Are you at the end of your patience with your children?

Are the kids simply out of control?

Do you sometimes wish “Supernanny” Jo Frost would swoop in with her extra special tough love and set your family on the right path?

Well, you might just get the chance. Casting producers from the ABC show are searching the country right now looking for new challenges for America’s number one nanny.

And they’re going to be in Westchester later this month.

Ricochet Television and RoleMommy.com are hosting an open casting call on Saturday, November 17th from 10:00AM to 4:00PM at Westchester County Center (198 Central Avenue, White Plains).

Here’s the kind of families that the producers have said they’re looking for: Read more of this entry »

Gotta give Kiefer Sutherland credit for spoofing himself, though of course a fat paycheck probably had something to do with it.

Kiefer portays his alter ego in a series of Japanese commercials for snack food “Calorie Mate” (I’m just thinking that wouldn’t go over well as a name here in the States. How about calling it “Fat Food” or “Stuff Your Face”? Just sayin’) and they’re pretty funny.

Just had to share. Check them out. Full disclosure: I’m not certain I have them in the correct order, but I don’t think it matters too much.

Episode 1  Episode 2  Episode 3  Episode 4  Episode 5  Episode 6

You’ve probably been wondering — what is this threatened strike by the Writers Guild of America and what does it mean to me?

C’mon, admit it. It’s been keeping you up at night. Tossing and turning, you lay awake, pondering the imponderables.

Will the winter blockbuster movie season be a bust? Will Leno and Letterman have to go on hiatus? WHAT ABOUT THE DAILY SHOW?

Well, thank goodness for Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune.

Many writers I talked to last week are gloomy about the chances of an 11th-hour settlement between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which have been in contentious on-and-off negotiations for months.

UPDATE: It appears the good folks at SciFi got me last week’s Razorette rather than this week’s. I’m working on getting the new one and will post it as soon as I receive it. Thanks for your patience.

For those of you not in the know, the weekly Battlestar Galactica Razor flashbacks are correctly dubbed “Razorettes.” I count myself among those not in the know, as I only learned this on Friday when the good PR folks for Razor e-mailed me the link to all sorts of Razor goodness and gave me weekly — and, by extension, YOU — advance access to the Razorettes.

Anyhow, here’s the installment that will air Friday (Nov. 2) during Flash Gordon. Enjoy.

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Samantha Who? has indeed gotten a full-season pickup, pretty much everyone in the entire entertainment media reported last night. Here’s what Michael Ausiello over at TVGuide.com (who appears to have had the news first), had to say.

In its first three airings, the Christina Applegate-fronted memory loss satire has retained a good chunk of its Dancing with the Stars lead-in, easily ranking as the most-watched new comedy of the fall. What’s more, it’s actually good!

E!Online’s Watch with Kristin buried the lede with some potentially good news today on her blog: CBS is looking at the 8 p.m. Sunday timeslot for Jericho.

“That would put it opposite football, Fox’s cartoon lineup and Extreme Makeover,” Kristin wrote.

The good news: That means Jericho wouldn’t end up facing the American Idol juggernaut. That returns midseason on Fox Wednesdays.

Photo courtesy of CBS. 

OK, not quite, but 24 creator Joel Surnow, according to ABC Action News in Tampa Bay “was keen to cast a more youthful actor as lead in the action series.”

But then he met Kiefer, who was a whopping 34 at the time (the Rickster was only 31), and it was all over.

We’d conceived Jack as a guy who had a 16-year-old daughter but was still youthful enough to appeal to the Fox audience, which is skewed towards ‘young.’

It was good to see Sylar take a much deserved beating from Alejandro on Heroes last night. It was also good—if a bit upsetting—to see HRG take a turn back down that dark road he was so good at treading last season.

I’m still of a mixed mind about this season. It feels like its stuck in a sophomore slump from which it only needs a bit more traction to emerge. That just might have come in the form of a bullet to a Ukrainian grandfather’s brain last night. Now that’s a little more like it.

We all know the American version of The Office has been extremely successful.

Few (hopefully) remember what an unmitigated disaster the American version of Coupling was.

Fox is hoping for more of the former in ordering a pilot for an American version of the British sitcom Spaced. McG, of music video and Charlie’s Angels (the movies) fame, is on board to executive produce, along with writer Adam Barr, who wrote and produced on Will & Grace for seven years and recently has worked on The New Adventures of Old Christine, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Spaced is about “two strangers who pose as a married couple in order to rent an apartment.”

