Zac Efron, of the popular High School Musical TV-movie, lends his voice this Saturday to The Replacements, Disney Channel's animated series about tween siblings who order supercool parents through a comic-book ad. Efron will voice Davey Hunkerfoff, a (you guessed it) hunky new lifeguard at the town pool. In its first month on the air, The Replacements (Saturdays at 8 pm/ET) has ranked No. 1 among broadcast and basic-cable series with kids age 6 to 11.
On Thanksgiving Day, starting at 8 am/ET, TNT will air all 13 freshman-season episodes of The Closer. The Kyra Sedgwick starrer wraps up Season 2 with a two-part special on Dec. 4.... Reminder: Court TV premieres Murder by the Book, in which best-selling authors such as James Ellroy and Faye Kellerman revisit compelling true-crime stories, tonight at 10 pm/ET.... A&E has extended the fourth season of The First 48 by six episodes, to begin unspooling this Thursday at 9 pm. Season 5 premieres in January 2007.... And on a personal note, I want to wish a happy fourth birthday to Jared and Jacob Mitovich, two Dora, Thomas and Cars enthusiasts who are the "top story" every night when their daddy comes home from work at "the TV magazine." Love you guys!
David Duchovny is finalizing a deal to tackle his first series-regular TV role since The X-Files, as the star (and exec producer) of an untitled Showtime drama pilot about a sex- and drug-addicted novelist trying to raise a kid on his own. (I like to think of it as "The Courtship of Eddie's Horny, Hopped-up Father.") As part of the deal, says Variety, Duchovny will also set up a comedy series — Yoga Man, fancied as Shampoo in a yoga studio — at the cabler.
Classic television series including My Favorite Martian, I Spy, Daniel Boone and The Invisible Man, as well as kid-skewed fare such as The Gumby Show, are heading for digital distribution hubs such as Google Video and iTunes. I don't know, watching a black-and-white Ray Walston on the Internet just seems so... wrong.
NBC confirmed on Thursday afternoon that it has ordered nine additional episodes — for a full-season slate of 22 — of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this despite disappointing ratings for the big-budget drama. But in announcing the pickup, NBC hinted that exactly who fills Studio 60's audience may have been a factor in its good, if surprising, fortune: The series boasts one of prime time's highest concentrations of affluent and college-educated viewers. So all you dirt-poor, high-school dropouts, go ahead and stick with What About Brian.
Per Variety, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker and Leslie Bibb will star in Trick 'r Treat, a Halloween-set, Bryan Singer-produced horror pic.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (Domino) will play a superkiller in The Bourne Ultimatum.... Alan Arkin, hot off the success of Little Miss Sunshine, is in talks to join Rendition, playing a senator who tries to help a pregnant woman (Reese Witherspoon) find her missing CIA analyst husband (Jake Gyllenhaal)..... Lionsgate has nabbed U.S. distribution rights to a live-action feature based on the Bratz dolls. Production starts in February, no casting has been announced. (Hurry, Mary-Kate and Ashley, hurry!)
In Season 2 of IFC's Greg the Bunny: The Film Parodies, debuting Saturday at 9 pm/ET, those getting "felt" up (and sent up) by the puppets include Charlize Theron (in "Wumpus the Monster"), Nicole Kidman (in "Sockville") and Mel Gibson ("Passion of the Easter Bunny").... Tyra Banks goes undercover as a man, specifically a member of rapper Chingy's posse, on Monday's Tyra Banks Show.... Gentlemen, start your joysticks: Spike TV has Game Head: Call of Duty 3 Challenge, a reality competition based on the best-selling vid-game title, airing tonight at 12:30 am, while USA Network premieres Boost Mobile Major League Gaming Pro Circuit, a clumsily titled series looking at the world's first pro button-mashing league, Saturday at 10 am/ET.
