[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Kathryn Erbe will be heading back to Law & Order: Criminal Intent for the series' tenth and final season, where she will reunite with Vincent D'Onofrio. “I’m excited and grateful that Katie has decided to rejoin one of the best detective teams in the history of television,” said executive producer Dick Wolf in a statement. The eight-episode final season is expected to premiere sometime in 2011. (via press release) NBC has ordered a pilot script for sci-fi/espionage drama Echelon from 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Entertainment. Project, written by Michael Gordon ( 300 ), will revolve around ECHELON, the electronic eavesdropping technology that sifts through all data signals. According to the project's logline, while the data is sent out to various law enforcement agencies, "there is, however, less than one percent of the data that nobody wants to touch. These are the classified video files that seem to

The Doctor is heading to America. Season Six of Doctor Who will not only see the Doctor and Amy head to the States for an upcoming two-part episode to air in 2011 (which will be co-produced by BBC America), but the production itself will head across the pond to shoot scenes, marking the first time that the venerable sci-fi franchise has actually shot within the U.S. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan will be joined by Artur Darvill's Rory and Alex Kingston's River Song as they head for the U.S. in mid-November to shoot scenes that will be set in the Utah desert and the Oval Office... and in the 1960s. Production on the non-US location-based scenes will get underway this month. “The Doctor has visited every weird and wonderful planet you can imagine, so he was bound get round to America eventually!" said Doctor Who head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat. "And of course every Doctor Who fan will be jumping up and down and saying he’s been in America before. But not fo

"You're not from this world, Olivia. You're not her." - Peter This week's haunting and lyrical episode of Fringe ("The Plateau"), written by Alison Schapker and Monica Owusu-Breen and directed by Brad Anderson, once again took place Over There, on the other side of the dimensional divide, where Olivia grappled with questions of self-identity as she attempted to determine whether she could trust her memories or the strange visions she was experiencing, echoes of a life forgotten. Despite the fact that Walternate has been experimenting on our Olivia to make her believe implicitly that she is their Olivia Dunham, agent of Fringe Division, memories have a way of creeping back into the corners of our psyche. Are we defined by our actions or inactions? Or rather by those subtle reminders nagging us to wake up, those flashes of realization that point towards our true selves? Olivia's journey towards self-realization is just beginning. The ghostly reminder

What did you think of last night's episode of Community ? This week marked another go on AOL Television's Skype Second Opinions, where I connected via Skype to ramble on for a few minutes about this week's episode of Community ("The Psychology of Letting Go"), which included Shirley's best line ever, June Bauer (Betty White) discussing Inception with some African tribesmen, the return of John Oliver's Professor Duncan and his feud with Chang, Pierce's mother being inside a lava lamp, Annie and Britta wrestling in some crude oil, and more. You can watch the video in full over here at AOL Television or right below. Next week on Community ("Basic Rocket Science"), Dean Pelton asks the study group to clean and refurbish the Greendale flight simulator; after an accidental launch, Abed must navigate a safe return. (You can read my advance review of this episode here .)

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. FX has renewed motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy for a fourth season. Series, which wraps up its third season on November 30th, is the most-watched series in the cable network's history. " Sons of Anarchy is the most popular show FX has ever had, and the No. 1 series in basic cable for our key demographic," said FX president/general manager John Landgraf. "It is also one of the best, most original series on television." ( Variety ) Elsewhere, Syfy renewed freshman drama Haven for a second season, with thirteen episodes on tap for next summer. Production is slated to resume in the spring in Nova Scotia on the sophomore season. ( Variety ) Robert Kirkman's zombie comic, "The Walking Dead," which is heading to the small screen later this month with AMC's television series of the same name, will also be transformed into a trilogy of original novels, the first of which will be released in 2011. K

Just when I thought that things couldn't get any weirder on Bravo's Top Chef: Just Desserts ... Last night's episode of the sweets-themed Top Chef spinoff ("Lucent Dossier") featured not only one of the oddest sequences ever to air on a reality competition series but also one of the most head-scratching endings to a contestant's trajectory yet. Which would have been more than enough to put this episode over the top, except that several of the remaining pastry chefs used this opportunity to have breakdowns of their own, with several contestants bursting into tears, expressing serious doubts about the competition, squaring off against teammates, eliminating themselves, and, well, suffering a major anxiety attack and being declared medically unfit to continue on the series. Yes, all of this happened in a single episode that was intended to be about the theatricality and drama of the Lucent Dossier Experience... and the producers got some serious sparks

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. While the focus so far this season has been on early cancellations, FOX yesterday announced the first full season pickup for this woeful fall season, granting comedy Raising Hope a 22-episode order. News comes a week after the network axed drama Lone Star after just two episodes. "With Raising Hope , Greg Garcia captures a smart take on the working-class family with a great mix of wild comedy and a big dose of heart," said Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly. "The show is running like a Swiss clock, and we're very happy with how well audiences have responded so far -- so we're confident it will build an even bigger audience throughout the season." Meanwhile, the fate of timeslot lead-out Running Wilde is still very much up in the air. ( Variety ) The news wasn't so good for the crew of NBC's struggling freshman drama Outlaw , as the production grinded to a halt after three low-rated instal