No need to bother reading as many television blogs as I do. Here’s the news you should know:

• The Guardian reported that American television shows like Desperate Housewives, Friends, and The Late Show with David Letterman are doing more to win over the minds of Saudi youth than $500-million worth of American propaganda.
• NBC’s pilot Wonder Woman has found its hero and villain—Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights) and Elizabeth Hurley (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery), respectively.
• Aaron Sorkin—a screenwriter who just won an Oscar for The Social Network and whom I admire for creating The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip—is returning to the small screen with an HBO drama about a cable news show.
• Before we get too sweet on HBO, though, bear in mind that the network passed on the comedy series Tilda, about a powerful Hollywood blogger. Why they would pass up the chance to work with Diane Keaton and Ellen Page is beyond me. (But let’s not forget, they also passed on Mad Men.)
• Oscar-nominated actress Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) has joined Lost‘s Michael Emerson in J.J. Abrams’s CBS pilot Person of Interest, a drama about an ex-spy who fights crime vigilante-style.
• Emerson’s close friend and Lost costar Terry O’Quinn has joined the cast of ABC’s good-versus-evil pilot Hallelujah, created by Marc Cherry of Desperate Housewives fame.
• Ronald D. Moore’s NBC pilot The 17th Precinct is now a full-fledged Battlestar Galactica reunion, with Jamie Bamber, James Callis, and Tricia Helfer. The cast also includes Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), Stockard Channing (The West Wing), Matt Long (Mad Men), and Eamonn Walker (Kings).
• Speaking of Kings (which I loved), its young lead Christopher Egan will portray Edgar Allen himself in ABC’s pilot Poe.
• AMC is developing a Reconstruction-era drama called Hell on Wheels about a former Confederate soldier who heads to the West to help build the first Transcontinental Railroad—oh, and to seek vengeance. The series stars Anson Mount as the protagonist and rapper Common as a freed slave he meets along the way.
• Salma Hayek and ABC are developing an eight-hour miniseries based on Wicked—the Gregory Maguire novel, mind you, not the musical it spawned.
• Julianne Moore will play folksy Sarah Palin in HBO’s Game Change, a TV movie based on the John Heilemann & Mark Halperin book of the same name, which chronicled the 2010 election. Will her portrayal of Palin hold a candle to her former 30 Rock costar Tina Fey’s?
• HBO is developing a drama about Nazi-battling magicians and con men entitled Hobgoblin. That premise may strike you as strange, but James Hibbard at EW uncovered a reference to a real-life Nazi-battling magician. All right, HBO, you have my attention. Now, would you mind casting Diane Keaton and Ellen Page?

Television news and scoop, right off the grill:

