I Am A TV Junkie

Oh, the Horror! Poor Poor Raccoon-Eyed Titty Flashing 17-Year-Old

The compiled quote of the day (complied from quotes in this NY Daily News story):

Everyone's like, 'Wow, why is she upset and why is she so miserable about things?' My parents signed me up with Ford (modeling agency) at the age of two. No two-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice. My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn't have friends. I was working constantly and I didn't have a real life. I didn't get into this to be a role model for 7-year-olds. If parents don't like some of the stuff I do, then they shouldn't let their kids watch me.

If it's true, shouldn't she just call child services and get them arrested? I'm just not buying this. Where ARE her parents, anyway?

When I was 17, my parents were in front of me at the dinner table every night. Couldn't get anything past them.

Thank You Tim Gunn For Slaying Dragons! First Anna Wintour, Now "Sad & Pathetic" Taylor Momsen

First Tim had his say on Anna Wintour (see the Daily Show interview with that exchange by clicking here) and now news from E! (via TV Squad) that during a recent guest stint on Gossip Girl Tim had some advice for Taylor Momsen:

A few weeks back, Gunn, who's making the rounds at Fashion Week to tout his new book, Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work, shot a guest spot as himself on the fourth episode of this season's Gossip Girl. And he found Momsen to be "sad" and pathetic."

"What a diva!" he told E! News of the 17-year-old. "She was pathetic, she couldn't remember her lines, and she didn't even have that many. I thought to myself 'why are we all being held hostage by this brat?"

Gunn said he is all about taking the high road, but that if he was a show regular, he'd take her aside in her dressing room and give her a good talking to.

The main problem, he says, was her constant BlackBerry use.

"I'd say, 'You know young lady, there are hundreds of thousands of girls who are just as attractive and even smarter than you. Why are you acting like this show is a huge burden on you?' She was on her phone during every break, I wanted to tell her, 'If you weren't on your BlackBerry, you can retain this stuff.' ''

And he had some remarks for some alleged "real" housewives, but don't we all.

Ugh, Andy Cohen, look what you did. LOOK WHAT YOU DID!!!

Tim's most recent appearance with Aquaman (from The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson) can be seen by clicking this link. I'm pretty sure he has nothing but kind words for the superhero.

Ausiello Scoop -- Gossip Girl's Chuck Will Fulfill Your Boy-Wishes

Newsflash from Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly (who's much closer in age to the kids on these shows than I am), Chuck Bass will kiss a guy.

Not only that, but he'll do it so that his girlfriend (not the fabulously-tinged "GIRLFRIEND!" but girlfriend, you know the difference) Blair Waldorf will be considered to deliver the freshman speech for her NYU class of 2014, that is, if she gets all her classes senior year, which she probably won't because of scheduling conflicts arrising from her weekly sessions with Satan where she learns to destroy the lives of her frenemies.

Interesting, I've been doing some web research on the topic and can't find anything about the actual NYU freshman speech. At all. Anyone have more info?

The guy on the other end will be playing the head (hehehe, I said head) of freshman affairs at the school.

Of course, I've read that in the Gossip Girl books Chuck slides from one end of his socio-sexual continuum to the other with relative ease. That just doesn't happen on US television. Not even on The CW.

If Chuck and Blair were on Skins (BBC America, Thursday at 9 eastern) they'd be the boring, uptight couple in the group.

On Skins, Cook would probably beat the shit outta Chuck just for being Chuck. And Effy would slaughter Blair with just the turn of a phrase and a sideways glance.

Which is why I watch Skins. And not Gossip Girl.

Video -- Gossip Girl Signs Up Hilary Duff

She'll be Jessica Szohr's (Vanessa's) roomie in college next season when the show returns.

Perfect casting.

Hey, didn't she turn down a role in this originally? It seems to me that her name was bandied about when the show was first casting the leads.

Another reason it's perfect casting? Hilary seems to be in the part of her life where she does things that make the gossip page as well, like the story we ran a while back about her being shitfaced in an NYC restaurant and spouting off the the "little people" about what a star she was.

Click here for that.

From Ausiello at EW:

The actress-designer-pop chanteuse will play Olivia Burke, a movie star who enrolls at NYU in search of a traditional college experience. She ends up rooming with Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) so it's safe to say she'll be majoring in Drama!

Duff will debut in this season's fourth episode, slated to air Oct. 5.

