IAmATVJunkie.com is a Torchwood Spoiler Free Zone Until July 20

Video -- Glee's Jane Lynch Guests on Reno 911 Season Finale Tonight on Comedy Central

And I have a clip after the jump, but first ...

Jane Lynch is leaving the Starz series Party Down so that she can devote more time to the Ryan Murphy Fox series Glee where she plays cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester.

Not a surprising move, but it certainly does make the Starz series much less attractive an option.

Tonight on Reno, "Wiegel needs someone to join her in couple's therapy because her insurance for personal psychiatry ran out.  Raineesha Williams gets stuck with her."

And, let me just say that Reno 911 continues to make me laugh in their sixth season. Bet you never thought it would last that long. It might be the longest running show on the network besides The Daily Show, in fact.

Simon Cowell, The $144,000,000 Dollar Man?

So, how much is Simon worth to Fox and the Idol producers? Purportedly (or reportedly, I should say, NY Daily News) the low nine figures:

"American Idol's" blunt Brit may make up to $144 million to slap down contestants next season, according to the UK's Guardian.

The paper reports on its Web site that talent judge Simon Cowell earned $36 million last season, and a source close to "Idol" creater Simon Fuller says he has been offered three to four times as much.

(Looked for the Guardian piece, couldn't find it. If you can, please send me a link.)

Is he worth it? Would you not watch Idol without him? And, if he wasn't on Idol, don't you think he would run out and find a network partner to put together his own version?

I certainly do. It's basically what happened in the UK, isn't it? While Pop Idol (the UK AI) met its death, Cowell turned around and plowed forward with a couple of talent contests, I believe, with Britian's Got Talent being the one that stuck.

So, if I were Fox, and especially given Simon's relationship with NBC, where he produces but does not appear on camera in America's Got Talent, I would consider opening the vault.

Lane Brown commenting at NY Magazine:

We would point out that this is an insane sum of money that tops the amounts raised for Africa by either 2007's or 2008's Idol Gives Back telethons, but we're already sick of the clown judges on So You Think You Can Dance and America's Got Talent and since AI pulls down $900 million a year anyway, $140 million seems like a perfectly reasonable price for Simon. Also, paying out that much might make it difficult to employ four judges next season, and we'd totally approve of one losing her job.

Yeah, just give Simon the money Fox has been paying Kara and be off with her, okay? Then everybody's happy.

I Am Not In Argentina With My Mistress, Just Otherwise Engaged

Hey, I thought I might pop onto the blog for the regulars and give you a heads up.

I'm moving! The exclamation point indicates that this is a good thing. It's not happening quite now, but soon, and I have stuff to do to get ready.

It's gonna be rather hit and miss for the next few weeks and I can't guarantee that I'll be posting every day.

So, I thought you should know.

And, I'll be back when I can.

Watch Virtuality tonight at 8 on Fox. You'll be happy you did, even if it is a pilot that will probably never get picked up.

Virtuality trailer after the jump.

Fox's More to Love Promo Not As Horrifyingly Crass As I Predicted

NOTE TO READERS: This post comes with links to illustrative Family Guy clips, from Hulu, US Only (sorry). I would love to have the time to provide illustrative Family Guy clips for every post. Alas, just so much time in the day.

It's still not something I'm going to watch, it's just not for me. But I'm somewhat relieved that it's not some crapfest with "boing-boing" couch spring noises and other Foley effects, which I kind of the direction I thought they might be going.

It's Fox and Mike Darnell, you never know. He IS satan, after all. Moment of Truth? Remember that?

But they went another way. Fortunately. They're going the emotional route, as you'll see in the clip after the jump.

When I watched the clip the first thing I thought to myself is, "These are my people. Not particularly stunning, not particularly fit, but certainly nobody's scaring small children in the supermarket or in possession of their own gravitational pull.

Then I thought, "This is what dating shows would have looked like in the late 60s." Or, "This is what dating shows look like when you remove all the aspiring actors, singers, and models."

Regular looking guy, regular looking women. Still, I hope no one picks a life partner by virtue of how they perform on a "reality show." Remember what happened to Brian Griffin on The Bachelorette?

"It's just TV!"

Cast Interviews Video -- Ron Moore's Virtuality on Fox June 26 at 8 pm

I watched it last night and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Ron Moore always brings the good stuff. Now of course I'm pissy about it not getting picked up for series because Moore has created such fertile ground to play in.