• The next season of Dexter will feature laudable thespians Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance) and Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting, Eli Stone).
• A failed FOX pilot was rescued by A&E: the cable network ordered 13 episodes of Breakout Kings, a drama about an unlikely alliance between U.S. Marshalls and ex-cons.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000, a 90s-era show that lovingly lambasted terrible B-movies with snarky commentary, now has installments available for viewing on Hulu—with movies like Secret Agent Super Dragon, Giant Gila Monster, and Horrors of Spider Island.
• David Strathairn—star of Good Night, and Good Luck and recent Emmy winner for his work on Temple Grandin—has been cast in a new Syfy series called Alphas about crime-fighters imbued with superhuman abilities.
• And Syfy’s new series Three Inches—a show about crime-fighters imbued with slightly-less-super-human abilities—has found its leading man in James Marsters of Buffy and Caprica fame.
• Cable network Oxygen has acquired the syndication rights for Glee and will start airing reruns in 2013. On top of that, the network is also mulling over the idea of a reality-competition show centered around the show.
• Frodo himself—a.k.a. Elijah Wood—will star in an FX comedy series called Wilfred about a man and his (titular) dog, who is “part Labrador retriever and part Russell Crowe on a bender.”
• And in other FX comedy news, Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Arrested Development) and web-series-auteur Derek Waters are developing a series for the network entitled 13th Grade, about a high-school graduate who refuses to mature.
• Anakin Skywalker himself—a.k.a. Hayden Christensen—has sued USA Network, claiming that the idea for their hit show Royal Pains was based on a pitch he and his brother tried to sell to the network.
• Ronald D. Moore, the man half-responsible for re-imagining Battlestar Galactica, is taking his talents to NBC, where he’s developing a drama described as an “adult Harry Potter.”
• And for those of us who are still hungry for more Battlestar Galactica—and not for a reboot movie franchise starring Justin Timberlake—Syfy will produce an online series called Blood & Chrome about Bill Adama and his perils during First Cylon War.
• Brothers & Sisters spoiler alert! Emily VanCamp is leaving the show and will only appear in a few episodes next season. She tells Michael Ausiello that she thinks Rebecca has “run her course” on the show.
• Lie to Me spoiler alert! Mekhi Pfifer is exiting the show for narrative reasons: the story will see the Lightman Group end its relationship with the FBI.
• An HBO pilot called Miraculous Year has lined up some serious star-power. The story focuses on a Broadway composer whose brashness and bad behavior affects both his family and the show he’s trying to put on. The cast includes Norbert Leo Butz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway), Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), Hope Davis (American Splendor), Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Eddie Redmayne (Red on Broadway), and Patti Lupone (Evita on Broadway).
• AMC’s latest pilot is Hell on Wheels, a western revolving around the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and it stars rapper Common as a half-black, half-white freed slave.
• The updated version of The Rockford Files starring Dermot Mulroney seemed hot this pilot season but then fizzled fast, and now Michael Ausiello reports that Josh Holloway (Sawyer on Lost) is being considered to take over the lead role.
• FOX has decreed that the exciting prehistoric action/drama Terra Nova, produced by Steven Spielberg, will premiere next fall instead of midseason. Patience, friends! (And the other news of note about Terra Nova is that it will film in Australia.)
• But you can see another Spielberg-produced drama earlier. Alien-invasion-themed Falling Skies—starring Noah Wyle (ER) and Moon Bloodgood (Journeyman)—will premiere on TNT next summer, and i09 has a gallery of promotional photos. Post-apocalyptic fun!
• Glee creator Ryan Murphy has announced that he’s developing a musical TV series that will star Kristin Chenoweth, who was nominated for an Emmy for her guest turn last season on the show. But this spin-off will be unrelated to Glee and closer in tone to Murphy’s previous creation, Nip/Tuck.
• And speaking of Glee, television comedy legend Carol Burnett has been cast as Sue Sylvester’s mom.
• And speaking of Sue Sylvester, Jane Lynch will host Saturday Night Live on October 9th.
• Entourage is finally drawing to a close. Next season will be the final bow and will probably consist of six episodes. But a feature film may follow, said HBO programming co-president Michael Lombardo.
• Rumors are circulating that the next season of Top Chef will be an all-star season, especially since previous contestants have been spotted with camera crews in New York City.
• And finally, please enjoy this awesome (and only slightly annoying) musical tribute to brilliant-but-cancelled shows.

You want the latest skinny? I got your latest skinny right here.