We thought we had lost her, one bad second-husband and two insta-kids ago. We watched as pop music's unchallenged queen seemingly lost sight of herself, or her goals, and regressed into a disastrously clad, gum-snapping, rap-star wannabe husband-pimping shell of her once-famous, Madonna-frenching self. But now, and all in the course of but a week, Britney Spears appears to have brought the sexy back. (Apologies to her old flame for the reference.)A surprise visit to Letterman? She's still flirty, and adorably unpredictable! Filing for divorce from that poster child for so many wrong things? She's come to her senses... detoxified! Spied by the New York City dailies out on the town, slimmed down and dressed to kill, then taking a playful spin around 30 Rock's skating rink? She's got her zest for life back, and most importantly, she remembers exactly what sells.The pop tart's reimagining... makeover... return to old form.... Whatever one wants to call it, it has been so Swiss watch-pre...
As Dancing with the Stars' Wednesday outing set another season high (of 20.65 million total viewers)....— CBS' Jericho, whose season was just cleaved into two repeat-free halves, held steady (with 9.79 million viewers).— America's Next Top Model (5.4 mil) had one of its best outings of the season.— Criminal Minds (17.538 million) bested Lost (17.102 mil, up a mil from the week prior) for a second straight time. (And for the last time, until February 7, 2007.)— The O.C., with a special airing, was welcomed back to Wednesday by 3.53 million, only a hair more than saw last Thursday's disappointingly sampled season opener, and was outperformed by One Tree Hill in key female demos.— The Nine (7.57 mil) surged 900,000 viewers, yet still fell shy of reclaiming the 10 o'clock hour's No. 2 slot, from Dateline.
Ed Bradley, the award-winning CBS newsman who has been a correspondent for 60 Minutes since 1981, died of leukemia on Thursday. He was 65. Bradley's long career was marked with an assortment of honors, including a Peabody award (for a June 2000 report on Africans dying of AIDS), a Damon Runyon Award for career journalistic excellence, and 19 Emmys, the most recent of which was earned for a segment on the reopening of the racially motivated murder case of Emmett Till.UPDATE: In a statement, fellow veteran newsman Dan Rather says, "With the passing of Ed Bradley we have lost one of America's best. As a compassionate, sensitive person, as a gentle but strong man, as a lover of life, and as a great professional, he was an example of all a conscientious and dedicated journalist can be."For more, see the Reuters obituary.
Fox is developing a half-hour comedy revolving around American Idol sixth-place finisher Kellie Pickler, Variety reports. Pickler will play a naive, small-town Southern girl – stre-e-e-etch them acting chops – who discovers that her biological dad is, no, not a rehabilitating ex-con, but a well-respected state governor. Hilarity ensues. Hey, what about Kevin Covais as her wacky sidekick?
Not long after TVGuide.com reported on the full-season pickup for ABC's Men in Trees (which will now air after Grey's Anatomy), the Ausiello Report scooped similar good news for fans of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Mike has more here.... Ray Liotta's Smith, meanwhile, is still dead, done, finito, fork-impaled, but CBS.com is streaming four never-broadcast episodes on its Innertube broadband channel, starting today. Also, a synopsis of how the producers planned to resolve the serialized drama's first season will be posted on the series' site at CBS.com.
On Thursday, a day after Britney Spears filed for divorce from her hubby of two years, Kevin Federline counter-filed his own court papers, seeking not only spousal support but sole custody of the couple's two children.Kevin Federline. Rapper? No. Actor? Meh. Comedian? Ding-ding!
Fox's 24 has officially announced that Season 5 villain-in-chief Gregory Itzin and his firecracker first lady Jean Smart will resurface during Jack's next very bad day. While no details were divulged about the Emmy-nominated couple's encore, save that they are both recurring gigs, I invite you to read what Itzin told Ausiello back in September about his Season 6 return.
Per Variety, Degrassi: The Next Generation show runner Aaron Martin has received a green light from The N for The Best Years, a drama about a girl's freshman year at college (university?), and to bow next summer.... Per Reuters, NBC is close to ordering pilots based on a trio of international series: I'm with Stupid, a BBC comedy about a down-and-out guy who moves into a home for the disabled; Kath & Kim, an Aussie offering about a divorced mom and her miserable daughter; and The IT Crowd, a U.K. take on a company's "the geeky and underappreciated information-technology workers." (Note to TV Guide ITers: "geeky" was the wire report's adjective, not mine.)
