Mike Vogel
Pan Am star Mike Vogel has landed the lead in Fox's comedy pilot Living Loaded, Deadline reports.
Get the complete scoop on pilot season
From It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney and based on the book ...
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David Caruso
As mid-season shows debut over the next three months, it will be crunch time for a number of series that haven't been tearing up the Nielsen charts. Here's what network insiders say are the shows on the bubble as execs look to set their schedules in May.
ABC
A second-year ratings fade may mean it's time to pull a sheet over the Dana Delany-led Body of Proof. While the network ordered an extra episode of Pan Am in order to keep a hold on the cast until May, its chances of returning next fall are as likely as an airport going a full day without a flight delay. Comedy Happy Endings doesn't do a great job retaining the lead-in from the mighty Modern Family, but ABC parent Disney has an ownership stake in the show and it's a favorite within the network's entertainment division — so a pickup for another season is considered a lock. And fan fave Cougar Town will get a final shot for renewal if it performs well in its new Tuesday time period starting February 14.
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Siobhan Finneran and Rob James-Collier
Send questions and comments to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: I'm one of the last people one would expect to watch Downton Abbey, but after hearing the endless raves about it, I made it through the first season on DVD during a weekend, and a new episode is now one of the highlights of my TV-watching week. However, my question is about the "mean girls" (i.e. Thomas and Miss O'Brien). Sure, it's always fun to have a couple of mustache-twirling villains to root against, but unless I missed something, I guess they're supposed to be bad just for the sake of being bad.
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Eli Manning of the New York Giants
Fox's NFC Championship that saw the New York Giants beat the San Francisco 49ers in sudden-death overtime grabbed a huge audience that's becoming typical for the conference championship game that airs in prime time, according to preliminary Nielsen data.
Dan Bell, a Fox Sports vice president, tweeted that the game was the highest rated NFC title game in 17 years (going back to the 1995 game when the 49ers played the Dallas Cowboys).
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Ricky Gervais
Viewership for the 69th Golden Globe Awards ceremony declined slightly to 16.8 million vs. last year's 17 million, according to time zone-adjusted, preliminary Nielsen figures.
The show also fell a little in the industry-coveted demo of 18-to-49-year-olds — to 5.0 from 5.2 (last year's final figure).
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Cougar Town
Cougar Town is coming back. We still just don't know when.
Addressing reporters at the winter TV previews, ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee said the network is fully behind the Courteney Cox-fronted comedy that has been on the bench since last May. He did not, however, give an exact premiere date for the show's third season.
Check out more news, photos and clips of Cougar Town
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Josh Lucas, Molly Parker
No terra firma for The Firm. Its two-hour debut stands on this shaky ground — 46 percent below the demo rating of The Cape's premiere a year ago, making it the worst all-time start of an NBC regular season drama. Quite telling: the show lost viewers with each succeeding half-hour. Surely, the network is missing Sunday Night Football already.
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Karine Vanasse and Mike Vogel, Pan Am
After months of will-they-or-won't-they tension on Pan Am, Dean (Mike Vogel) and Colette (Karine Vanasse) finally seem to be on the same page. After all, she even met his parents last month. What could possibly go wrong? Um, well, his ex-girlfriend Bridget (Annabelle Wallis) -- who went MIA after he...
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Nina Dobrev
Question: As we approach the annual barrage of year-end Top 10 lists, I'm dreading the fact that one worthy, excellent TV show will be overlooked by most critics: The Vampire Diaries. Don't get me wrong, I love Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones as much as any sane person, but I also think TVD is one of the most expertly paced, perfectly plotted shows on TV right now. Unfortunately, I don't think many professional critics bother to watch it, though they'll analyze lesser shows like True Blood and The Walking Dead just because of the networks they air on. Even if critics don't think The Vampire Diaries is Top 10 worthy, I think it at least deserves to be part of the year-end conversation. Why is it so hard for a show like this to be taken seriously? — Donnie
Matt Roush: I like Vampire Diaries and probably give it more consideration than ...
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Emily VanCamp
When ABC announced its fall schedule in May, the network's critics and competitors were skeptical. Not only were its aging dramas quickly eroding, but ABC faced a formidable task in launching a whopping 13 new series.
It seemed like a tall order for ABC Entertainment Group president Paul Lee, who was coming off his first full development season at the network. But as NBC sinks into an even deeper slump, ABC has somehow managed to defy the odds. It doesn't yet boast the ratings prowess of top-rated CBS and Fox, but Lee is encouraged by his network's ability to debut a handful of promising new series.
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