The key for Britcoms to succeed in the U.S., it seems to me, is to be different from their forebears.

Tappan Zee High School grad Brooke Smith has been a repeat guest star on “Grey’s Anatomy” since way back in Season 2.

She plays Dr. Erica Hahn, the cardiothoracic surgeon who’s popped up here and there over the last year-and-a-half—most memorably to clash with Dr. Burke. But when Isaiah Washington got dumped from the series—lo and behold—there was a job opening.

Not just at Seattle Grace, but on “Grey’s.” And in last week’s episode, Dr. Hahn got Burke’s job—and Smith was promoted to a series regular on the show.

Have you been wondering where you’ve seen Smith before, besides “Grey’s?”

The 40-year-old has been working steadily in recent years, most notably on “Law & Order,” “Six Feet Under” and “Crossing Jordan.” And she just finished up a four-episode arc on “Weeds.”

But her breakthrough role was in her first big film, which just happened to be the iconic Oscar winner “Silence of the Lambs.” Smith played the kidnapped Catherine Martin: Remember her chilling screams from Buffalo Bill’s death pit? Brrr…..

Now here’s what I’m wondering. It’s 16 years later, and how many people still come up to her to quote the film’s famous line: “It puts the lotion in the basket…”

 (Photos courtesy of ABC and ScreenMusings.org.)

I’m not sure which was more egregious about Sunday’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, “The N Word.”

The quasi-fictional Larry David doesn’t know better than to retell a story that highlights perhaps the most offensive and surely the most inflammatory word in our modern culture without a little self-editing.

At the same time, the real Larry David tests the boundary between funny and rude by creating a storyline in which the parallel trials of African Americans and bald Americans are roughly equated.

I guess, given that the latter is not new to Curb Your Enthusiasm, and since the joke works especially well when he trades thumbs-up with a fellow baldy in a hallway, I’ll have to go with the former.

I’m all for more Office, as my repeated rants against anyone who challenges the merit of hourlong episodes have demonstrated.

But a spin-off? Now I’m a little apprehensive.

Michael Ausiello is reporting that plans are brewing to spin off a new branch of NBC’s top comedy with all new characters, a la ABC’s Private Practice. The new Office drones would be introduced in a future episode, which brings to mind the time Mork from Ork landed in Milwaukee and froze the Fonz.

Yeah, it’d be better than that, I know. But the Private Practice example doesn’t inspire much hope. That show must have cannibalized Grey’s Anatomy’s creative team because the new show isn’t much good and the old show hasn’t been the same. Of course that could be because Grey’s fired its best actor, Isaiah Washington, toned down its second best, Chandra Wilson, and spun of its third best, Kate Walsh.

But I digress. Whether The Office II would still focus on a dying a paper company branch or even retain the documentary conceit isn’t known yet. Ausiello says they’re looking for a name to headline. Here’s where I’d go with what worked before and mine the riches of The Daily Show veterans as they did with Steve Carell and more recently Ed Helms. Rob Corddry might be interested.

Just don’t mess with my Office. Read more of this entry »

Did you catch Charles Schulz’s bio on “American Masters” last night? It was absolutely haunting, from the opening scenes using the finale of “Citizen Kane” to the cartoon characters fading against the landscape at the end.

The documentary really demonstrated to what extent character is destiny. I couldn’t help but think about this over the weekend as NBC’s telecast of “Skate America” featured rising ice-skating star, 14-year-old American Caroline Zhang. This girl has it all, including the musicality and fluidity of a real dancer. After her performance to Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” one of the commentators said she was reminiscent of Michelle Kwan. I always adored Kwan, but the comparison was like a stab to the heart. In three tries, she failed to win Olympic gold, despite being a golden girl herself.

Are you, just like me, still reeling from last week’s head rush—otherwise known as the season finale of “Damages?”

Sure, we got some answers: Frobisher’s flunky killed David, Mr. Nye is really a stand-up guy (we think) and Patty’s as evil as we thought (uh, right?).

Obviously, the finale opened up a lot more doors than it closed. And we still don’t know the answer to the biggest question: Will FX renew the ratings-challenged “Damages” for another season?

No word yet. Sigh. What is that network waiting for? And it seems like the producers are as impatient as we are to find out whether they need to kick start their nefarious plans for Season 2.

TV Guide chatted with the terrific trio that co-created and writes the series: Daniel Zelman and brothers Glenn and Todd A. Kessler.  They answered a bunch of questions that fans have been debating, like:

Boy, that Greg Berlanti is on a roll!

