For the first time ever, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is announcing the 10 finalists for the Best Comedy and Best Drama categories.

My personal choices for the top 5 in each are in bold. The top 10s are:

Top 10 Comedy Series Finalists

Top 10 Drama Series Finalists

ABC unveiled its 2008-09 primetime schedule this morning, with few (okay, make that no) surprises.

In addition to hits like “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” the network brought back all of last year’s breakthrough—though not breakout—dramas, which had their freshman seasons cut short because of the writers’ strike.

They include: “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone,” “Private Practice” and “Pushing Daisies.”

And as expected (or already announced), the network dumped “Women’s Murder Club,” “Men in Trees,” “October Road” and “Miss/Guided.”

ABC also announced one new drama, David E. Kelley’s “Life on Mars,” based on a British series about a modern-day police detective who is transported back to 1973 after a car crash.

The network also picked up a game show from producer Ashton Kutcher called “Opportunity Knocks,” which ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson called a cross between “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.”

As for comedies,”According to Jim” will be back for its EIGHTH season. (Jim Belushi HAS to have naked photos of someone high up, right?) The worst kept secret in TV was announced, too: That “Scrubs” will move to ABC, now that NBC’s dropped it. Both of those sitcoms will be back mid-season.

Speaking of mid-season, other shows scheduled to air in early 2009 include: “Lost,” “The Bachelor,” “The Goode Family” (an animated series) and a untitled beauty pageant reality show produced Tyra Banks and (again!) Ashton Kutcher.

In other news, “Ugly Betty” is indeed moving production from L.A. to NYC.

And David E. Kelley is coming back to write most of what will be the final season of “Boston Legal.” (Thank goodness.)

So who made up the big winners and losers of the upfronts? Let’s see:

“Pushing Daisies” creator Bryan Fuller recently told AfterElton.com that there is indeed a gay character on his kooky, colorful drama, and no, it’s not one of Chuck’s spinster, swim-loving aunts.

Stop reading if you want to be surprised when the show returns for a second season this fall.

If not, then PSST … it’s the coroner.

Yup, Fuller gave the site this exclusive scoop for its “Gays In Primetime” special report. He says that the plan was —and perhaps still is?—to reveal that the “mmm hmmm”-ing coroner (Sy Richardson) has a wee crush on Ned’s private eye partner, Emerson Cod (Chi McBride.)

Well. Guess that explains why he keeps letting Ned, Emerson and Chuck in to manhandle dead bodies at the morgue. That and the occasional bribe, of course.

“I didn’t want to just do another, like, pretty gay person,” said Fuller. “I thought it would be interesting to have an older character be gay.”

Fuller, who’s openly gay himself, says he doesn’t have an agenda. He wouldn’t force a gay character if it didn’t serve a show’s best interests.

In fact, Olive Snook (Kristen Chenoweth) was originally supposed to be a lesbian.

But Fuller says making her straight created the opportunity for some romantic tension with Ned—and have her conflict with his resurrected lady love, Chuck.

And when a network executive suggested that Emerson could be gay, Fuller said no because he’d already fleshed out a heterosexual plot for that character.

I love hearing how my favorite shows get made, don’t you?

(Photos courtesy of ABC) 

More than a month ago, Rickey over at Riding With Rickey tagged yours truly with a meme. Revenge for a meme I’d tagged him with, I suppose.

Anywho, I kept meaning to hold up my end of the bargain, and I finally have. It’s the movie meme, and the idea is that I’m supposed to look up my 15 favorite movies on IMDB, choose quotes from them, list them here and make you figure out what movies they are.

Aha, but this is a TV blog, I hear you thinking! Never fear, I’ve got that all figured out. No worries, I didn’t choose a bunch of Lifetime women-as-victim movies. Rather, I started with actors from our favorite TV shows. Then, I found relatively well-known characters they played in movies, found quotes from them and posted them here.

So not only do you have to figure out what movie the line is from, but you also have to figure out which actor uttered it. To make things a weeeeeee bit easier, I’ll tell you the actors I selected, but they’re not in the same order as the quotes. I’ve alphabetized the actors, by last name:

Adam Baldwin (Chuck)
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy)
Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Jim Krasinski (The Office)
Hugh Laurie (House)
Chi McBride (Pushing Daisies)
Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica)
Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy)
Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica)
Donald Sutherland (Dirty Sexy Money)
Kiefer Sutherland (24)
Skeet Ulrich (Jericho)
Ray Wise (Reaper)

NO CHEATING. You may not look the quotes up on IMDB and then get all the answers correct. You must use your brain; you know, the part of your brain that stores all that useless movie trivia. You all have it; if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading a television blog now, would you?

