[Televisionary]

Cast the cheerleader's friend, save the world. Looks like Heroes' Claire may just need a new confidant. Actor Thomas Dekker , who plays Zach on Heroes, has just been cast as 15-year-old John Connor in FOX's pilot for The Sarah Connor Chronicles , from Warner Bros. Television. Dekker joins the previously cast Lena Headey , who will portray John's kick-ass momma Sarah Connor in the pilot, which follows the adventures of the single mom and her saviour-to-humanity-to-be after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day . (For the uninitiated, their roles were originally played by Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton.) Rumor has it that the troika of warriors that comprise a new take on the, heh, nuclear family in the pilot has been fully cast: by a certain actress who has herself appeared on two cult genre television series. Let the guessing begin.

Thanks to you, gentle readers, Televisionary has been named as a finalist in the Best Culture Blog category at the 2006 Weblog Awards. Voting starts tomorrow (Thursday) so I ask that each of you vote for Televisionary... each and every day. (Rules allow one vote per day per computer.)

Okay, so I've gotten a little bit obsessed with Top Model , despite coming to the runway a little late in the game (confession: this is the first "cycle" I've watched). But that's not to say that I haven't become an ardent fan of the Tyra Banks-hosted catfights-and-catwalks reality series, which draws to a close tonight on the CW. With only three would be models remaining, who will take home the Seventeen mag cover, the Cover Girl gig, and a contract with Elite Model Management? (Not to mention the, er, rather dubious title of America's Next Top Model, as well.) The competition is more fierce than ever and the three remaining contestants (that's Melrose, CariDee, and Eugena for those of you just tuning in) couldn't be more different. A few weeks back, I would have been amazed that Eugena made it into the Final Three over one of the twins. But then again, the trip to Barcelona seems to have shaken things up a bit and Eugena has actually come to lif

Looks like you'll have to stay up a little later to see what happens to Jack and the other survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Come February, ABC will shift drama Lost (still in the midst of a brutally long 13-week exile from the network ) to the 10 pm timeslot in order to avoid competition with FOX's American Idol result show. While the move is somewhat surprising (why move your juggernaut to another timeslot on the same night), it makes sense to push Lost back an hour, especially given the stiff competition from CBS' Criminal Minds and, yes, that worrisome feeling that American Idol will further erode the series' audience. Add to that the worry that no program will perform well after Lost (just look at the numbers and, um, indefinite hiatus of The Nine and the cancellation of Invasion) and it's worth the risk to move Lost into uncharted waters. Still, it's not a good sign that the series keeps moving later and later on the schedule. Hell, remember when it

Crack open the Bollie, sweetie darlings! Cabler BBC America has ordered two new comedy series from Absolutely Fabulous creator Jennifer Saunders, who will write, star, and exec produce these series (with The Office' s Jon Plowman), both co-productions between Auntie Beeb and its Stateside offshoot. First up, is the seven-episode black comedy Clatterford , which sees Saunders reunited with Ab Fab partner in crime Joanna Lumley. For the ladies of Clatterford, a small English country town, life in their book club is peaceful and orderly... until the arrival of a new member (Waking the Dead's Sue Johnston), freshly widowed, casts their tranquil little coterie into gossip. Saunders will play Caroline, a notorious busy-body, while Lumley will play a mischief-making eccentric named Delilah Stagg. (Also look for Peep Show 's David Mitchell to turn up as a rather sensible doctor.) The casting marks the first time that the twosome, who played Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone on Ab Fab

We Americans love our supernatural television dramas. Just take a look at the consistent popularity of series like The Ghost Whisperer and Medium . But our ghostly series tend to focus on pixie cute spirit-chatters, overworked moms, or university knitting circles of eccentrics (as in NBC's tragically condensed The Others from a few years back). Not so with the Brits, who refuse to give us a cutesy nymph of a spirit medium as a lead in BBC America's new series Afterlife , starring Lesley Sharp ( Vera Drake ) and Andrew Lincoln ( Love Actually , This Life ). Sharp's Alison Mundy is no Jennifer Love Hewitt... and that's definitely a good thing. She's a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, literally haunted by the spirits she channels... and perhaps by her own past as well, hinted at in the series premiere, which aired Stateside last week. Alison's a paradox of countering values: at once fragile and tough, she's trapped between the worlds of the living a

And on the sixth day, Jack Bauer got some company. Rick Schroder ( NYPD Blue , Scrubs , and, um, Silver Spoons , anyone?) has joined the cast of 24 in the action/thriller's sixth season, set to launch this January on Fox. Schroder will play a CTU operative named Mike Doyle who will join Jack Bauer in the field. Further details were not available, but that's hardly surprising in a series as tight-lipped as 24 . Schroder's not the only new kid on the block this season, as he joins the previously announced Chad Lowe, James Cromwell, Regina King, Powers Boothe, Peter MacNicol, Kal Penn, and David Hunt. (Also a lock for a return engagement on 24 this season: Gregory Itzin and Jean Smart.) In other casting news, Larry David is getting a houseguest on the upcoming sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm : Vivica A. Fox. In an allusion to the events of Hurricane Katrina, Fox will play a member of an African-American family that moves in with Larry and Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) after a n