Per the Hollywood Reporter, View Askewniverse auteur Kevin Smith and British thesp James Purefoy (Rome) have joined the cast of Manchild, a Showtime comedy pilot based on a BBC series about four chums who hit midlife crises. Smith will play a cynical, self-loathing divorced guy, while Purefoy's character is fancied as the circle of friends' ad hoc leader, a wealthy club-hopper who doesn't date anyone over 25. John Corbett and Paul Hipp round out the quartet.
If I appear to dwell on Mel Brooks' in-the-works adaptation of Young Frankenstein, it's for good reason: The classic horror spoof was a seminal film for my younger self. Now, the New York Post's theater column repeats that the early take on the stage musical is, well, "scooper duper." Specifically, praise such as "absolutely hilarious," "a total winner," and "really funny — and, for Mel, surprisingly tasteful" was offered by some of the 20 Broadway insiders invited to a top-secret Monday reading. What's more, at the run-through Brian D'Arcy James was so winning in the Gene Wilder role — once thought to be a no-brainer (pun intended) get for (a pre-Odd Couple) Matthew Broderick — that he is now poised to play the doc on Broadway come Halloween 2007.
Two weeks after announcing their separation, Reese Witherspoon has filed for divorce from husband Ryan Phillippe, citing — wait for it — "irreconcilable differences," seeking physical custody of their children, 7-year-old Ava and 3-year-old Deacon, and requesting exclusive use of the family residence. Reese also seems bearish on proferring any spousal support.... Daniel Baldwin (Homicide: Life on the Street) was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of stealing an SUV, and was booked for investigation of grand theft auto. This particular Baldwin's previous legal melees include crashing a rental car at 80 mph into two parked vehicles, as well as an investigation for cocaine possession.
Per Variety, Clive Barker is writing and producing, but not directing, an update of 1987's Hellraiser. Barker, touting this as more than a remake, says, "There are areas where I think we can be a lot more intense and a lot scarier".... Hugh Jackman will produce and star in an adaptation of the Robert Littell novel The Amateur, which 24's Evan Katz will pen.... Eminem hopes to play gunslinger Palladin in Paramount's big-screen take on the 1950s TV Western Have Gun Will Travel.... Russia has banned the release of Borat, citing "material that [may be deemed] offensive to certain nationalities and religions." No, really?
As first scooped by the Ausiello Report, ABC is now confirming that Anne Heche & Co. are on the move. Says the press release, "Men in Trees is moving to Thursday nights at 10 pm, as of Nov. 30. In addition, the series has been picked up for a full-season order. Men in Trees will air in that time slot through December, and Six Degrees will return with all original episodes in January 2007."Chalk up a "W" for quality television.
According to a CBS press release, Jericho will air repeat-free in this, its freshman season, albeit with a hitch: The drama will take a 10-week breather after staging a cliff-hanger finale on Nov. 29, then return with all-new (and nothing but new) episodes on Feb. 21, 2007, starting with a flashback to how life was in Jericho pre-nuclear attack. During the hiatus, fans can find new, Jericho-related content at CBS.com, and streamings of episodes aired to date at Innertube.Filling Jericho's Wednesdays-at-8 time slot during the month of December will be double helpings of The King of Queens, which premieres its ninth season on Dec. 6. As for what happens come January, when the King scales back to single-episode outings, CBS says an announcement will be made at a later date.Alternate title for this item: "Wichitalkin' 'bout, CBS?"
Wednesday's few, election-night ratings headlines:— With 6.25 million total viewers, Friday Night Lights was on par with its previous original Tuesday outing, though still off two mil from its special Oct. 30, while time-slot rival Gilmore Girls (4.35 mil) slid 350 thou.— Thanks to a 9:30 pm, post-DWTS surge (to the tune of +2.7 mil late arrivals), Fox's House (15.94 million) had its best night since the season premiere.— Veronica Mars perked up a bit from last week's season low, with 2.85 million (up 900K).— And if anyone cares, the 10 o'clock election-coverage race was won by ABC, which earned the vote of 8.7 million viewers.