The Rye native and TV wunderkind has THREE projects on ABC this season: “Brothers & Sisters,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and mid-season’s “Eli Stone.”

When I talked to Greg earlier this fall, he’d hinted that he was a wee bit worn out from the grind of TV work –- and who could blame him?!? So he said he eventually wanted to get back to directing feature films. (He headed a well-received indie movie, “The Broken Hearts Club,” a few years back.)

Well, looks like he’s on track to making that dream happen. Buzz around Hollywood is that Greg will co-write and direct a live-action adaptation of the “Green Lantern” comic for Warner Bros.

The pitch that won Greg the gig? His version of the superhero will revolve around one of the Lantern’s alter egos, Hal Jordan, a test pilot who is given a ring by a dying alien that gives him entry to a interstellar police force. Of course, Greg isn’t silly enough to change the Lantern’s signature weakness: the color yellow.

Here’s what Greg told the Hollywood Reporter:

“Chuck” might have bigger problems than plots of destruction from international baddies; NBC suits reviewing its ratings might be Chuck-lic Enemy No. 1.

As much as the show is revered by yours truly and many critics, some ratings facts can’t and won’t be ignored by NBC brass and might prevent the show from being extended.

After a series debut that scored just over 9 million viewers, ratings twice declined for episodes two and three. And despite the fact that “Chuck’s” fourth episode represented a 19 percent spike in viewership from the previous week, that meant that only 8.2 million viewers were watching. Worse, last week’s episode of “Chuck” lost ratings again.

Reports of “Chuck’s” demise might not be greatly exaggerated, but they are conflicting. While Reuters reported on Oct. 23 that the previous night’s episode attracted 7.9 million viewers—behind ABC’s “Dancing With the Snores Stars” and CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother—The Orlando Sentinel said the same episode attracted only 7.2 million viewers and finished fourth behind Fox’s “Prison Break.”

Combine those reports with NBC’s general ratings struggles against other networks, and the show could go the way of Bryce Larkin. Dan Hopper, the associate editor at BestWeekEver.tv, thinks “Chuck” is most likely fall show to get canned now that “Viva Laughlin” is off the air.

Matt Roush of TV Guide isn’t giving up hope just yet. He wants NBC to move it to a later time slot so it doesn’t get clobbered by “Dancing with The Stars.” I couldn’t agree more.

Like sunrise in Little Chechnya, our weekly take on 30 Rock is both inevitable and a little frightening.

No wait, bad analogy. Need therapy? Bring your boss, because you never know when he or she might summon the kind of Emmy-caliber performance that will lift you right out of your daddy issues. But be careful. Never follow a hippie to a second location. Just press play and enjoy a very special episode of Supercomputer—err, the Remote Access vodcast.

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David Lynch is a god.

I say a god, and not a God, as he’s more like a deity in the Greek or Roman sense of the word. A being superior to mortal man, but prone to mischief, occasionally fallible and, sometimes, just completely incomprehensible.

He came down from Mount Olympus this week to give an interview to Entertainment Weekly. The occasion? The release of Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition.

The set includes the pilot (not previously available in the same set as the first season, due to legal wrangling beyond my capacity to understand — or care, honestly), Season 1 and Season 2. It’s 10 discs and has the alternate ending to the pilot (which I saw on a DVD of the version of the pilot that was released as a feature film overseas and is totally, utterly creepy and great), deleted scenes, commentaries and documentaries.

There’s something ironic about an Office episode centered around the staff’s efforts to create a TV commercial for the branch, considering that my DVR has kept me from having to watch commercials during The Office for the last two years.

Nevertheless, Bri and Chris talk—and sing a little—about this week’s diminutive edition: “Local Ad”.

Keep scrolling down when it’s done because, in a separate clip, we also touch on the Invasion of Scranton, otherwise known as The Office Convention.

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Read more of this entry »

Two more pilots have found their way to the small screen, and both have excellent pedigrees, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Fox show is from Abraham Higginbotham, former executive story editor for the late, lamented Arrested Development and a former producer and writer on Will & Grace. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it “revolves around the less-than-glamorous staffers at a glamorous New York hotel.” It stars Niecy Nash, of Reno 911.

Ordinarily, I’d not be very interested in this one, but given the Arrested Development (shame on you for not watching it!) connection, it could be great.

The other is from Andy Barker, P.I. (again, shame on you!), writer/creator Jonathan Groff, and could show up on CBS.