• Dustin Hoffman is migrating to television to headline HBO’s new series Luck, created by David Milch (Deadwood). Variety reports that the show will center on “several eclectic personalities who ply their trade on the horse-racing circuit,” including Hoffman’s character, “a man in his late 60s just released from four years in prison who’s autodidactic, intelligent, and deeply involved in gambling.” The show is predicted to debut in January.
• The network is also developing a yet-to-be-titled series in which Kevin Kline will portray a man just released from prison fifteen years after murdering his mistress. Was he cellmates with Dusty Hoffman?
• And hey, Diane Keaton is going to HBO, too! Along with Ellen Page! The duo will star in Tilda, a show roughly based on the life of notorious Hollywood journalist/blogger Nikke Finke.
• Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman will co-star in HBO’s television movie Hemingway & Gellhorn about Ernest Hemingway’s love affair with novelist/war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, the woman who purportedly inspired him to write For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• Also, Diane Lane, Tim Robbins, and James Gandolfini will star in HBO’s Cinema Verite, a television movie about the production of groundbreaking TV documentary An American Family.
• And you haven’t forgotten about HBO’s miniseries Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce, have you?
• Kevin Spacey is not going to HBO, but he is going to Showtime. Ha! Twist! He’s in talks with the network to star in his own series, called The Crux, about a high-profile cult.
• True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Justified are all renewed for another season. Hurrah!
• Jason O’Mara (Life on Mars) has signed on the dotted line to star in the Spielberg-produced dino-drama Terra Nova on FOX.
• Ian McShane (Kings), Donald Sutherland (Dirty Sexy Money), and Rufus Sewell (The Eleventh Hour) will star in Starz’s miniseries The Pillars of the Earth, based on the Ken Follett novel of the same name. Starz calls the story an “epic of good and evil, treachery and intrigue, violence and beauty, a sensuous, spirited story set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles in 12th-century England.” The miniseries begins on July 23.
• Starz apparently loves them some period pieces, because it’s also reinventing the Camelot story with Joseph Fiennes (FlashForward) and Eva Green (Casino Royale).
• The hilarious Old Spice pitchman, whose name is Isaiah Mustafa, has signed a talent deal with NBC, so odds are that we won’t be seeing him only during the ad breaks.
• Syfy is developing a pilot entitled Three Inches about a man with a unique superpower: he can telekinetically move any object three inches. He soon join forces with other individuals with equally questionable abilities. It’s like a lamer-yet-awesomer version of Heroes.
• Michael Rosenbaum (formerly Lex Luthor on Smallville) will star in a Syfy comedy called Saved by Zeroes about two actors who squander the money they earned on a cult-favorite science-fiction television series and now have to work the convention beat to pay the bills.
• Gossip Girl actor Chace Crawford was arrested for possession of marijuana. Furthermore, is everyone incapable of looking good in a mugshot? Moving on.
• AMC is making a zombie show called Walking Dead based on the comic series by Robert Kirkman. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) is on board to write, direct, and executive-produce the series.
• AMC is also developing a pilot entitled The Killing about a tangled police investigation into the murder of a young girl. Billy Campbell (The 4400) and Michelle Forbes (uh, everything) have joined the cast.
• The pilot Edgar Floats, a comedic drama about a police psychologist, is not dead at ABC—in fact, it has a six-episode script order—but the Alphabet Network did order the recasting of almost the entire cast, including leading-man Tom Cavanaugh (Ed). The only surviving cast member is Robert Patrick (The X-Files).
• MTV is filming its own version of the racy British teen drama Skins. And, like the original, the series will be written largely by teenagers. (Uh, hi, my name is Dan. I was a teenager not too long ago!)
• Also, a film version of the original Skins is in production and set to be released in 2011. Nicholas Hoult and Dev Patel are reprising their parts.
• Rebecca Mader has further endeared herself to me by revealing that she demanded silence while watching Lost, a show on which she starred as Charlotte. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal back in April, Mader mulled over the idea of hosting a finale party but then added, “If someone talks, I will punch them in the head. [...] If someone is saying, ‘What’s going on?’ I’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, get out of my house.’ I don’t have the patience.” I think she and I would get along.
• Speaking of Lost, here’s a doooope tribute by The Injustice League. Who knew that Michael Giacchino’s score could be incorporated into a rap so well?