After the break, the quote list:

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films announced the nominations for the 34th Annual Saturn Awards this week. Not surprisingly, in the television nominations, Lost led the way, with an impressive seven nominations. Dexter, with five, and Heroes, with four, also did well.

But what was missing?

Jericho.

Now, I know that not everyone considers Jericho to be science fiction. But most sci-fi fans do consider it to be, at least. Sci-fi websites cover Jericho and it’s a post-apocalyptic drama; seems to fit the category, at least loosely. How is it less so than, say, Pushing Daisies? Or Shrek the Halls??

As much as I appreciate most of the noms listed below (but Battlestar Galactica totally should have gotten more nominations, as much as I love Lost!), Jericho should have gotten some Saturn love.

And the (television) nominees are (for a full list, go here): Read more of this entry »

If the writers’ strike hadn’t happened, would “Pushing Daisies” have been cancelled?

Who knows, but when a new show is over budget, behind schedule and has okay ratings, that’s never a good thing.

So when ABC made a post-strike announcement to bring back “Daisies” in the fall—instead of for a handful of new episodes this spring, like established series “Desperate Housewives” and “Ugly Betty” —creator Bryan Fuller saw it as sort of a blessing.

Fuller tells Variety that the extra time gave him a chance to completely rethink the direction of the show, which was in danger of careening off course, and plan the production more carefully.

For all those “Pushing Daisies” fans who’ve been aching for some more songs from sweetie-pie Olive Snook, tune in to the Oscars Sunday night—when Kristin Chenoweth has her Oscar moment.

The cuter-than-cute “Daisies” star has been tapped to sing one of the nominated songs from the fairy-tale film “Enchanted.” She’ll duet with Marlon Saunders, and we’ve no fear that she’ll knock this one outta the Kodak Theatre.

She’s a Tony winner after all, you know. And if you didn’t, well, you’ve just had to catch her on ABC’s “Daisies,” where she’s warbled “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” to know how incredibly talented she is.

But it wouldn’t be the Academy Awards without a little drama.

Already folks are upset that “Enchanted” star Amy Adams—a former Oscar nominee—won’t be crooning Chenoweth’s number, “That’s How You Know.”

Adams hasn’t been slighted, though. She’ll sing another nominated tune from the movie, “Happy Working Song.” (People are annoyed because Chenoweth’s song is considered the real show-stopper.)

If you haven’t yet caught “Enchanted,” go here to check out a film clip of Adams singing “That’s How You Know.”

Then catch Chenoweth’s version Sunday night—and of course, to see what ol’ Olive wears on the red carpet! (A pie-shaped purse, perhaps?)

(Photo courtesy of ABC) 

ABC named nine of its series that will return for sure in the fall:
Brothers & Sisters
Desperate Housewives
Dirty Sexy Money
Grey’s Anatomy
Lost
Private Practice
Pushing Daisies
Samantha Who?
Ugly Betty

Here’s what I want to know:

With the writers’ strike nearing an end—YAhoo!—it looks like many of our favorite shows will be back on the air by spring.

“The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Gossip Girl,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and more will likely be able to churn out a handful of new episodes by April.

But others—mostly newbies like “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Pushing Daisies” and “Chuck”—  probably won’t be back until the fall.

Then there’s “24,” which won’t return until January 2009, returning to the show’s standard winter premiere strategy—but leaving fans without their Jack Bauer fix for nearly TWO years.

As for serialized dramas like “Heroes” and “Lost,” the decision is a bit more difficult.

Networks and producers are trying to figure out if it’s worth the trouble to produce just a few episodes for the rest of this season, leaving viewers hanging in the middle of convoluted storylines until September.

“Lost” exec producer Damon Lindelof seems to think the island drama can crank out more than the 8 episodes we’ve been promised this season—but then again, it’s all up to ABC as to when they’d air.

E!’s Kristin Dos Santos got the scoop from show runners for some of Remote Access’ faves, including all of the above mentioned shows.  Check it out here!

(Photos courtesy of ABC, FOX and NBC) 

I can’t tell you how many times during the writers strike I clicked on Michael Ausiello’s strike chart over at TVGuide.com to see how many original episodes of my favorite shows were remaining.

The countdown made the writers strike more real each week as first The Office hit zero before Thanksgiving and then even 30 Rock aired a random final episode in January. Well, with the end of the strike apparently imminent, Mike’s got our backs again.

