I Am A TV Junkie

David Arquette -- "Love is Love" (and if you don't agree you're a f**king moron)

Yeah, what he said!

Thanks, David. My best to Courteney and Coco and your family including Alexis, who I don't see anymore because I'm too damn old to be clubbing it in Los Angeles.

Source -- X17Online.com, hat tip to HuffPo.

BTW, don't watch this clip at work if you don't want to hear the word in the headline with the asterisks come out of your computer and into the workplace. Didn't think I really had to say it but someone took exception to not being warned.

The First 5 of My 43 Suggested New Names for ABC's Cougar Town

This was the first key art I saw on Cougar Town before the season started.

Then ABC had this on the Hulu home page for the show.

And lately this has been the prominent piece of key art for the show.

But you know, these's rumor afloat that ABC might be looking for a new title for the show, which at this point (and particularly after the liplock that ended last night's episode) that the title isn't appropriate anymore.

Shows are live organisms sometimes (when they're good and creative and giving you the best they got instead of just what they promised) and sometimes things, pesky things, like titles of shows, might do well to change to get more people interested in the show. I'm sure there were about 0.0005% of Americans that were put off by the title and what it meant to them.

Personally, I'm not bothered by the name but I can imagine that there might be additional season two sampling of the premiere if there's a new name attached to the show. 

Of course it might take a Summer of reruns and a specific promo campaign to do said attaching.

That costs $$$.

In the meantime I'm gonna come up with 43 new titles for the show before the May upfronts where I think they'd announce a change if there was one. I'll do this five titles at a time, because ... well, because I want to.

Also, because 43 is my lucky number.

Those first five are after the jump.

Fall Preview Video -- In Which I Take On TV.com's Five Most Promising Shows of the Fall (and how they missed one)

Okay, first things first, Tim Surette is apparently TV.com's editorial king of the hill, he gets to choose two. I'm just sayin', not trying to rile anything up (though Richard Lawson is getting to be my favorite writer there).

Lying, I love stirring up office politics where people I don't even know work.

Also, they missed one show, but we'll get to that later.

Okay, five shows that TV.com thinks will make it, and I agree with four of the five -- Modern Family (Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet pictured left), Cougar Town, Flash Forward (top of post, Joseph Fiennes and John Cho in action) on ABC and Glee on Fox (Lea Michele below right) -- and I could be convinced of the fifth,The Good Wife with Julianna Margulies on CBS, I have a soft spot for her, if CBS would send me screeners like they used to.

Ahem. Throat clearing very loudly. Cough. Cough. Hacking cough.

(Then again, ABC isn't really forthcoming with their stuff, either. Cable channels love me, broadcast not so much.)

Of course we've all seen Glee, though you get another chance Thursday night at 8, if you can stand to have a crawl of Twitter messages from the cast, creators and others (fans?) running under it the whole time.

I can't.

Can't watch the Twit-ty rerun of the first season finale of Fringe for the same reason. Of course, I can just throw the DVD in the machine.

About Glee, Lawson says:

Glee is wickedly funny in the same gonzo way that Popular was, with strange cutaways and almost-cartoonishly manic characters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. Oh, and it has musical numbers! Big, beautiful, clear-voiced pop numbers sung passionately and without any of that irksome irony that's been laid on too thick in most of the things people deem “smart” these days. The cast, led by Broadway vets Matthew Morrison (South Pacific at Lincoln Center) and Lea Michele (Spring Awakening), is attractive and majorly, earnestly talented. And hey, it's nice to see that it’s so gay-friendly, considering that it’s on Fox.

Yeah, what he said, Sean Hannity. And you too O'Reilly you lying sack.

Sorry, can't ever resist the opportunity, you know.

If there was one show I think they missed, it's Joel McHale's Community on NBC. Hey, that gives me an idea -- if you'd like to see either a) the NBC Fall Preview Show which includes clips of Community or b) yet another show where Joel McHale introduces TV clips, you can kill two birds with one stone and watch the NBC Fall Preview 2009 hosted by McHale.

It's the Hulu embed after the jumperoo. Click over, enjoy the lush self-promotion. I'll also include the video widget from the ABC Flash Forward website that you can click around on to find a bunch of clips from and about the show.