• Steven Spielberg is in talks with FOX to develop a dinosaur drama! (That sentence begged for an exclamation point.) The project, tentatively titled Terra Nova, would see a family from the future travel to prehistoric times. But obviously, it might be too ambitious a project to produce: think of how hard it’d be to round up all the dinosaur actors in Los Angeles and fly them out to some remote jungle to start filming.
• ABC family renewed Greek for a fourth season, which creator Sean Smith says will be its last, telling Entertainment Weekly, “We’re all looking at this as an opportunity to come back, wrap up the show, and end strong. ABC Family could’ve ended it, but they gave us this opportunity and I don’t want to squander it.”
• A&E is getting back into the drama game with a series called Sugarloaf, in which a framed Chicago detective flees to the titular small town in Florida. The series will star Aussie actor Matt Passmore and Lost‘s Kiele Sanchez.
• True Blood will start its third season on June 13. Meanwhile, HBO is releasing one high-resolution poster every week until the premiere on its super-sleek website, like the one I’ve adapted above!
• How did I not know about the Battlestar Galactica roller coaster at Universal Studios Singapore? It’s actually two coasters in one: you can either ride as a human (in a traditional sit-down coaster with a train themed like a Viper) or as a Cylon (in an inverted coaster with trains themed like rows of Centurions). Either way, you’re going to have some close calls with the other side. Check out the dogfight in this video.
• The creator of the HBO/BBC series Rome—which ran for two critically-acclaimed seasons starting in 2005—wants to bring the epic story to the big screen. The script is done, and Morning Light Productions is signed on to produce. The film will be set in Germany after Caesar’s invasion of Gaul and Augustus’s rise to power.
• New episodes of freshly-resurrected Futurama are coming to Comedy Central in June. And now that the contract disputes have been settled, all the original voice actors will return to their parts.
• Syfy has an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood in the works called Red, which will star Felicia Day (The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) in the lead role. Syfy describes the movie thusly: “In the action-packed Red, Red (Day) brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business—hunting werewolves. He’s skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.”
• FOX has announced its summer schedule, and for once, it’s not all reruns and reality shows. Sure there are reruns (i.e. Glee) and reality shows (So You Think You Can Dance begins May 27). But shockingly, a scripted series is set to premiere: The Good Guys a not-so-buddy-cop show from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix. It stars Bradley Whitford (The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and Colin Hanks (Roswell, Mad Men) and debuts on June 7—with a special preview on May 19. The show will be paired up with Lie to Me, which has been patiently waiting to resume its second season for five months now!
• Speaking of Glee, the show returned from its midseason hiatus with a record 13.6 million viewers.
• Speaking of Glee (again), creator Ryan Murphy says that the second season will likely be a hearty helping of 25 episodes.
• Apple honcho Steve Jobs will be the subject of a new series called iCon from Borat auteur Larry Charles. The show will air on premium channel Epix. And yes, this is the first time I’ve heard of Epix, too. But the channel might get some much-needed street cred if its miniseries adaptation of Atlas Shrugged comes to fruition, especially if Charlize Theron is attached like she’s rumored to be.
• Fringe: The Musical? It’s happening, alright. In two short weeks. And it sounds surprisingly promising.
• LeVar Burton tweeted last month that Reading Rainbow is coming back. Hurrah!
• Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari will host the MTV Movie Awards on June 6, which I consider to be an bizarre but inspired choice.
• But MTV’s first single-camera comedy is a touch less inspired: The Hard Times of RJ Berger, or, as TV Squad aptly dubbed it Hung, Jr. A nerd goes from uncool to slightly-less-uncool when he’s pantsed and everyone gets a good look at his sizable business. The trailer is full of middling to iffy jokes, with the exception of the moment when one envious teacher says, “It’s a goddamned Buick Regal.” The show premieres on June 6.
• Speaking of TV Squad, one of its bloggers pieced together that Graham Yost, creator of FX’s newest edgy series Justified, cut his teeth two decades ago by writing for Hey Dude, a campy Nickelodeon about teens at a dude ranch. Talk about going from one extreme to the other. (Not that I’m judging—I’ll start my television-writing career anywhere!)
• TV Guide Network will start airing reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm on June 2, followed immediately by Curb: The Discussion, a roundtable discussion of each episode’s moral dilemmas. Larry David, brainchild and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, will produce; and Susie Essman (who plays foul-mouthed Susie Greene on show) will host. The first guests ’round the table will include Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Hamm, Taraji B. Henson, Seth Green, and Rob Zombie.
• Starz is developing a series based on the autobiography of New York Times food critic and frequent Top Chef Masters judge Gael Greene (entitled Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess). But she’s old and wizened now, so it’s a little icky imagining her “delicious excess.”
• It seems we’re at the halfway point of Mad Men. While speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, creator Matt Wiener revealed that he only foresees six seasons of the show.
• Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly reported that Conan O’Brien could film his new TBS show on his $50-million Tonight Show set. However, she does notes that there might be too much “bad blood” for him to do that, but I hope it happens. That stage is too pretty to lay dormant.
• And, to end this post on a high note, NBC has revealed that it lost $233 million on the 2010 Winter Olympics. (As for silver-or-perhaps-bronze lining, the Games brought them great ratings for the month of February!)

