[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Just a few quick headlines to get through today on this rather quiet programming-news-related morning. Looking for one more reason to turn into Starz's upcoming comedy series Party Down , from co-creator Rob Thomas ( Veronica Mars ) ? Turns out that Veronica herself--Kristin Bell--will be appearing on the series, according to Kristin Dos Santos. "I'm about to guest star on Rob Thomas' new show, called Party Down ," Bell told Dos Santos. "It's on Starz...a lot of old Veronica Mars people are on it and some really cool comedians like Adam Scott." Starz has confirmed the casting coup saying, "Kristen Bell will be appearing in our new original comedy series, Party Down , premiering on Friday, March 20." Bell's episode, the season finale, is slated to air May 22nd and it's thought that Bell will play Veronica Moon, a rival caterer. ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) Rome 's L

Ending several months of speculation, The Paley Center for Media has today announced the full lineup for PaleyFest09 , the 26th Annual William S. Paley Television Festival. Among the honorees this year are the casts and creators of 90210 , Battlestar Galactica and Caprica , The Big Bang Theory, Big Love, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Fringe, The Hills, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Mentalist, Swingtown, and True Blood . PaleyFest09 will be held from April 10th to April 23rd at the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood; the Paley Center will also present a special closing night presentation honoring Swingtown at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills on April 24. Other festival firsts this year? PaleyFest09 will be the festival event to honor a new media property, in this case Joss Whedon's celebrated web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog , and will be the first to premiere the last three unseen episodes of A

As a huge fan of Veronica Mars , I've been extremely curious to see what creator Rob Thomas would do with a pared-down comedy about a group of wannabe actors and writers working as party caterers in LA. Especially since said comedy, Party Down , which launches next month on pay cabler Starz, features more than a few Veronica Mars alums in starring or cameo roles. So I was ecstatic when I had the opportunity to catch an early look at Starz's Party Down , which stars Ken Marino ( Veronica Mars ), Adam Scott ( Tell Me You Love Me ), Lizzy Caplan ( Cloverfield ), Martin Starr ( Freaks & Geeks ), Jane Lynch ( Two and a Half Men ), and Ryan Hansen ( Veronica Mars ). No, you're not dreaming: Rob Thomas and fellow executive producer/writers John Enbom, Dan Etheridge, and Paul Rudd may have assembled the single best comedy cast EVER. A quick recap of Party Down 's simple premise: Ken Marino's moronic team leader Ron Donald (a more genial version of Michael Scott, had he

Once again, Raymond Blanc has thrown down a gauntlet to the seven remaining couples in his deliciously addictive reality series, Last Restaurant Standing : to utilize every piece of a half of a pig--from head to tail--and maximize their profits. It's no easy feat when you consider that many of these chefs haven't worked in professional kitchens... and their front-of-house counterparts don't exactly know how to sell offal to their customers. And, to me, that's half of the fun of this winsome and engaging series: to see just how these starry-eyed restaurateurs cope with the pressure and expectations of Raymond and his inspectors. This week on BBC America's Last Restaurant Standing ("No Waste, No Loss"), the teams would either sink or swim when faced (quite literally) with the gorgeous, free-range, organic pork delivered to them by local butchers. After all, the point of the exercise was to see how much use each restaurant could get out of the pig as they

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. TV Guide has an interview with Lost 's Michael Emerson, in which the actors teases some details about upcoming storylines on the ABC drama. My favorite bit? "I may go so far as to say we may already know Annie," said Emerson cryptically. "Have you considered that? I'm not speaking from knowledge of a script because that's not a thing that has been written, but stranger things have happened on the show. Everyone is more connected then they ever thought, and it's often by blood." Hmmm... And, speaking about Jacob, the enigmatic leader of the Others, Emerson had this to say: "Jacob seems to have fallen away from our consciousness. The show is so much more wrapped up in intermediary leader figures. There seems to be a whole raft of people Ben must answer to, but they're not as high up as Jacob. Jacob seems to have receded into the mist again — sort of mysterious and godlike. He continues to

There's a reason why Chuck Bartowski was afraid to go to the suburbs. And it wasn't because that particularly well-manicured cul-de-sac was actually an entire covert operation constructed by Fulcrum (complete with creepy Mac-white sub-basements with Clockwork Orange -esque psychological experiments), but because it offered him a painfully real glimpse of a life he would never share with Sarah Walker. On last night's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Suburbs"), written with flair by former Veronica Mars writer Phil Klemmer and directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, Chuck and Sarah are tasked with going undercover in the suburbs. Their mission: to learn just what happened after an operative, working on a top-secret mission that General Beckman doesn't even seem to know about, turns up cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs after living in the 'burbs. So it's off to the aptly named Meadow Branch, where Chuck dons a sweater vest and gets a look at an idealized married life wi

Due to the loveliness that is a three-day weekend, I didn't quite get around to discussing everything that aired this past weekend, although I did manage to write up my theories and thoughts about the Cylon race, past and future, on Battlestar Galactica and offer an illuminating Talk Back for the series premiere of FOX's new drama series Dollhouse . However, rather than let the week go by without discussing what else was on this past weekend, I just wanted to share a few thoughts about Sunday night's premiere of The Amazing Race and new installments of HBO's Flight of the Conchords and Showtime's Secret Diary of a Call Girl . The long weekend might be over and the work week sadly beginning, but that doesn't mean we can't dish about Hannah and Alex, Mike White and his dad, and Kiwis Jemaine and Bret on this rainy Tuesday morning. The Amazing Race . I'll admit that I was considering giving up on TAR after a lackluster season that saw more drama at the