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.

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?

Tonight at 9pm on the CW is an all new episode of Gossip Girl. The episode has a very dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinner where Serena is forced to share thanks with the man’s wife who she is having an affair with.  Also on tonight, and keeping with the Holiday spirit is the classic Christmas toon, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the modern animated classic, Shrek the Halls. Both specials are on ABC, starting at 8pm.  I love the Holidays and all of the specials and themed episodes that it brings along with it.

What else is on tonight?

8PM

• ABC: How the Grinch Stole Christmas/Shrek the Halls (Holiday Specials)
• CW: One Tree Hill (Melodrama)
• FOX: House (Medical Drama)
• NBC: Heroes (Sci-Fi Drama)

9PM

• ABC: Find My Family (Reality)
• CW: Gossip Girl (Teen Drama)
• FOX: Lie to Me (Crime Drama)
• NBC: Trauma (Medical Drama)

10PM

• Jay Leno Show (Talk/Sketch Comedy)

It will be interesting to see if the ratings for the Jay Leno Show begin to rise as all other shows in its timeslot go on hiatus and it continues to air new episodes.  The next few weeks will really show if this experiment by NBC will work in the long run.

There were a lot of great TV Moments last week, these are my favorites. On How I Met Your Mother, Ted runs into Stella. Is she the “Mother”? Maybe, but I don’t think so. On The Big Bang Theory, Penny called out Leonard’s name while making out with Stuart. Over on Castle, Castle was asked why he doesn’t watch detective shows on TV rather than following Becket around. He said something like all they do is play with their sunglasses. Which is making fun of time slot rival CSI Miami‘s character Horatio Cane. Dollhouse had a bunch of great lines like when Alpha holds a gun towards Caroline/Echo’s harddrive with her original imprint and he says ‘I’ll blow your brains out’. The best line was when Topher and Ballard are talking about the doll’s souls and Topher says something along the lines of ‘we keep them in a jar with our fireflies’.

On SNL, Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg reprise their dick-in-a-box roles with Motherlover.

On Bones, Booth talked to Baby Stewie at the sperm bank.

And finally, on David Letterman, Leonard Nimoy presented the “Top Ten Lines Never Before Said in a ‘Star Trek‘ Film.”

What will be this weeks favorite moments? Will it be Prison Break’s two hour finale? Who will Michael choose, Sara or Lincoln? Or Leonard Nimoy as William Bell on Fringe or No Doubt on Gossip Girl or maybe Motley Crue and Zack on Bones or the Apocalypse on Supernatural or Doomsday battling Clark on Smallville?

What were your favorite TV moments last week?

Welcome to my all-new column, where I look at the cool little aspects of the latest TV episodes and news.

Did you catch the inside joke on Monday nights episode of Castle?

Okay, so Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is talking to his daughter and mother about Nannies.  Castle mentions that his nanny would sit and watch daytime soap operas.  He then revealed that he got the idea for his first book from watching an episode of One Life to Live.  In the mid 90s, Nathan Fillion portrayed Joey Buchanan One Life to Live.  This would be about the same time that Castle got his idea for his books.  Most of these little inside jokes the casual watcher won’t even realize, but they are funny when you do know them.

Speaking of Nannies and inside jokes on shows, there is also inside advertising.  On tonight’s episode of One Tree Hill, Nanny Deb is asking Jaime what he wants to watch and he replies Gossip Girl, cause it makes him feel bad.  Gossip Girl airs right before One Tree Hill on the CW.

And while we are on the subject of Gossip Girl, did you hear who will be portraying a teenage Lily van der Woodsen on the Gossip Girl prequel?  None other than Brittany Snow. Does anyone else think it’s weird that she was once in love with her daughter Serena’s ex boyfriend Dan Humphrey (they got down in John Tucker Must Die)?

(Brittany Snow in the Gossip Girl prequel)

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!

After weeks of rumors, it is official! The CW’s hit series Gossip Girl is getting a spin-off in the form of a prequel. The new series will focus on the younger years of Lily Van Der Woodsen, Serena (Blake Lively)’s mother who is portrayed in Gossip Girl by Kelly Rutherford.

According to EW, the pilot follows Lily as she moves out of her wealthy parent’s home to live with her outcast sister in Los Angeles. There she’ll deal with going to public school and experience the glitz of Hollywood in the 80s.

I think this is a really cool way to expand the universe created in Gossip Girl without losing any of the show’s actors. A pilot for the prequel will air on May 11th in the place of Gossip Girl.