Lordy lordy, do I have a ton of news items to share. Let’s waste no time:

• Most excitingly, William Keck at TV Guide reports that Terry O’Quinn (Lost‘s Locke) is pitching a series in which he and Michael Emerson (Ben) star as “suburban hit men juggling family issues.” My buddy Andy says he might not be able to see these Emmy-winners as anything other than their iconic Lost personas, but I think that we’ll eventually get accustomed to them portraying different characters. Eventually.
• And speaking of shedding past roles, SCI FI Wire tells us that James Callis (Battlestar Galactica‘s Gaius Baltar) has joined the cast of FlashForward and will appear in this season’s last handful of episodes. The fate-defying drama returns March 18 for an uninterrupted run of 13 installments.
• Nip/Tuck‘s series finale airs on Wednesday, which means I really have to make haste to catch up. (I’m not sorry it’s leaving the airwaves, though—I loved it a few seasons ago, it’s past its expiration date now.)
• A Washington middle-schooler was given detention for what, to my mind, was a pretty well-placed utterance of The Office‘s catchphrase “That’s what she said.”
• FOX’s Past Life, a show which looked terrible just from the previews (and also bumped Fringe off the air for a while), has been axed after three episodes. But series lead Kelli Giddish, who was apparently one of the show’s redeeming qualities, was promptly hired for Jerry Bruckheimer’s U.S. Marshall pilot for NBC, Chase. What with a show premiere, a show cancellation, and a new job, it has been a climactic February for her.
• E! Online revealed that Ellie Kemper, a.k.a. new hire Erin on The Office, was a student at a St. Louis High School where her drama teacher was none other than Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm. She said: ”He taught me drama work, mostly improvisation, which I did a lot of in college and in New York. It’s my favorite thing to do.” And he said: “It’s really cool to see [former students] blossom and find their own way in.”
• BuddyTV has a list of five reasons why Heroes should be cancelled, including a pretty damning line graph of the show’s bombing ratings. I agree with most of the reasons, but the last reason is that cancellation is the only way to avoid disappointment. I think it’s too late for that. It’s already disappointing, considering how the show squandered the promise it held during its first season. I’m way behind on the show and unsure whether to even continue. In related news, star Adrian Pasdar was charged with DUI this month.
• Remember when I told you that NBC’s Trauma had been cancelled? It lives! To help fill the void left in the wake of the Jay Leno failure, NBC has resurrected the show. If you’re interested, it returns on March 8.
• Speaking of Leno, he returns to The Tonight Show next Monday, using a renovated version of his set for The Jay Leno Show (and not the impressive Tonight set that Conan used). As strong as my distaste for Leno is, I’ll watch to see his Olympic guests: Lindsey Vonn on Monday, Shaun White on Tuesday, and Apolo Ohno on Wednesday.
• More movie stars are migrating to TV. Matthew Broderick will star in NBC comedy Beach Lane, in which he’ll play an author hired to work for a Hamptons newspaper. (Promisingly, Lorne Michaels is producing.) And Virginia Madsen (Sideways) will lead ABC’s comedic drama Scoundrels, in which she’ll play a mother in a family of crooks who decide to live a life of lawfulness. Based on the New Zealand show Outrageous Fortune, the adaptation was developed a couple of seasons ago under the name Good Behavior with Catherine O’Hara and Kristen Bell attached.
• The fifth season of Friday Night Lights will be its last. But the fourth season hasn’t even aired on NBC yet—only on DirecTV. So Dillon devotees still have two seasons to enjoy before the show bows out.
• Longtime Top Chef judge Gail Simmons—who also works for Food & Wine—will be the host of spin-off Top Chef: Just Desserts.
• NBC’s version of BBC hit Prime Suspect is on hold while the network searches for a suitable star. Considering the original star was Helen Mirren, that’s a tall order.
• Also, director Roland Emmerich says that 2013, his follow-up to blockbuster disaster flick 2012, isn’t likely to make it to air because of budget constraints. Even though the movie was terrible (or so-terrible-it’s-actually-awesome), the series sounded interesting. It would have focused on the efforts to rebuild a human civilization in Africa. I mentioned last post how much I appreciate it when shows film on location, and it would have been awesome for an American series to have been filmed in Africa. (That’s part of the reason why the TV movie 24: Redemption was so effective for me.)
• Speaking of 24 (and boy, do I love smooth segues!), the feature film is apparently back on. Screenwriter Billy Ray—who wrote State of Play and Shattered Glass—will take Jack Bauer to London. But the timing of the production depends on whether or not the TV series gets another season, which FOX has yet to determine.
• To the surprise of just about no one, Charlie Sheen is back in rehab, so you Two and Half Men might be out of luck later this season if CBS runs out of episodes to air.
• PBS and BBC are planning another Sherlock Holmes series with Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) as the deerstalker-wearing detective. And, in what I consider inspired casting, Martin Freeman (who had the “Jim” role of Tim in the U.K. version of The Office) will co-star as Watson.
• Happily, First Lady Michelle Obama invited the cast of Glee to perform at the White House for the White House Easter Egg Roll on April 5, and the producers of the show shuffled up the show’s filming schedule to accommodate her request. As Lea Michele belted out during her bravura “Maybe This Time” duet with Kristin Chenoweth, “It’s gonna happen!”
• And finally, to honor the Olympics (or, more specifically, the television coverage of same), here is an amazing photo of Bob Costas atop a stuffed moose with Stephen Colbert looking on.