Just one more week until actual real Fall TV shows start. Not to diss the Summer stuff, but there just isn't the sense of urgency about Royal Pains and Burn Notice for me that there is about Fall shows.

Don't you think?

I Smell a Hit -- Courteney Cox in Cougar Town

Think I'm kidding? Go watch the clips at TV.com, just so you have a little somethin' somethin' to go on, then come back.

I think this hits. Solid story for the female demo, Courteney is still beloved (check out the ratings for Friends in syndication), she's doing a lot of physical comedy here which we seem to enjoy as Americans.

Bill Lawrence (Scrubs) in driving the bus and brings wifey (Christa Miller-Lawrence, going hyphenate for the first time here). Busy Phillips brings the Real Housewives vibe as the neighbor, Dan Byrd (who I've been touting on this blog since Aliens in America) has the sardonic son thing down, solid TV and film comedy vets Josh Hopkins and Ian Gomez know their way around a joke, and John from Cincinnati's Brian Van Holt as the ex ... it all works for me!

It sure would be great to see a screener, ABC.

(Clearing my throat.)

(Clearing my throat louder.)

Though it's lead-in is also a new comedy, it's the most arguably the buzzed about comedy of the Fall, Modern Family.

The competition (Wednesdays 9:30 eastern) for interested eyes will probably come mostly from the second half hour of Fox's Glee.

(Other shows against it include CW's new The Beautiful Life, L&O: SVU and Criminal Minds.)

ABC's given it a clear path to succeed. Now it's up to the show, and I think they've got the goods.

I guess we'll find out in due time.

Video -- "Phoebe" and "Monica" Together Again in Web Therapy

Lisa Kudrow is in her second season of a comedy web series called Web Therapy that you might heard about but had trouble seeing because, well ... sorry Lexus, but your LStudio.com site has lousy tech. Just pitiful for a company that's supposed to be about engineering, their web engineering sucks.

I haven't posted previous clips because I figured "why bother?" Now, they're syndicating the thing all over the web, including YouTube and in turn, here.

After the jump, see this season two episode with her ol' Friends pal Courteney Cox as patient Serena Duvall, a psychic that needs help "unblocking" so she can continue to use her "gift."

Yeah, I'm not much for psychics. Then again, this idea of seeing your shrink via webcam leaves me wanting, too.

This is ... kinda funny? In the same way that The Comeback was? And the question marks indicate I'm iffy? Yes, it does.

Oh, go ahead, it's after the jump. They made you happy for years, the least you could do is give them five minutes of your day.

Speaking of People Who Look Terrible in Photos, Like Chandler Bing (and me ...

... yesterday with Tricia Helfer) I thought it would be appropriate to show you this.

LINK

Video -- Scrubs is Back and They've Got Courteney Cox

Dr. Taylor Maddox comes to Sacred Heart and J.D. is already having fantasies of her.

Clip after the jump (with a hat tip to Hibberd).

LINK

And after the jump, I have a widget from ABC with this clip and others available for your viewing, including an interview with Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke and Donald Faison. Just start watching whatever clip comes up and then hit the "share" link to see what else is there.

Courteney Cox, Bill Lawrence Piloting for ABC on Cougar Town

I find this whole Cougar thing kind of repellent. It's just how I feel. I don't really have a problem with younger men and older women (or younger women and older women) but I just don't feel like we need to find a name for the concept and stamp it all over people.

Having said that I much prefer hearing about Courteney Cox doing a comedy about anything than an hour long maybe funny maybe tragic thing that has no focus.

I love the work of Bill Lawrence. He does the half-hour single camera comedy as well as anyone on television and he should be working with great people. I consider Courteney and example of that.

Variety:

"Cougar Town" would be Cox’s first series since FX’s "Dirt," which she starred in and exec produced. ABC Studios was also behind that show.

More recently, Cox shot a guest appearance on "Scrubs" — which served as a reunion of sorts for the star and scribe. Lawrence was a season one writer on "Friends" before moving on to co-create "Spin City."

Great, a guest appearance on Scrubs this coming season, and I just saw the show promoted on Monday's Samantha Who? for the first time, so it must be coming soon.

