Kiefer Sutherland
It's official: Jack's back! Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly announced on a conference call Monday that the network is bringing back action series 24, with Kiefer Sutherland reprising his role as CTU agent Jack Bauer.
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The Bachelor
The second-season return of Smash on Feb. 5 was always going to be a tough sell. But ABC's decision to schedule a last-minute special Tuesday-night edition of The Bachelor against it helped to crush NBC's musical drama, which attracted just 4.5 million viewers. Meanwhile, Sean Lowe and his roses brought in 7.9 million.
In this age of time-shifted and on-demand viewing, TV network scheduling seems like an antiquated idea. Yet as the networks fight over smaller pieces of the Nielsen ratings pie, scheduling — and the strategy behind how and when programs run — continues to play a critical role.
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Kevin Spacey
TV viewers have never had it so good — or maybe they have it too good. There's never been more original programming to navigate than at this very moment. Take Sunday nights: Even with the NFL season over, viewing options include The Good Wife (CBS), The Walking Dead (back Feb. 10 on AMC), Girls (HBO), Shameless (Showtime), Downton Abbey (PBS), Family Guy (Fox), Revenge (ABC) and Kourtney and Kim Take Miami (E!). And that's just in one timeslot: 9/8c.
That's a lot of DVR space being filled up week in and week out with must-see shows. "There's definitely more programming that I'm interested in watching than I can actually consume," says Showtime Entertainment president David Nevins.
According to FX Networks president John Landgraf, there were just 35 scripted shows on cable when The Shield premiered 11 years ago; now that number is up to...
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Fringe
In the final part of our farewell to Fringe, producers and cast discuss the episode that took Fox's sci-fi series in an entirely new direction: into the future. The series has always been known for its offbeat 19th episode, but its final one took the viewers on an adventure to Observer-occupied 2036, in which Peter, Astrid and Walter were freed from amber by Peter and Olivia's grown-up daughter Etta. In the race to the series finale, what's left of the team will attempt to reset time in hopes of ridding the world of Observers...
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Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv
In the third part of our farewell to Fringe, producers and cast discuss the most polarizing story line of the series: The Season 3 cliff-hanger featured a scene in which Peter Bishop, who we had come to know and love over three seasons, mysteriously vanished into thin air. The Observers then explained that he had, in fact, never existed. (Come again?) This controversial creative move ended a season that included Fringe's foreboding move to the Friday "death slot." Still, the show soldiered on for another two seasons, much to the credit of its passionate fan base...
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Fringe
In the second part of our farewell to Fringe, producers and cast discuss the introduction of the parallel universe, which opened up the world of Fox's sci-fi drama to new and exciting possibilities, including a new set of characters with names like Walternate and Bolivia that fans would — gasp! — actually come to love in the end...
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Fringe
A mad scientist, his genius prodigal son and a noble FBI agent compose the surrogate family at the core of Fox's supernatural drama Fringe that, under the direction of sci-fi kingpin J.J. Abrams (Lost), struggled through five low-rated seasons of endlessly fascinating twists and turns that, quite literally, attempted to tell the story of the universe, er, universes. It will all come to an auspicious end Friday at 8/7c, in what devotees hope will be a satisfying ending to the little series that could...
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Britney Spears
Britney Spears will follow L.A. Reid out the door at The X Factor.
Sources confirm to TVGuide.com that Spears has quit the Fox singing competition because...
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Britney Spears
Call it a tale of two networks. Whereas NBC's chairman dwelled on the network's great past year at the TCA winter previews, Fox's Kevin Reilly was focused on the future. "We here at Fox sort of limped our way in here from 2012," he said. "Nobody's happier than us to turn the page and get onto a fresh year and better things to come."
Reilly said Fox struggled with airing shows consistently because of the usual interruptions (postseason baseball), as well as the presidential debates. But he also acknowledged lower ratings across the board because of the overall "vibrant" ecosystem of television.
"There is more choice, more quality, more breadth of quality," he said. "There are so many access points, so many availabilities. ... That is very good for the overall television business.
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M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan is developing a new event series for Fox, the network announced Tuesday at the Television Critics Association winter TV previews.
The drama, Wayward Pines, is inspired by Blake Crouch's bestselling novel Pines and follows Secret Service agent Ethan Burke as he tracks down two missing agents in a rural Idaho town. But as Ethan becomes more involved in the mysteries of Wayward Pines, Idaho, he moves farther away from everything he once knew.
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