• In today’s biggest news, ABC has announced that this season would be Ugly Betty‘s last. This is truly a loss. Ugly Betty was not only savvy and sharp, not only funny and endearing, but also insightful and surprisingly ponderous. Plus, it featured Latinos in lead roles and won both GLAAD and Peabody Awards. Luckily, the producers will have a chance to give the show closure: the current season will run for 20 episodes.
• So as not to be too bummed, enjoy this clip I just saw today: a woman guessing a spectacularly-wrong guess on Wheel of Fortune. Interestingly, The New York Times website ran pieces on both her and her fellow contestant. The woman is philosophical about it, and rightly so. Flubs happen to the best of us.
• ABC wants to keep the Lost franchise going after the landmark series bows out in May, Variety reports. I’m very skeptical about this notion. Let the end be the end. And if it absolutely has to happen, let it happen 30 years from now. (After all, rebooting a franchise 30 years later seems to be all the rage right now.)
• Joss Whedon is in meetings with FX president John Landgraf. I think cable is where he belongs, a place where his high-concept shows have a place to flourish instead of being unceremoniously dumped.
• Researchers in Australia have concluded that those who watch four or more hours of television each day run a 46% higher chance of dying from “all causes.” Gulp!
• One of the central couples of Brothers & Sisters [spoiler alert!] will be exiting stage right. Rob Lowe has already decided to leave the program citing marginalization, and Calista Flockhart will only appear in some of next season’s episodes.
• Forest Whitaker (of The Last King of Scotland fame) will headline the Criminal Minds spin-off.  I hope this means that more laudable movie stars are transitioning to the small screen and not that Whitaker feels like he has to slum it.
• The Hollywood Reporter has a preview for Matt LeBlanc’s new Showtime series Episodes, a comedy in which he plays himself appearing in a show about a producing couple who adapt a hit British show for the American screens. That’s right: it’s a show-within-a-show-within-a-show.
• If you’re sweating about keeping up to speed on Lost for Tuesday’s premiere, you have a few options.  You can either watch every episode on Hulu (about 25 episodes per day!), watch the recap which will air before the premiere, or watch this YouTube clip which endeavors to recap the past five seasons in 8 minutes and 15 seconds.
• TV Squad has unearthed a preview for a failed pilot from 1990 that looks patently awful.  In Poochinski, a cop dies and is resurrected as a crime-fighting dog.  Oh, but the announcer calls it touching, poignant, and unforgettable—therefore, it must be so.

Here are the latest news items from the idiot-box world:

• Lost finally has a return date—the final season will premiere with a two-hour installment on Tuesday, February 2, at 9/8c on ABC.
• Chuck‘s return date was also announced today. The action-comedy will return with two episodes on Sunday, January 10, and then another one the following night as it settles into its normal timeslot of Mondays at 8/7c. The show was on the brink of cancellation this past spring until fans rallied to show their support. NBC gave the show another vote of confidence a few weeks ago when it upped its order from 13 episodes to 19.
• ABC has released some neat-o promo images for V showing the Visitors’ motherships hovering above the world’s metropolitan centers. One is shown above, and you can view the rest at io9.
• Just as I was wondering where Smallville actor Sam Jones, III has been all this time, here comes the news that the guy has been arrested and charged with conspiring to sell 10,000 Oxycodone pills. Bad for him, but good for my web traffic. Thanks, Sam!
• Cop drama Southland, a show NBC cancelled before its second season had premiered, has been resurrected by TNT. The new season will premiere on Tuesday, January 12, at 10/9c.
• Oprah Winfrey will announce tomorrow that The Oprah Winfrey Show will end after its 2010-2011 season. She currently has a deal in place with Discovery Communications to turn Discovery Health Channel into OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.
• Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, seen sharing the screen last season on 30 Rock, will co-host next year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Other celebs considered for the emcee gig include Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey, Jr.
• In other hosting news, Ricky Gervais will finally get his moment in the award-show spotlight when he hosts next year’s Golden Globes. Gervais, the creator and star of the UK version of The Office, has been a mainstay at the recent Oscar and Emmy ceremonies and always has the crowd in stitches.
• Bravo has announced another season of Top Chef Masters along with another spinoff Top Chef: Just Desserts (which I’m a little skeptical of). And Top Chef Junior is apparently still in development.
• Since my last news brief, Trauma, Eastwick, Hank have all been cancelled. But the most tragic axing of them all was Dollhouse. (Expect a write-up soon.)
• For whatever reason, The Weather Channel has decided to air movies on Friday nights. The selections range from the understandable (The Perfect Storm) to the unexplainable (Deep Blue Sea). I know; I don’t get it either.

Here’s this week’s batch of freshly-baked television news:

• Two big names will “sho” up on Showtime: Laura Linney will star in The C Word, a half-hour comedy series about a woman who turns her life around following a cancer diagnosis; and William H. Macy will star in Shameless, a comedic drama about a drink-swilling father of six (based on a BBC hit).
• In a classless move by NBC, the Glee cast is no longer invited to perform at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Jumpsuits will surely be worn at the festivities, but apparently none by Sue Sylvester.
• No sooner did I finish singing the praises of Kater Gordon, the Mad Men writer who went from writing assistant to Emmy winner in no time, than she was let go from the show’s writing staff. As they say in fashion…
• Lest you thought your eyes deceived you, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane did appear as an FBI agent in the premiere of FlashForward. And apparently, he’ll be back on occasion. I only hope I get to guest-star on shows when I’m a successful TV writer!
• NBC has ordered its upcoming post-apocalyptic show Day One to be converted from a 13-episode season to a two-night, four-hour miniseries. And the prospect of further seasons depends on the ratings. This may sound like bad news, but as i09 points out, that formula worked for Battlestar Galactica. And creator Jesse Alexander (Heroes) is pumped, saying, “Airing four hours over two nights is much more exciting to me than rolling out just one hour per week… I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as many first year shows and be moved to another time slot mid story, or worse, not be able to air the final episodes.”
• Though CBS wasn’t too enthusiastic about the negotiator-drama Flashpoint around the time of the TCA Press Tour, the network has decided to bring the Canadian co-production to American screens for another 13-episode run later this season.
• In more good news, some of the season’s most promising shows, Glee, FlashForward, and Modern Family have all earned full-season pick-ups from their respective networks.
• Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls fame) has won the role vacated by Maura Tierney on NBC’s upcoming Parenthood, filling the role that Helen Hunt was considering.
• Linda Holmes of NPR’s Monkey See blog has an insightful post about how NBC’s decision to give up the 10 PM slot for The Jay Leno Show represents the network’s exasperation with all things dramatic.
• Michael Ausiello reports that the third season of Chuck may premiere within a matter of weeks instead of next March. He also says that NBC insiders are calling it the best season yet. (And I’ve just realized that half this post has been about NBC!)
• And finally, a Massachusetts farmer is so enamored with Family Guy, he created a corn maze incorporating Stewie and Brian, pictured here. I hope he does something related to NBC next. Perhaps the letters NBC.