More extensive impressions later in the week from me, but I will lay out (as quick as a bunny) what the deal is here.

This ship, Phaeton, is out in space on an exploratory mission to find another inhabitable planet, right? Although the mission is conducted under the auspices of the ambiguous and nebulous "authorities" it been funded by sending the crew up with video cameras for the possible ten-year mission, should they decide they can make it, slingshotting (sp?) their way across the solar system in a semi-controlled manner toward a promising star.

Actually, this short clip probably explains it better than I do.

LINK

Hibberd has more clips at his THR Live Feed blog, at this link.

Because it's such a long journey the crew also has access to these virtual reality headsets that allow them escape from the close quarters and lack of privacy. Only problem is that something unplanned has gotten into the computers that run the program, unplanned ... and deadly.

Is that enough for you to chew on till the weekend?

If not I have one more thing, after the jump. The cast of Virtuality tells you what they would bring into space with them for 10 years in the behind the scenes feature after the jump.

And like I said, more before it airs.

Watch the clip, if only for the eye candy, it's a very attractive cast headed by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (New Amsterdam), Sienna Guillory, Ritchie Coster, Joy Bryant and James D'Arcy.

FYC Video -- Variety's Emmy Central Talks to Fringe's John Noble

FYC = For Your Consideration.

I've been pounding the keys in support of John Noble all season. Now other people are, too.

From Variety's Emmy Central and Shawna Malcom:

"I used to share a house with a man who was indeed a mad scientist," Noble says with a laugh. "I adored him, but he was deliciously controversial, always getting into trouble with the authorities."

Walter is on the other side of the law, having been released from an insane asylum after two decades to help a tenacious FBI agent solve a string of freaky cases that have ties to his own past experiments. As compelling as those cases may be, though, it's Noble's deft portrayal of his character's battle with mental illness and attempts to rebuild the fractured relationship with his con-man son that grounds the Fox drama.

"It doesn't matter how fun and tantalizing the cases are," says the actor, who works with an on-set dialect coach to perfect Walter's Boston accent, "if you can't invest in the characters.

And there's some love from Mo Ryan at the Tribune recently, too. She said of Noble in the season finale:

Once again, John Noble as Walter Bishop was the best thing about the steadily improving Fox show, but there were a lot of other enjoyable elements: The quietly creepy atmosphere, the slowly building tension in the dual Walter/Olivia stories, the way those stories were skillfully woven together, the suitably tense lakeside encounter between Olivia, Peter and Mr. Jones.

And after the jump, Emmy voters, watch a couple of clips from this season. Then mark your ballot accordingly. Wanna know more? Get your ass down to Comic-Con this Summer, I betcha Noble shows up at the Fringe panel.

(BTW I'm still hedging on whether or not to attend myself. I'm just so over big crowds. If I hear that people aren't coming because of money considerations I might pop down for Thursday or Friday -- it's driveable for me -- but I'll decide at a late date.)

Fringe season one on DVD releases in September, but you can pre-order yours right now by clicking the icon below, and as usual I always appreciate the little bump off your purchase that I get.

     

Adam Lambert's Rolling Stone Cover: "I’m Proud of My Sexuality," See Photo Shoot Video Now!

For those of you who are more visually focused, here's a link to the photo shoot video. Cover photo by Matthew Rolston.

From the preview of the article at the magazine's Rock&Roll Daily blog:

The flamboyant Idol singer hits our cover and bares all, talking about his childhood (”I started to realize I wasn’t like every other boy,” he says), the drug-fueled Burning Man epiphany that led him to AI (”I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen,” he tells RS) and his run on the show (”I was like, ‘I’m going to glue rhinestones on my eyelids, bitch!’ “). And yes, he talks about his sexuality. “Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, ‘I’m going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,’ ” he tells us. “I didn’t want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bullshit. I need to be able to explain myself in context.

“I’m proud of my sexuality,” Lambert adds. “I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” Ultimately, however Lambert tells RS contributor Vanessa Grigoriadis that there are other parts of his life that he’s trying to keep front and center. “I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader,” he says.

It was that mission — and his Burning Man “psychedelic experience” — that lead him to Idol after years in musical theater. “I knew that it was my only shot to be taken seriously in the recording industry, because it’s fast and broad,” he tells RS.

Check your newsstand for the issue, glossy pics that you can paste over your bed or in your cubicle, etc.

Do the kids still do that?

