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TV News Roundup – October 2009 – Week 3

MythBusters Q&A: New Season Filled With Bullets, MPG Tests and Duct Tape
“Our producer sends us stories that they’ve been thinking about, and they had some household myth stories, and then had some segments in there on duct tape. And the minute we saw that, we said, ‘Duct tape is worth more than a segment. Hell, we could a whole half show—actually, we could do an hour on duct tape! We could probably do five or six hours of programming on duct tape alone.’”

HBO orders second season of ‘Bored to Death’
HBO has picked up “Bored to Death” for a second season. Following the episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which the cast of “Seinfeld” reunited with the show’s co-creator Larry David, the third installment of “Bored to Death” nabbed its largest audience to date, 1.1 million viewers, up 51% from last week. “Bored to Death” stars Jason Schwartzman as a mentally blocked writer-turned-private investigator. Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis co-star.

Syfy’s Alice will premiere Dec. 6!
Syfy’s contemporary re-imagined spin on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will premiere on Sunday, December 6th @ 9-11pm ET/PT and air over two consecutive nights. In this modern day spin on the classic stories by Lewis Carroll, Academy Award winner Kathy Bates (Misery) stars as the Queen of Hearts and Caterina Scorsone (Crash television series) as Alice.

Legend of the Seeker returns
Legend of the Seeker’s second season will commence on the weekend of Nov. 7, with new cast member Tabrett Bethell reprising her role as the fierce Mord’Sith Cara who threatens Richard (Craig Horner) and Kahlan’s (Bridget Regan) close relationship, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumna Charisma Carpenter guest-starring as a wicked Mord’Sith named Triana, who challenges Cara’s authority.

Battlestar: The Plan drops in Oct.: New details!
The Plan debuts on Blu-rayTM Hi-Def and DVD on October 27, 2009 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. For the first time ever, fans can experience the uncut and uncensored story of humanity’s futuristic fight for survival through the eyes of their deadly adversaries, the Cylons.

ABC orders full seasons of three comedies
Fate of Kelsey Grammer’s ‘Hank’ still undetermined
ABC on Thursday handed full-season pickups to three of its four new fall comedies, the single-camera half-hours “Modern Family,” “Cougar Town” and “The Middle.” As for “Hank,” the fourth piece of ABC’s comedy block, there is no word on its future.

CBS nabs ‘Hawaii Five-O’ pilot
Kurtzman and Orci to pen updated take on classic series
CBS has given a pilot commitment to an updated version of the classic cop series, from feature scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. There are little details on the trio’s take on the classic procedural, which chronicled the workings of the fictional Hawaiian state police department led by Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord). The original series, created by Leonard Freeman, ran on CBS from 1968-80.

NBC may move up ‘Chuck’ launch
Chuck’s third season might get to premiere sooner than the March date, as early as late October. NBC insiders who’ve seen the first four episodes are calling this season the best yet. If Chuck does come back sooner rather than later, the chances of NBC ordering additional episodes beyond the 13 it initially commissioned increases dramatically. And they increase further if it performs solidly.

ABC gives ‘FlashForward’ a full season
The network just gave “FlashForward” a full-season pickup. “FlashForward” boosted its time period by 32% compared to “Ugly Betty” in the spot last year. When factoring DVR viewership, “FlashForward” gained a larger number (0.8) than any other freshman series (full premiere week DVR analysis here). Last Thursday’s performance was a 3.0 in the adult demo, in second place behind CBS’ “Survivor.”

Red Dwarf Back For More
The new series will once again be made for the channel Dave, which aired “Back To Earth” mini series that aired to massive ratings for the channel earlier this year. At the moment six episodes have been confirmed and the show may well be recorded in front of studio audience, like old days.

Fox: We will air all 13 ‘Dollhouse’ episodes
“We’re going to run all the episodes,” Fox scheduling chief Preston Beckman said. “We’re not saying we’re happy with those numbers, or accept them, but we don’t have to overreact. During [November] sweeps we might have to jack up the numbers a little [with other programming], but we plan on completing the order for this show.”

Stargate Universe grows, beats Dollhouse again
Universe showed a modest 4% growth in total viewers with just shy of 2.5 million people watching. But it made a huge gain of 22% among viewers 18-49 and 13% in the 25-54 age range. Syfy said Universe once gain beat Fox’s struggling series Dollhouse head-to-head in total viewers as well as in the 18-49 and 25-54 age groups. Dollhouse finished the night with 2,235,000 million total viewers.

Sanctuary season premiere joins Friday ratings surge
The second season premiere of Sanctuary joined Stargate Universe in a Friday night ratings surge, leaping 18% in Adults 18-49 and 7% in Adults 25-54 versus last year’s average, according to Syfy. The series grabbed nearly 1.9 million viewers (1.85) on Friday, October 9, at 10PM ET/PT.

CBS picks up ‘NCIS,’ ‘Good Wife’
Freshman dramas get full-season pickup
CBS has given full-season pickups to the “NCIS” spinoff and to its Tuesday-night companion, “The Good Wife.” Both dramas have performed well for the Eye after three airings on Tuesdays. Both hail from CBS Television Studios.

Comics chatting for Showtime
Izzard, Klein for ‘Behind the Green Room Door’
“Behind the Green Room Door” will feature prominent comics who gather in front of an audience and talk about the business of being funny. Paul Provenza hosts; comics featured include Jonathan Winters, Eddie Izzard, Robert Klein and Penn Jillette. Four rotating comics, plus Provenza, will appear every week. A combination of iconic comedians and those on the rise will participate.

But Wait, There’s More…

The Fine Print

This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive roundup of the entire weeks’ news. All stories are chosen by me for no other reason than that they got my attention and might capture yours. If something you think is more important chime in on the feedback; we’d love to hear comments and have a conversation about it.

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About The Author

Scott From LA

Scott is an art director, writer and comics creator living in Los Angeles. He has been a pop culture maven from a very young age. His very first job was as a manager of a comic book store. He spent several years working in a video store, and yes, we are talking VHS tapes. A student of literature and Writing, he brings his obsessive love of comic book trivia, movie history and science fiction/fantasy writing to bear on the work he does for CoolShite.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Friday, October 16th, 2009
  • Author: Scott From LA
  • Filed Under: News, TV News
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