anybody's guess, but Vince has already given him the illustrious job of head of security... despite the fact that he's the biggest security risk since that loon Chapman wandered up to the Dakota. I get the fact that Dom is supposed to invite trouble and shake things up for Vince and the boys, but, at the same time, I can only really handle one annoying Entourage player at a time and that role has been filled by Turtle since the very beginning. That said, it was amusing to see Eric, Drama,

Variety is reporting that FOX has quietly cut its episodic commitment to struggling teen soap The OC from the standard 22 episodes per season to a shorter 16-episode run. According to Variety, a FOX network spokesperson "attributed the cutback to the net's scheduling needs. The OC won't have its season premiere until Nov. 2--about a month after most FOX shows--and therefore, the reasoning goes, net won't need as many episodes in the can." One need not have the mathematic skills of dearly departed Marissa Cooper to figure out that if The OC begins on November 2nd and airs all 16 episodes, the series will end its run at the end of February. It would, however, leave plenty of room for FOX to launch a new series in The OC 's timeslot, although tough competition from timeslot fellows CSI and Grey's Anatomy will make that a rather difficult feat. In other news, FOX has also gave a potential spark of life back to several pilots believed to be dead. Followin

My living room bookcases haven't known what's hit them lately, with all of the many television-on-DVD, well, DVDs, that I've been loaded them with. Yet, despite the sheer quantities that I've managed to gather, everything from Gilmore Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Vicar of Dibley and Monarch of the Glen (with more than a few Justice League animated DVDs in between), there are still a few series that for whatever reason haven't quite made the jump to the digital. So which series I am most desperate to own on DVD? Below are my top five (okay, six) picks for the most criminally unavailable television series on DVD. Andy Richter Controls the Universe Whenever I ask people which television series they would most like to see on DVD, this is invariably the answer I receive and I couldn't agree more. A critically acclaimed yet short-lived Fox series (is there any other kind?), Andy Richter Controls the Universe was a zany single-camera comedy WAY ahead