It’s largely speculation combined with stated network plans for various shows. But it looks like a pretty good set of estimates.

I won’t copy the entire list here but I will point out that I’ll be sitting pretty come spring when it comes to the two funniest shows on TV. Both The Office and 30 Rock will shoot between five and 10 new episodes and air them during April and May, according to Ausiello.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has five pre-strike produced episodes remaining right now, and there is no word what’s to come after that. There’s no word yet on Heroes either, though Ausiello wrote recently that it was likely to stay on hiatus until fall due to the serialized nature of the show.

So rumor has it that the WGA has made great progress in the latest negotiations, enough that some folks are saying the writers’ strike might end very soon.

And while some TV shows will probably go back into production to churn out a few more episodes before the season’s official close in May, “Pushing Daisies” apparently won’t be one of them.

Michael Ausiello of TV Guide got hold of “Daisies” creator Bryan Fuller, who had this to say:

Even if the strike ends in the next week or two, it looks like they will scuttle the rest of the season. This is for many reasons. One is that it will be hard to launch a big promotional campaign for four or five episodes; it’s just not cost-effective.  Two is that if we did come back we would land right in the path of the American Idol juggernaut, and would likely be decimated. Three is if we came back in the fall with a full slate of episodes, then ABC could relaunch the show in a big way. The tentative plan now is to start the writers immediately [after the strike is resolved] so we can get some scripts stockpiled, and then hit production in June. But that’s all tentative. We’ve talked about so many options since the strike began and they fluctuate on a weekly basis. But right now a short first season seems the most likely.

Damn you, writers’ strike! Damn you, “American Idol!” Damn you, God!

OK, maybe not that last one.

But I am sad that I won’t see our Scooby gang of afterlife mystery solvers until the fall. Perhaps absence will make my “Daisies”-lovin’ heart grow fonder…

(Photo courtesy of ABC)

The Golden Globes Press Conference airs tonight on NBC. Sure, it’s hardly the same drama and pageantry as it usually is with the champagne dinner, but there’s still a whole lotta hardware handed out.

So I snagged the Remote Accessories’ Golden Globes picks from a previous post and reworked it to make it easy for you to see our picks and our predictions for each of the television categories. Come back later to see how right (or wrong) we were.

Will 30 Rock and Damages walk away with armfuls of trophies? Stay tuned.

Next! Here’s a list of the TV nominees from the Directors Guild of America (”for Outstanding Directorial Achievement”). For a list of all the nominees, in movies and the like, go here. They also list the entire “directorial team” and previous nominations. I skipped the directors of commercials, too, because, frankly, the way they were listed was really confusing.

Winners will be named at a swanky dinner Jan. 26 at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel in LA.Here they are:

Movies for Television/Miniseries

JON AVNET
The Starter Wife
(USA)

JEREMIAH CHECHIK
The Bronx Is Burning
(ESPN)

LLOYD KRAMER
Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom’s For One More Day
(ABC)

MIKAEL SALOMON
The Company
(TNT)

YVES SIMONEAU
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
(HBO)

But the annual People’s Choice Awards ceremony, 9 p.m. Jan. 8 on CBS, will be a clip show rather than a live “we’re the best”-fest.

The Writers Guild turned down a request from the group for a waiver that would have allowed a script to be written despite the writer’s strike. On top of that, it was only a remote possibility that most of the nominees would even attend because they wouldn’t want to cross the picket lines.

So, now, Queen Latifah will still be the host, but she’ll be on a soundstage instead of the stage at the Shrine Auditorium and they’ll have, it appears, pretaped acceptance remarks.

Variety reports all this, along with the fact that fans will be asked to submit questions to ask the stars.

Check out the People’s Choice site here. I didn’t see a spot yet where you can submit your questions, but you can still vote in three categories: Best new TV comedy (Samantha Who?, Chuck (my pick) or Pushing Daisies), Best new TV drama (Private Practice, Moonlight or Gossip Girl (I don’t watch any of these, but voted for GG in support of Heather)) and Best user-generated video (this is a totally new category, check it out. I voted for the Beatbox Flute).

See my earlier post with the full list of nominees.

As I previously posted, the Golden Globe television nominations (by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) were announced this morning and lots of new shows got their due.

Well, my fellow Remote Accessories and I have had a chance to mull these over and here’s some of our picks (and predictions) for winners, after the break

The awards are coming. The awards are coming!