I can’t even fit all the news that’s fit to print into one blog post, but here are some of this week’s most interesting tidbits:

• Some of the shows that premiered this week got impressive ratings. FlashForward scared up 12.41 million viewers. (I realize now that there’s no space in that title. The world’s in crisis and people are blacking out—there’s no time for spaces, folks.) Modern Family welcomed 12.74 million. And The Good Wife attracted 13.72 million watching. I didn’t preview that show, but it seems promising so long as it keeps up the scorned-political-spouse angle and doesn’t become an average law drama.
• Just to make the wait for Season 3 of Damages (set to start in January) that much more excruciating, Jace at Televisionary tells us that Martin Short and Lily Tomlin have joined the cast. The addition of two comedians to the cast might seem peculiar, but let’s not forget what a villain Ted Danson’s Arthur Frobisher is/was on that show.
• In other casting news, Helen Hunt is “in talks” to replace Maura Tierney in Parenthood, NBC’s drama based on the Steve Martin movie. Tierney unfortunately had to give up the part to focus on health concerns. (But it’s good to hear from Helen Hunt again, eh?) And elsewhere, Oscar darling Sissy Spacek will join Big Love for a multi-episode arc next season.
• For those of you like my friend who are dying for the character of William Bell (and the actor who portrays him) to return to Fringe, the TV Addict reports that we’ll be seeing him again on October 8.
• Speaking of Fringe, the title for this week’s episode, “Night of Desirable Objects,” sounds less like a type of fishing lure and more like a back-room VHS tape. Hey-o!
• Most of the music from Glee is available on iTunes, and the tracks for each episode are actually posted before the episode airs. My roommates and I are conspiring to start our own Milli-Vanilli-fake glee club here at college, lip-synching to the tracks and then claiming it’s just a coincidence when the same songs are broadcast each Wednesday night. (“Hey, great minds think alike! Good for them!”)
• Speaking of Glee, this week’s episode was perhaps the best yet—both hilarious and heartwarming. The sight of guys in sequined unitards dancing to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” could be disturbing. (I’m talking about you, Joe Jonas.) But in this case, it was pretty uproarious, especially when a whole football team gets involved.
• Frustrated that you can’t join in the Mad Men talk around the watercooler? AMC is here to save the day. Pour yourself a little afternoon whiskey and watch a five-minute clip of “The Story So Far.”
• Speaking of Mad Men, the latest episode had perhaps the most climactic and horrific moment of the series and perhaps the watercooler moment of the week. Gird your stomach and check it out. Of course, the Sterling Cooper workers leave no incident uncommented-on, and they had plenty of wordplay fun at the poor sap’s expense.
• The CW’s model drama The Beautiful Life has met its not-so-beautiful death, becoming the first casualty of the season after only two episodes on the air.
• Speaking of cancellations, A&E has nixed The Cleaner after two seasons. That came as a bit of a surprise, but I guess its ratings must not have been so hot. I hope A&E gets back into the drama game soon.
• If CSI: Miami had any credibility left, it lost it when it used a picture of Tampa in its promotional material. (Hey there, Tampa! Looking good, gal.)
• Conan O’Brien hit his head on the set of The Tonight Show yesterday and had to be taken to the hospital. As a fellow giant, I can sympathize with the occasional noggin bump. But O’Brien, the consummate comedian, had a joke at the ready: “Last thing I remember I was enjoying the play with Mrs. Lincoln, and the next thing I knew I was in bed being served cookies and juice.”
• And finally, break out the Dharma cake: this week marked the five-year anniversary of Lost‘s series premiere. How time flies. (Hint: not on Oceanic 815. Ba-da-boom!)

• As if I weren’t already excited about ABC’s new comedy Modern Family (previously previewed on this here blog), here comes the news that bona fide movie stars Elizabeth Banks and Edward Norton will guest-star in multiple episodes. Banks was on Scrubs, but Norton does television? What the what?
• Unfortunately, American Idol has more staying power now that Ellen DeGeneres is permanently filling the judge’s chair left vacant by Paula Abdul. But she’s one of my favorite comedians, so I won’t hold it against her too much.
• LeVar Burton was the subject of a recent NPR interview in which he talked about his roles on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow (the latter of which came to an abrupt end two weeks ago). A lot of listeners called and emailed in to express their appreciation for Rainbow, and their words spoke volumes about the cultural impact the show had over its 26 years.
• How brilliant is this “Snakes on a Plane” ad campaign for House? And how brilliant is it that it’s the brainchild of Hugh Laurie himself?
• And finally, a Norwegian bus driver has legally changed his name to—get ready for it—Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka Highlander Elessar-Jankova. (And that wookiee rookie spelling error is his doing, not mine.) If he ever bears children, might I suggest that he name them Bond, Buffy, Bilbo, and Bauer?