I was also a big fan of Dirt. Not so much for Cox (didn't like her character) but for Ian Hart as Don Konkey and in the second season for all the ripped-from-the-headlines stuff they did. I would have stuck with the show through another couple seasons. But they just wouldn't produce the show for me and the other nine people who watched toward the end.

Scrubs Adds Courteney Cox For Three-Ep Arc

She'll play Janitor's new secret girlfriend, an heiress with a farting problem and facial hair.

Nah, I'm just kidding. Though, that would be fun.

Michael Ausiello at his new home, Entertainment Weekly:

J.D., Elliot and Co. have a new friend! Sources confirm to me exclusively that Courteney Cox is joining the cast of Scrubs for a three-episode arc as Sacred Heart's new Chief of Medicine.

Remember back in May, when exec producer Bill Lawrence revealed to me that he was looking to stunt cast the role of Dr. Kelso's successor? Yeah, I know — I'd say he kept his word, too.

Cox's boss lady character will "ruffle feathers," teases a Scrubs insider.

Note to Michael, Dirt wasn't unfortunate, the ratings were. It was a fine show in the first season and it got even better in season two, it just didn't get the promo it should have after the strike.

And Ian Hart as Don Konkey was one of the great performances in scripted cable series history.

The Apatow Gang Hits the Paley Festival

Apatow, Rogen, Hill, Rudd, Tom Arnold ...

Tom Arnold? Yeah, Tom Arnold.

I just checked IMDB, I don't get the connection, either.

I will tell you this, however, in the second episode of Dirt this season, Tom plays the Alec Baldwin-inspired character and hits it out of the park. I'm gonna make a clip of his best moment over at Hulu and post it under the Apatow clip.

This panel at the Paley Fest, btw, was apparently just this past Monday night after Jonah Hill's SNL appearance, and they talk about Mariah Carey and how she didn't get any of his jokes.

Clips after the jump.

Video -- Ian Hart Talks About Don Konkey & Season Two Of Dirt (And the "After the Show" Show)

(Very quickly, this first paragraph is an update to this post after I've found the after show debriefing kind of thing that they have hidden far far away inside the Dirt flash-based site, it's a Brightcove clip with embed code, so I'm posting that at the end of this clip, so there are two clips here now for all you Dirt-heads.)

So, Don's on his meds. Well, of course, that's a good thing for real humans outside the teevee box but we're talking about a major change to a character in a show, and my favorite character to boot.

But you know, I don't think it's gonna be a bad thing, and I also think it's good for the narrative of the show and for Courteney's character and I'm looking forward to seeing what Ian Hart can do without all the ticks and mannerisms of a just-functional schizophrenic who talks to his cat and dates dead starlets.

I liked him criticizing Lucy on her driving and I think that's just the beginning of what Don has to say about some things. Hopefully he can buff some of the hard edge of Lucy, still not a character I can connect with at all.

Ian Hart and Courteney Cox talk about these changes in a clip after the jump.

Dirt's Malan Carlton: "I Am a Brand!"

Yeah, you're a brand, if that brand is rich girl who doesn't suffer, doesn't sweat, doesn't really have to work for anything, who gets paid to breathe.

Dirt returns tomorrow night at 10 on FX.

LINK

Video -- Ashley Johnson Plays Britney Doppelganger on Dirt

I gotta tell ya, they packed this seven episode season that starts this Sunday on FX with every tabloid story they could find.

Also included this season are bits that are reminiscent of the Alec Baldwin phone call and Anna Nicole Smith, not to mention the beforementioned storyline with a TV version of Paris Hilton.

You remember Ashley Johnson, she was the youngest Seaver on Growing Pains and Mel Gibson's daughter in What Women Want, and now she'll play a pop tart with a husband, kids, and apparently a problem with Lucy Spiller's Dirt Now magazine.

You can see a clip with her, Courteney and Ian Hart after the jump.

A New, Yet Abreviated, Season of FX's Dirt Comes to FX

Don't judge me, I have my guilty pleasures, too. And I do feel dirty, surprisingly, watching this one because of stuff like last season when they had a storyline where a rap producer had chopped off the head of his biggest star and had it preserved and stored in his wine cellar.

You can't find stuff like that just anywhere.

