PJ Flip here with some scattered news from the world of television.

• Love Bites has been pushed back from NBC’s fall schedule to midseason. Taking its place will be The Apprentice.  Jordana Spiro is also no longer part of the cast.  She had to leave the show because of contract issues with her TBS show My Boys.  There was only one episode I was planning on watching of Love Bites.  That was the episode that Jennifer Love Hewitt was guest starring on.

• Larry King announced he will be leaving his CNN show this fall.  Who will be replacing him?  Names that have popped up include Ryan Seacrest, Piers Morgan and Joy Behar.

• Kim Kardasian and her sisters will guest star on 90210 as themselves in an episode next season.  Also cast on 90210 is Blair Redford in a recurring role.

• Jane Lynch will guest star on iCarly as Sam’s mother.

• John Schneider will appear in Smallville’s season premiere on September 24th.

• Gossip Girl has a new bad girl.  Katie Cassidy will be causing trouble in the upcoming season.

• Starz cancels Party Down and Gravity.

• Emily Van Camp is leaving Brothers & Sisters.  She will appear in a few episodes.

• Elijah Wood will star in a new FX comedy Wilfred.

Remember, you can catch up on all of your favorite shows online, just check out 141tv’s Free TV Guide to see what you can watch online.

What to watch? What to watch? The summer has only just started, but it feels like the TV well has already dried up. Yeah, I know, the World Cup is on and suddenly everyone is a soccer fan. Well, I still would like to enjoy some normal non-sports related entertainment.

Sure, I’m going to give the new episode of Persons Unknown (10pm on NBC) a chance. The first episode was okay, a bit too slowly paced, but has a likable cast and I’m always down for a mystery.  Maybe tonight will have a bit more action.  I never quite got into Tim Roth’s Lie to Me (8pm on Fox), nor have I been compelled to check out the new cop dramedy The Good Guys (9pm on Fox), which stars Colin Hanks.

Sweet things to say to your girlfriend is not what you’ll learn from tonight’s new episode of The Bachelorette (8pm on ABC).  No matter how bad Bachelorette is, it is no where near as unwatchable as True Beauty (10pm on ABC). In terms of reality, the only show I can stand is Last Comic Standing (9pm on NBC), but even that gets repetitive and boring.

The CW has reruns of 90210 and Gossip Girl (8pm and 9pm), while CBS has reruns of How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and CSI: Miami (8pm through 10pm).

Over on Cable; TNT has a new episode of Saving Grace (10pm), but I’ve never watched it in the past and I’m not going to start now, TBS has Neighbors from Hell (10pm), ah, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of that one,  ABC Family has a new episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager (8pm), and MTV has back to back new episodes of The Hard Times of RJ Berger and Warren the Ape (10pm and 10:30pm).

So, what am I going to watch tonight?

• 8PM: 90210 (rerun)
• 9PM: Last Comic Standing
• 10PM: Persons Unknown

What will you be watching tonight?

The CW Network has announced a few “early” pick-ups (not that early, dozens of shows have already been renewed over on the other networks). Included in the mix are guilty pleasures 90210 (the pic to the left) and Gossip Girl, the long running cult series Supernatural, the romantic undead hit The Vampire Diaries, and the CW’s top (really? WTF) series, America’s Next Top Model.

Missing from the list is the young Superman series Smallville, which after being taken from the timeslot it made successful for years and placed into the Friday sci-fi kill slot, has actually lifted the CW to its best Friday numbers in years.  I hope the show continues for another year and gives Clark and the gang a proper send off. Also missing from early renewal is the CW revival of Melrose Place.  I actually liked the first couple of episodes, but haven’t seen an ep in a while. The same can be said for most shows I casually watch though.  I hope they give the series another season to find its barrings.  The cast is likable and with some fresh stories I can see it growing into a decent show.

What do you think? Are Smallville and Melrose Place going to make the cut for next year? What other CW shows do you watch?

We shut down the offices for a two week fall break and television news explodes! Not only do we have to catch up on our overloaded Tivo, but we gotta swim through all of the news, rumors, casting, and drama.  So I present, a special TV-inspired Pit.

• No new word on its start date, but Chuck fans can rejoice, we just got an additional 6 episodes for the new season bringing us at least 19 episodes for the third season of the spy/adventure/romance/comedy.

• I don’t know about you, but I’ve been enjoying Melrose Place, matched with 90210, it fills my guilty pleasure quota (left by The OC).  So it saddens me that due to ratings (blah, the system blows) The CW is revamping the series, making it much lighter (good-bye murder mystery) and clearing out part of the cast (wait and see, I don’t want to spoil the mystery like other sites).