Here’s a look at who the (striking) Writer’s Guild of America nominated for its annual awards (just the TV nominees):

Dramatic series:
Dexter, written by Scott Buck, Daniel Cerone, Drew Z. Greenberg, Lauren Gussis, Kevin Maynard, Clyde Phillips, Melissa Rosenberg, Tim Schlattman; Showtime
Friday Night Lights, written by Bridget Carpenter, Kerry Ehrin, Carter Harris, Elizabeth Heldens, David Hudgins, Jason Katims, Patrick Massett, Andy Miller, Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, John Zinman; NBC
Mad Men, written by Lisa Albert, Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Tom Palmer, Chris Provenzano, Robin Veith, Matthew Weiner; AMC
The Sopranos, written by David Chase, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Matthew Weiner, Terence Winter; HBO
The Wire, written by Ed Burns, Chris Collins, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon, William F. Zorzi; HBO

Released this morning, the Golden Globe television nominations (by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) had lots of love for critical (and ratings) darling Pushing Daisies, as well as lots of cable fare, particularly Damages.

Here’s a look at the (television only) nominees, with my picks noted (as well as what I think will actually win):

Best TV drama:
Big Love (my pick — this season was outstanding!)
Damages
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Mad Men (what I think will win)
The Tudors

Best TV comedy or musical:
30 Rock (my pick)
Californication
Entourage
Extras
Pushing Daisies (will win)

All kinds of secrets came scurrying out of the woodwork on last night’s “Pushing Daisies.”

Sure,  the mystery revolved around a kid with a bad ticker and the insurance agents (who keep rejecting his application for a heart transplant) who end up as corpsicles.

But the installment was really all about keeping secrets—or, more importantly for us fans, letting the truth out.

Chuck—upset at Ned for unwittingly killing her father—reveals the truth about her resurrection to Olive (though she doesn’t believe her).

Olive sides with Chuck when she hides from Ned in her apartment—telling the piemaker that she doesn’t know where Chuck is. (Ned’s clued in later when Olive starts answering questions with questions—the sure-fire way to know if Olive is lying.)

Chuck gives a lock of her hair to nosy Oscar Vibenius, who’s obsessed with her unusual scent of honey and death. (Close call: Oscar gives it back before analyzing it, and luckily for Ned, Chuck keeps her trap shut.)

Progressing to bigger news, Emerson reveals to a heartsick Ned that he has a daughter.

Then there was the shocker of them all—SPOILER ALERT—that Aunt Lily is really Chuck’s mother.

Nothing like an overdose of pie and homeopathic mood lifters to bring the truth out.

The facts are these:

The piemaker, Chuck and the Pie-Ho’s gang of detectives is back solving a mystery after a week’s break, but savor every death-defying moment tonight—it’s all you’ll see of “Pushing Daisies” for awhile.

Tonight’s episode is likely to be the season finale, since the writers’ strike is still going strong and “Daisies” is now officially out of new material.

What a shame, since my fellow Daisy-files and I have grown to adore synchronized swimming, drug-doctored pies, Bedazzled birds and, of course, the love affair between a boy named Ned and a girl named Chuck.

That said, when we come upon our hero and heroine tonight, they’re in the aftermath of Ned’s sudden confession to Chuck: That he killed her father.

(By mistake, of course. He was a kid who didn’t know that his gift for resurrecting the dead meant another had to die in the first victim’s place.)

So Ned’s in a dither, trying to make up to his revived lady love, while Emerson wants him to focus on their newest case—an insurance adjuster found frozen solid. (Hence the episode’s title, “Corpsicle.” Hee hee!)

Because it’s awards season, the International Press Academy (who? I dunno, either) announced its nominees for the 2007 Satellite Awards (never heard of them, either, but this is apparently the 12th annual ceremony, to be held Dec. 16). Awards will be given in 49 categories, in television, film, DVD and “new media.”

Here’s a link to the official list of all the nominees and past nominees and winners, too). Variety also reported that Mad Men won a special achievement award for best ensemble cast, but I couldn’t find that on the official list.

Miniseries:
Jane Eyre, BBC/WGBH
The Starter Wife, USA Network
The Company, TNT
Five Days, HBO
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, BBC/Kudos Productions

Motion picture made for television (otherwise known as the made-for-TV movie, or, now, MPMFT):
The Wind And The Willows, Masterpiece Theater, PBS/BBC
Mitch Albom’s For One More Day, ABC
Longford, HBO/Channel 4
Life Support, HBO
The Trial Of Tony Blair, Channel 4
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, HBO