And, you can't get any better than the combination of series creator Matthew Carnahan directing and Ian Hart (pictured) playing the schizophrenic paparazzo Don Konkey, which I certainly hope happens more this season than last. The episodes with Carnahan directing Hart had some remarkable moments of visualizing his illness that just blew me away.

Like, for example in the series pilot when Konkey is standing in line at the druggist for his meds and the women on the boxes of hair color on either side of the aisle start talking to him, or in last season's finale when he saw all those people out in the desert.

Great stuff.

Oh, and Courteney Cox is in it, too. See her, she's right there. And, her character's just been stabbed by the downward spiraling Julia Mallory. I have a preview clip and a behind the scenes thing after the jump.

And ... there's an heiress gets a DUI storyline ripped from the headlines, with a character who's first name sounds like a European city and last name sounds like a hotel chain, Malan Carlton (as in Ritz-Carlton, but in the narrative not connected to my knowledge -- see directly above).

I Was Just Popping Around at IMDB.com ...

... and clicked over to the show page for the FX series Dirt, second season upcoming.

Title of this year's second ep? "Dirty, Slutty Whores."

Wouldn't it be great if Courteney Cox's character Lucy Spiller went to NYC and hooked up with Nick George, the character that Peter Krause is playing? They could call the show Dirty, Slutty, Sexy Whores with Money.

That show would get some great sampling of its pilot episode.

A Great EW Cover Story on Katherine Heigl

Here's the link.

With just enough Grey's Anatomy stuff to keep you people happy and lotsa stuff about Knocked Up, which opens today.

I particularly liked this little passage with the quote of hers:

Team Heigl's focus right now is making that often fraught transition from TV to the big screen. ''We're all familiar with how Jennifer Aniston moves, how Courteney Cox speaks, because of 10 years on Friends,'' the actress says. ''But I think if I can find roles that are different enough from Izzie, I can find a way to shake her.''

Hit the nail on the head, she did. I honestly don't know if Jennifer Aniston will grow away from Rachel Green until she looks different than Rachel, and I don't really know if Aniston wants that to happen all that fast.

(Yeah, yeah, I know this is a Katherine Heigl post, but stay with me.)

If she does start to look different than Rachel it would more than likely be because she got older, and then Hollywood deems her unhireable. So what's an actress to do?

Well, for one, like Heigl says, keep doing other stuff. Honestly, though, I don't think that would have helped Jen or Courteney, the show was so damn popular and they were everywhere for a while.

This whole dynamic is why I didn't want to see Jennifer Aniston get raped in Derailed. I didn't want to watch Rachel get raped. I turned it off, and I returned it to the video store, never to watch it again, although I did manage to get through Rumor Has It as the character was more of what I have been lead to expect from countless viewings of episodes of Friends.

But, back to Katherine Heigl, she says this about Isaiah Washington:

Heigl told a TV reporter after the ceremony, ''He needs to just not speak in public.'' ''I didn't have a courageous moment,'' she says. ''I had a couple glasses of champagne, and I was furious and frustrated for my friend and sick of the whole mess of it.'' ''I was floored,'' says Knight, who heard the next day about Heigl coming to his defense. ''How often is someone going to stick their neck out publicly for someone, at the risk of getting slapped in some way, shape, or form? That doesn't happen! But she's fierce and honest and a great friend.''

Most of all, the article's about this movie, which will be the comedy of the Summer (no, I don't get paid to say that, it's just true).

One last snip, about her manager/mom (don't think Dina Lohan, it's not like that):

She attributes much of her success to her mother's good sense and shrewd business savvy. ''Nobody can watch her back better than I can,'' says Nancy, before reminding her daughter again to eat, eat. The actress nods admiringly. ''She really lures them in with the needlepointing and the Ann Taylor Loft clothes,'' she says. ''Nobody would suspect that she's a pit bull.''

Instead of partying with her and IMing her friends, this woman actually watches out for her.

Amazing!

Big FX Network News -- Dirt, The Riches Renewed for Another Season

Well, I guess we get to find out if Don Konkey got to Lucy in the driveway before she Spill-ered (get it, her name is Lucy Spiller) all the blood out of her body.

Betcha she makes it. Duh.

It's my favorite guilty pleasure. I watch nothing else like it. It's big fun, so over the top, and I'm glad it's back. But ...

