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Channel Surfing: Clooney Returns to "ER," Gondry Directs "Conchords," Patti LuPone Heads to "30 Rock," and More

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I'm sure many of us didn't get a very good night's sleep after the last night brought us the two-hour premiere of Lost , new installments of Damages and Top Chef , and the launch of FOX's Lie to Me . Since when did Wednesday become the go-to night for top-notch television programming? George Clooney is filming scenes this week on NBC's ER , where he will reprise his role as Dr. Doug Ross. He last appeared on the series in an uncredited cameo in 2000. No word on whether he'll bring Ross' Caesar cut with him. ( Entertainment Tonight ) Season Two of HBO's Flight of the Conchords has lined up a host of intriguing guest stars including Saturday Night Live 's Kristin Wiig, My Boys ' Jim Gaffigan, and Lost 's Alan Dale. Also of note: Michel Gondry ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ) directed the February 15th episode, in which Jemaine dates an Australian (shock horror!). ( Chicago Tribune

Team Darlton Promise "No More Jack Flies a Kite" Episodes on "Lost"

The biggest Lost mystery of all has been solved: actor Nestor Carbonell, who plays the Others' putative leader under Jacob, does not wear makeup. "Do you want to hear something shocking?" asked said executive producer/showrunner Damon Lindelof. "And this is the honest truth. When we first saw dailies of Nestor, we said that someone has got to talk to him about the eyeliner situation, but he does not wear any eyeliner or mascara. He is 100 percent sans make-up. That’s the truth." That's, ahem, a relief. The notion of whether Carbonell was wearing makeup and whether we'd be seeing more of him (a resounding yes) were two of the many burning questions thrown at Lindelof and executive producer/showrunner Carlton Cuse, Lindelof's partner in crime, during last week's Lost panel at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, following a screening of the fifth season's third episode , slated to air next week. Of the Lost 's fifth seaso

Truth Be Told: An Advance Review of FOX's "Lie to Me"

I won't lie to you: I am not typically a fan of procedural series. I'm usually more interested in the sort of character development and long-term plotting that are involved in a serialized drama but every now and then a procedural mystery comes along with a unique enough premise that it makes me question my standpoint. Tonight, FOX launches its new procedural drama series Lie to Me , starring Tim Roth, Kelli Williams, Brendan Hines, and Monica Raymund. Unlike those cops on CBS, this squad of sleuths isn't solving crimes using the latest in forensic technology. Rather, their characters comprise a crack team of, well, human lie detectors. Instead of ultraviolet wands searching for blood splatter, the team uses videotaped interviews with suspects and witnesses and reads the almost imperceptible micro-expressions that each of them make. Suspects can lie with their words but it's pretty hard to lie with your body language and facial expressions, especially when some of them

Channel Surfing: Darlton Talk Donkey Wheel, Priestley Directs "90210," Lifetime Snags Four for "Maneater," and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I don't know about you but I'm still on a high after yesterday's amazing presidential inauguration. While the nation joined together yesterday to bear witness to the 44th president taking the oath, there are still a few television-related headlines to get through this morning. Entertainment Weekly 's Doc Jensen (a.k.a. Jeff Jensen) continues his video interview series with Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Up today: a segment focusing on Season Four, including discussions about the coffin, the donkey wheel, and the freighter. ( Entertainment Weekly ) Jason Priestley will direct the eighteenth episode of 90210 this season, which will feature a crisis involving several characters. "I have a lot of challenges ahead of me on how to shoot this, it's big," said Priestley, who wouldn't confirm whether said crisis is an earthquake or a car accident. "Yeah, we're in a hosp

Bound to a Star: A Quick Early Look at Tonight's Episode of "Fringe"

Just a few quick words about tonight's episode of Fringe ("Bound"), which is more or less the second half of a two-part episode that began last fall, in which we saw Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) kidnapped for reasons unknown by the nefarious Mr. Jones, who managed to escape his German prison by, well, teleporting out. Those looking for some answers as to Mr. Jones' plan or, well, whereabouts will be sorely disappointed by tonight's episode, but "Bound" does feature perhaps the first real example of serialized storytelling in the series to date. With Olivia seized and bound, there's no way to have wrapped up the previous episode's storyline in that very same installment so it's nice to see things spill over more than just a bit. (New viewers will have the benefit of catching a rather exposition-laden recap of the events so far at the outset.) "Bound" also picks up the pieces of various other dangling subplots over the last few weeks bu

Channel Surfing: First Look at Dominic Monaghan on "Chuck," Glover Gunning for "Earl," FOX Orders Pilots, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Just a few headlines to get through on this unprecedented and hopeful inauguration day. TV Week 's Blink has a sneak peek video at Chuck 's February 3rd episode which features Lost 's Dominic Monaghan playing eyeliner-wearing rocker Tyler Martin, a character rather similar to the drugged-up faded rock star he played on ABC's Lost ... though Charlie never mistook an apartment complex fountain for a urinal. ( TV Week 's Blink ) Danny Glover ( Brothers & Sisters ) will guest star later this season on NBC comedy My Name is Earl , where he will play Crab Man's lost-lost father Thomas in a storyline that reveals why Darnell has been in hiding all of these years. ( TV Guide ) Smallville showrunners Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin are said to be in talks with CW brass about overseeing the pilot remake of Melrose Place , following the departure of One Tree Hill executive producer Mark Schwahn from the project when

Taunting Jughead: An Advance Look at Episode 503 of "Lost"

I wasn't going to post anything about the third episode of Lost 's fifth season, but after watching it on Friday in a packed room filled with television journalists at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, I figured I at least had to allude to it. After all, it's not everyday that you get to watch a brand-new episode of Lost on the big screen, much less one as completely overflowing with neck-snapping plot twists as this one. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse asked us to respectfully not reveal spoilers about this episode of Lost , entitled "Jughead," especially as the season doesn't kick off until Wednesday evening. So while I won't be spelling anything out for you Lost junkies out there, I will be teasing some details about the shape of things to come. Let's discuss what you can expect to find in "Jughead." As much as I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of this season , "Jughead," the third episode complet