• The new Turk (Donald Faison) and Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) led Scrubs will be premiering on December 1st at 9pm on ABC.   The series sifts its focus from Sacred Heart Hospital to a medical school where Turk and Dr. Cox are teaches, others including Zack Braff and Sarah Chalke will be making guest spots throughout the season.

• Watch Dollhouse! Go, now, watch it! It is the most improved show of the season and at this rate it is likely to be canceled due to low ratings.

• ABC Family has set the start dates for The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Make It or Break It, and Greek. They will air in that order starting at 8pm on January 25th.

• While the news about Dollhouse is a little grim, there is some light at the end of the Joss Whedon tunnel, he will be helming an episode of my favorite new series, GLEE! I can’t think of a better director for them to use.

More TV news will be coming soon, along with the continuation of the TV Flipped column. Thanks for the continued support of the site.

It has been a while since I posted The Pit and things have been pretty slow recently (with the TV season ending and are any films even shooting?). Here is a new and slightly beefy-er edition of The Pit. Enjoy!

• It is official! Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni will both be returning for the 11th season of Law & Order: SVU. Unlike the other Law & Orders, I can’t imagine SVU without Hargitay and Meloni. Their characters and chemistry separate SVU from the Criminal Intent and the original L&O.

• Awesome awesome awesome Lost news! We’ll be getting a full extra hour in the sixth (and final) season! The producers felt that they needed a little extra time to tell the whole story. I’m game for how ever much time they need.

• The hip hop magazine Vibe will be closing its doors, according to the New York Times, and the recession is to blame. Or is it another sign of the print medium dying?

• Will Dimension Films be remaking or franchising An American Werewolf in London? While I wouldn’t mind seeing another semi sequel like An American Werewold in Paris, I’d hate it if they just tried to remake the original.  Not only does it hold up well with time, but it’d be impossible to improve it, so what would be the point?

• It has been a while since I’ve reported any 90210 news (and sadly it looks like neither Dylan nor Brandon will be coming back next season), Abercrombie and Fitch model Trevor Donovan has been cast as Teddy, a pretty boy tennis player and son of a movie star. Could he be the guy driving the car that witnessed Annie run over something in the season finale? We’ll find out on September 8th, when the second season of 90210 begins.

• Speaking about casting, I really like the idea of Noah Wyle leading a group of soldiers and survivors against an unknown alien force in Steven Spielberg and TNT’s upcoming sci-fi series.  Between this and V, it looks like aliens are battling vampires for the entertainment monster spotlight.

Angel‘s green skinned, karaoke singing demon Lorne (Andy Hallet) died of heart failure on March 31st.  He was only 33 years old and had been battling heart disease for five years. The My Hollywood Dream staff will miss him.

While on the subject of death, a lot of characters are turning up dead on TV… (Continue reading for the full article — Contains Spoilers)

Read the rest of this entry »

The CW Network has renewed six shows, including Supernatural, One Tree Hill, America’s Next Top Model, Gossip Girl, 90210 and Smallville.  The one that surprises me the most from the list is Smallville, which was expected to end its run last season when most of the cast’s contracts were up and the original showrunners left the series. Thankfully it got picked up and a surge of creative juices making the current season the best season since the first, with the near perfect Legion episode featuring three members of the Legion of Superheroes, engaging storylines featuring Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter, Doomsday, and Lana and Lex getting a final send off with a bang. This past season makes me wonder what the show would have been like had the original showrunners left a long time ago.

Sadly, two of my favorite CW shows, Reaper and Privileged have not been picked up.  Reaper is only just about to start its second season, taking over the post Gossip Girl spot that Privileged held.  First, I have to say how funky of a spot that is for Reaper. The network couldn’t put it after Supernatural or 13: The Fear is Real?  I can’t imagine that the teenyboppers that are watching Gossip Girl and going to stay for Reaper‘s supernatural comedy. Although, that Sock is dreamy.  Second, I can only assume that the network is trading spots with these two good shows to choose which one to keep and which to cut. And that’s a shame, with time and some better scheduling, I think both shows could develop into great shows. I mean, the network did give One Tree Hill a chance, and now it is more fresh than it ever was. Who ever though Hill would make it to seven seasons?

I wonder, will they team the 90210 remake/continuation up with the new Melrose Place? That’s right, they officially announced that they are making it, with Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) directing the pilot. We can now start to guess who they might have anchor the show from the original cast, I’d perfer to have Andrew Shue’s Billy return, but we’ll likely be stuck with Heather Locklear. Locklear has jumped from show to show with none surviving her reign since Melrose ended.  Maybe they creators will get really creative and have Grant Show’s Jake Hanson dating Jennie Garth’s Kelly Taylor, and have 90210 lead directly into Melrose Place. Better yet, have Hanson dating one of the high schoolers. Oh, the drama!