But I want to see more Don Konkey this season. Ian Hart is amazing and just takes over every time he's on camera.

More Don!

(Hey, that link right above this is Don's Myspace page, complete with messages from Lucy!)

And, it would be great if Courteney and David could get Matthew Carnahan to direct more episodes this season. I just looked at his IMDB page and his schedule looks clear. Pony up the bucks, his eps were the best of the season!

But you know they didn't renew just for me, they did it for the green (from the Reporter):

FX, which prefers to cume its multiple weekly telecasts, averages a weekly audience of 5.9 million viewers for "The Riches" and 5.2 million viewers for "Dirt" over multiple runs. In adults 18-49, "The Riches" hits a weekly cume aud of 3.9 million viewers, with "Dirt" at 3.7 million.

Cabler said those numbers are in line with how vets "Rescue Me" and "The Shield" perform.

The Riches is a very well-done show, the timing of its season just wasn't good for me.

"Dirt" Season Finale -- "Kiss? What Kiss?"

Well, the kiss was only as long as it was because they kept cutting between the two of them and Brent, and it was only that long so that it could indicate that the leering Brent (Jeffrey Nordling, with the stupid sideburns back after shaving them off, what, two weeks ago?) would be very interested in watching more happen. But then Brent probably gets a woody from animal show on the Discovery Channel.

Once again, this was a great Don Konkey episode, as we watched his love for his pal Lucy fuel his trip to the desert to find salvation or just to keep him from killing her at the urging of all his schizophrenic delusions. I didn't think the scene at Joshua Tree right before the helicopter came was as strong as that scene I posted last week from the pilot, but certainly it took the storytelling away from the typical and that was interesting and indicative of Matthew Carnahan, who directed this final ep. I wish this kind of imprint had been on more of the other episodes.

The thing with Lucy's brother was weak. It could have not happened at all and I would have been fine with it. It did not enhance the fact that eventually is was Julia who stabbed her.

I don't know about you, but the whole time I've been watching this series, the question playing in the back of my head was, "What are Courteney and David trying to say to Bonnie Fuller?" From yesterday's NY Times article on the finale by Alessandra Stanley:

Lucy is modeled on Bonnie Fuller, who is credited with spicing up first Us Weekly and now Star magazine. When one of Lucy’s cub reporters, a seductive Eve Harrington type, steps out of line, Lucy punishes her by forcing her to interview all the cast members of all 18 seasons of the MTV reality show “Real World.”

I don't have an answer to that. Do you? Is Lucy dead in the driveway, or is she just rapidly losing blood? Will Don be arrested for this crime? Will Lucy's brother ever pick up his luggage?

I guess we don't know if the show is coming back yet, but I do know it's getting a run in Britain, so maybe that revenue would generate a second season.

It was fun and pretty campy. It could have been more consistent. I would have liked to have seen Carnahan direct more episodes. I would have liked to have seen more of Paul Reubens, too.

"Dirt" on FX: The Single Best Sequence

But damnit, it was in the pilot episode. Now, I've enjoyed the show during its run, and the short clip of America's Jen from next week whet my whistle, but finding this clip (unauthorized, although I begged the people who post clips for the show to give me more Don Konkey and they didn't) reminded me of how excited I was at first. Here, watch this:

Note to Courteney and David, this was your hook, the way to get this show the attention and critical notice it needed to rise to the level of The Shield and Nip/Tuck (which, although I don't watch because of the surgery scenes I do regard highly).

All that great visualization of Konkey's schizophrenia done here in just a couple moments in the pilot (directed by series creator Matthew Carnahan) hooked me on this show. And yes, I guess the one could argue that his current storyline with Lukas Haas as an apparent apparition ordering him to photograph Lucy is pretty cool, but it doesn't have the visual bang that this stuff had.

That's why with one ep to go, even an ep that guest stars one of my favorite actors, I'm ultimately disappointed.

Note To Self: Stop Prognosticating About "Dirt" or Any Other Show

Because I just suck at it. Anyway, to review, I said last week that it was Holt who left the pic of them having sex, or at least that's why I assumed Lucy gave him the video of Julia screwing that other guy.