24 Adds Katee Sackhoff for Season Eight

Big news coming out of the casting sessions for 24's next (final?) season for a while now, and while I'm not a viewer of the show (I like to save my discussions of torture for real life) even I see that adding Freddie Prinze Jr. and Katee and Mykelti Williamson and Jennifer Westveldt (Mrs. Jon Hamm) is a big deal.

From the THR story:

After a couple of weeks of on-and-off negotiations, Katee Sackhoff, best known for her role as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on "Battlestar Galactica," has been tapped to co-star on Fox's "24."

On the 20th TV/Imagine TV series, she will play Dana Walsh, a smart and competent expert data analyst at CTU with a secret past who is involved with CTU agent Davis Cole (Freddie Prinze Jr.).

The season is already in production. That's early for a January show, huh. I would guess the faster they get it in the can the better. It's a show that's suffered through delays in the last couple years for all kinds of reasons from the writers' strike to the occasional inprisonment of an actor.

(And almost another recently, though that sitch seems to have been quelled.)

They certainly hired a woman who can kick ass and take names. Should be interesting to see what they have planned for Katee. How do you fans of the show feel about this? Use the comment section.

Where's The Love For Disco Stu? I Think I Know Where It's Not

Shocking shocking editorial content from the gang at TV.com today.

In their feature Top 10 Characters That Need to be Killed Off:

"The most useless Simpsons character ever. Seriously, what is his point? To wear '70s clothes and talk in the third person? In fact it can be argued that Disco Stu began the downfall of the show; adding extraneous characters like Stu did nothing but take away from the heart of the show. It's time for a Disco Stu inferno. Light that sucker on fire!"

Attributed to an anonymous critic.

You know who I allege is the anonymous critic? The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond, who's blogging these days at Man Bites Tinsletown.

Ray's had it in for Disco Stu for a long time. Back in the day when I was still really hittin' the sauce in anything with a roof and a liquor license I ran into Ray waiting outside a restroom at a club the name of which I won't repeat here.

Suffice to say it wasn't the men's room and there was plenty of people in there perfectly capable of peeing standing up and one of them was later the object of a knock down drag out (hehehe, I said drag) between Richmond and the white-suited guy pictured at the top of this post.

And neither of them knew about the extra equipment under the hood. But, she was a friend of mine from our salad days (yeah, they were tossed, what of it?) and I remembered that tattoo of an eight ball right above her her left ankle on the inside.

Ray and Stu? It hasn't been the same since.

TV.com: "Did American Idol Get It Right?" That Depends on What "It" Is

Tim Surett at TV.com:

Questions will be asked all day by Idol fans about the validity of Fox's show and the mindset of the show's voters--the American people. Is the voting legit? Did America get it right? Do voters favor the "safe" contestant? And the million-dollar question: are Americans afraid to vote for a gay Idol? (To be clear, Lambert's sexuality has not yet been disclosed, but rumors have persisted all season.)

In the end, the real winner here is Simon Fuller's 19 Management, the artist management company that gets first pick of the American Idol contestants post-competition. There's no doubt that both Allen and Lambert will be groomed to have successful careers--Lambert is one of the most beloved runners-up and Allen has the title. But this result favors 19 Management better than a Lambert landslide. Lambert's popularity wasn't going to wane with a second-place finish, but Allen's could have. Now that Allen can be marketed as a "champion"--boom!--more album sales, and Lambert will do just fine as runner-up.

That's certainly a way to look at it, but it doesn't really answer the question about what "it" entails.

We hear all season (well you hear all season, I don't start watching till the final six) that it's "the search for the next pop star." And, if that's the case the people who voted Kris to the top actually did get "it" right.

Doesn't mean I like him more than Adam, it means he's better suited to pop stardom. Not because of who he sleeps with while he's not singing, TV.com and others, but because his sound is much more accessible than Adam's.

And while I like Adam for the risk taking and being unflappably himself through the Idol gauntlet complete with the press and the prodding into the personal life and the constant spotlight, the music he performed on the show is for a much more specific audience.

That he got as far as he did, to me, is pretty amazing. Also amazing? That you can understand the lyrics he's singing at the pitch he's singing them. That just blew me away, it's hard to enunciated at the top of one's range.

But if you played me an Adam Lambert album and then a Kris Allen album and offered me one I think I'd probably choose Kris' CD.

But what do I know, I'm about to time out of the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.

Photo credit: Ray Mickshaw/FOX