Jonny Lee Miller
CBS has renewed a whopping 14 of its shows for the 2013-2014 season, the network announced on Wednesday.
In addition to the previously renewed NCIS and CSI, the network will bring back dramas NCIS: LA, Elementary, Person of Interest, Hawaii Five-0, The Mentalist, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife .
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Ryan Hayes, Jon Peter Lewis
NBC enjoyed its best Tuesday in months thanks to The Voice.
The singing competition series drew 12 million viewers and a 3.9 in the adults 18-to-49 demographic, making it the top-rated show of the night. That's down 19 percent from Monday's premiere, but up 22 percent from last spring's ...
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Margo Martindale and Jake Johnson
What kind of family must it be where slacker bartender Nick Miller (Jake Johnson) is seen as the responsible one? That answer becomes clear in a sporadically amusing road-trip episode of Fox's New Girl (9/8c) that takes the roomies to Chicago to lay Nick's scoundrel of a dad (former guest star Dennis Farina) to rest. The formidable Margo Martindale (Justified, The Americans) presides over the ridiculous antics as Nick's gruff but needy mom, and cable clown Nick Kroll hams it up as his emotionally volatile brother. As usual, Schmidt (Max Greenberg) hijacks the proceedings with his death neuroses, and while he wonders "What's with this open casket thing?" it's his encounter with said coffin and its contents that provides the episode's biggest laughs.
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Pauley Perrette, Coyote Shivers
Pauley Perrette's ex-husband has been charged with violating a restraining order the NCIS star had against him, TMZ reports.
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Splash
Splash made a huge, uh, splash Tuesday.
ABC's diving competition series premiered to 8.8 million viewers and a 2.6 in the adults 18-to-49 demographic, making it the network's biggest unscripted series debut in more than two years and the highest-rated reality premiere since The X Factor in 2011. Splash was also up 13 percent from Celebrity Wife Swap's premiere in the timeslot. Lead-outs Dancing with the Stars recap show (9.6 million, 2.1) was up from last spring's ...
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Timothy Olyphant, Jim Beaver, Erica Tazel
How long has the Justified fan waited for someone to ask this question to Boyd Crowder: "Where did you get all of those teeth?" You'll likely be grinning yourself, while cringing at the edge of your seat, as the pleasures just keep multiplying — a high-octane Justified highball of great banter, tremendous suspense, clever twists and reversals — in a harrowing, hilarious and fantastically entertaining episode, so eventful you might mistake it for a season finale, but thankfully there are still two more episodes to go (Tuesday, 10/9c, FX) in this terrific fourth season.
It has all been building to this violent showdown between the forces of good (the U.S. marshals) and evil (everyone else, from Boyd's crew to an army of thugs and snipers representing the Detroit mob). The target is Drew Thompson (the great Jim Beaver), a 30-year fugitive in sheriff's clothing, currently in the marshals' custody, although they feel like sitting ducks, outnumbered and outgunned in Harlan as they calculate several desperate escape maneuvers while awaiting rescue. The episode, written by exec producer Graham Yost and Chris Provenzano, is titled "Decoy," and revolves around a series of standoffs, confrontations and subterfuges that leave few unscathed and unbloodied. Special props to Patton Oswalt as the loyal and lovably resilient Constable Bob, who even Raylan has to admit is a "tough son-of-a-bitch" by the time the dust settles, following a tense encounter outside a (metaphorically apt) high-school principal's office.
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Cote De Pablo and Pauley Perrette
CBS has set finale dates for its primetime shows, including The Good Wife, NCIS, Two and a Half Men and CSI.
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Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn
Send questions and comments to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: Along with Parenthood, The Good Wife is in my opinion still one of the best dramas on network TV. And the mock trial episode was, as you recently noted, the best so far of the season. However, I have recently been feeling that this show has been lacking, not necessarily in quality (with the exception of the whole Kalinda's husband debacle), but in freshness. For me the show has been very stagnant. A case here, a little Will/Alicia flirtation there, mixed in with Peter's campaign and/or Eli's troubles. Every week is pretty much the same thing with a different guest star. Nothing seems to be new or fresh. What's most frustrating about the lack of freshness is how easily they could remedy that. I would be extremely interested in watching what Cary proposed unfold, for he and Alicia to form their own firm. Watching Cary and Alicia go head to head with Will and Diane would be a welcome change to the same old same old.
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Tenna Torres
Fox topped Tuesday with a special American Idol, while Smash continued its precipitous slide.
Idol's two-hour episode averaged 11.5 million viewers and a 3.4 in the adults 18-to-49 demographic. NCIS did, however, edge it out by a tenth in the 8 o'clock hour (20.3 million, 3.3 vs. 10.9 million, 3.2).
The best "very special" episodes
NCIS: Los Angeles (15.9 million, 2.8) and Golden Boy (9.3 million, 1.6), in its last Tuesday ...
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NCIS: Los Angeles
"There's often the question, 'Why would you do a third one?'" NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles executive producer Shane Brennan admits of the franchise's next spinoff, which will launch as a two-part "embedded pilot" on NCIS: LA March 19 and 26. "'How would it be different?'"
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