Apparently, I'm a horse's ass. That wasn't the case at all. In fact, for Holt that pic was a problem that was all about him. Lucy, of course, rivals all in self-importance so she felt similarly and then they both whipped it out and had a good ol' pissin' contest. Actually, they did that very animalistic creep within inches of each other that's supposed to look hot but ends up feeling predatory and angry. Then he leaves and goes home to washed up Julia who's about to replace IV drugs with cutting, woo hoo!

So, if I had to guess, I would say that the person doing this to Lucy is the character Jennifer Aniston plays at the end of the season.

That would be outstanding, in fact.

But mostly it was a great Don Konkey episode, which I'll go into after I watch Jericho.

It's 11:54 and I Just Figured Out Who Left that Photo with Lucy

So, only fifty-four minutes after the show ends do I figure out that it was Holt who had that photo of him and Lucy shot by a spycam that he must have brought with him during one of his service calls on Lucy.

Now I missed episode 8, so if someone wants to fill in the blanks for me, I'd appreciate it.

Ian Hart's a great actor. I hope he gets some great work out of this series.

Even Laura Allen, who (though not having much to work with) sleepwalked through her years on The 4400, is reasonably engaging in tonight's episode.

I think Courteney and David, the producers, made Jeffrey Nordling walk around with that follicle pattern on his face just as a prank. (It's even worse with the Italian horn shaped sideburens that reach his chin. Is that supposed to denote that he's into a little kink with his office romance?)

Gotta go, Moral Orel's on, and then to sleep.

Wow! "Dirt" Really DOES Kill Kenny, Those Bastards!

I swear I had no idea they were going to kill Kenny on Dirt when I wrote that Alan Quartermaine headline about an hour ago.

And you know, you hear so much about Vincent Gallo, about his acting but also about his off-screen behavior, that you don't know what to expect when you actually see him for the first time. I'm not the kind of guy who had to rent "Brown Bunny" from the local independent video store to see the scene everyone is talking about.

Man, though, he can scream. But I guess when an actor with a "rep" plays a hostage taker, the image kind of works for him.

And it was very funny that "they killed Kenny." C'mon, get over it. You hardly even knew him.

And in something only tangentally related:

Catching Up Last Night With This Week's "Dirt" Episode

First, as Lucy and Holt "finished up" in the back of her limousine, the only thing I could think of was this:

Seven, seven, seven, indeed!

The worms were disgusting. Can't explain that, too early in the morning to, so you're gonna have to see it. But the episode, the first where the main story being pursued wasn't about a celebrity, was a refreshing change for the show.

Dirt/Now Magazine's cover was about the secret life of the murdered cheerleader ("Kill the cheerleader, save the babydaddy? Anyone?") and it showed the magazine's staff descending on this little California town to dig up the dirt, now. (See what I did there?)

Paul Reubens in a dramatic turn as Lucy's former mentor in the "legit" press gave us an interesting look into her life, and there's still not enough I can say about Ian Hart, who is just remarkably believable as Don Konkey.

And in next week's ep, Lucy shows up at the restaurant where Don met that woman who seemed interested in him, just to make sure she's real.

I know there's a LOT of prurient stuff in this series, but there's some interesting work as well, albeit sometimes hidden behind a pregnant cheerleader.

Remember, the season ends with the arrival of Team Aniston. Here, this clip will get you up to speed quickly for next week:

Cox, Aniston Make Dreams Come True for "Joey and Chandler" and Majority of American Men

Yeah, yeah, it's all over the Internet and in the paper, on TV and on the radio. I'm surprised my 92-year-old grandmother hasn't called me to comment on the Aniston-Cox lesb-fest that will be the March 27 season finale of Dirt.

If you'll remember back to season four of Friends, a little Rachel-Monica makeout was the way the girls got their apartment back from Joey and Chandler. So, you can imagine that in the twisted universe that would result from "Joey" and "Chandler" being on the same planet as Jennifer and Courteney, they would certainly consider this event right up there with getting free porn from the cable company.

The casting of Aniston alone assures a lot of eyes on the season finale. Add a little hot gal on gal action and it brings in that guy crowd that might not show up for a show about a tabloid editor and her (brilliantly performed) schizophrenic photog.

It should be interesting.