They're calling it a multi-episode arc. Didn't they use the same words when they signed Michelle Trachtenberg? Hasn't she shown up every time since that they needed a little zazz?

Since NBC passed on Barely Legal from David E. Kelley, the Duff pilot that had her playing a prodigy attorney, she's free as a bird to do what she wants. I guess that NBC holding deal money stops now, though.

Not to worry, Duff has been selling her "Stuff by Hilary Duff" forever, she's certainly not hurting for coin.

You may have recently seen Duff guest on Law & Order: SVU as a kind of Casey Anthony clone in one of their ripped from the headlines episodes. I'm not sure why, but Hulu doesn't have and of the L&O shows posted, probably something that has to do with Wolf's deal with the network or maybe they think it would harsh the syndie ratings.

So, no L&O clip. Sorry.

I watched it. She's still solid on camera. Let's see if she can handle the fishbowl that is working on Gossip Girl.

Cobra Starship Video -- Gossip Girl Leighton Meester Can Sing?

The song is somewhat appropriately titled Good Girls Go Bad. I have never heard of the band, Cobra Starship, but it's a catchy, hooky dance track that you might enjoy.

This is her singing, isn't it? This isn't one of those Martha Wash - Zelma Davis Gonna Make You Sweat situations, is it?

Because that would suck. Actually, you can read more about it from Buzznet at this link, and it leads me to believe that this actor can actually sing.

I guess that this is the first single from the purported album from Meester which is planned for a Fall release, most likely to coincide with the season premiere of Gossip Girl on The CW.

It's after the jump so have at it, kids!

Video -- Guest Voice Chace Crawford Tommorrow on Family Guy

Which also means a new episode which always makes Sunday night a better night.

You can say that Chace's character is responsible for the condition Stewie has gotten in, pictured above.

Sharing a birthday (as many of my Facebook friends know)? Me and Seth MacFarlane.

And Hillary Clinton. And Billie Piper's little boy.

And "Julie, your cruise director" Lauren Tewes.

Clip after the jump. 9 pm, Fox.

Our Pal Simon Doonan Meets Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick, Mary-Kate Olson at Burberry Barney's Blowout

Ah, Simon. What I love about Simon is that he, and I try to emulate this, is unabashedly himself.

Of course, sometimes people who don't know who "yourself" is can be taken a bit aback. As he recounts on the Barney's site this AM:

When I met Ed Westwick at the blowout bash for Burberry designing genius Christopher Bailey at Barney's last night, I think I came on a bit strong. I couldn't help myself. "You're the heart and soul of Gossip Girl. You wipe the floor with your cast-mates. You are so over the top and great I just wanna scream at the TV screen" etc etc etc.

(snip)

Memo to moi -- at cocktail parties, try to tone it down a bit and speak in that low key hoarse murmur that Ed uses when he plays Chuck.

More at this link, including the encounter with MKO.

Nothing more yet on scheduling from Logo about Beautiful People, the BBC series based on Simon's memoir that they bought recently. I'll keep you up to date.

BTW, at Barney's riight now there's this Marc Jacobs Mancy Messenger Bag at a 50% discount. I don't want you to buy it for me, I just wanted Marc Jacobs to consider naming his messenger bag something other than rhymes with Nancy. Might sell better.

But for $100, if you force it on me, I'll use it. I won't call it Mancy.

Love ya, Simon.

EW's Ausiello Was Right, Brittany Snow Heading the Gossip Girl Spinoff

He called it, you gotta give him the props.

THR.com:

Brittany Snow is set to topline the project, a prequel chronicling the wild teen years of Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford) in Los Angeles during the 1980s.

Also cast in the spinoff is Shiloh Fernandez ("Jericho"). The two would be joining previously cast Krysten Ritter.

The spinoff centers on then-Lily Rhodes (Snow), who, after a falling-out with her parents, is forced to move in with her sister, Carol (Ritter), the black sheep of the family.

Overnight, Lily has to transition from a life of luxury and education at a wealthy Montecito boarding school to living deep in the San Fernando Valley she once made fun of and going to public school. Caught between two worlds, Lily dives into the fast-paced Sunset Strip and the Hollywood lifestyle of the '80s, journeying over the hill to a world of wealth and excess that used to be her own.

You'll meet young Lily in a flashback episode of Gossip Girl (backdoor pilot -- allegedly invented by Ben Silverman - HA!) on May 11th.

Where do you know her from? Click here. Because most of my readers did not see John Tucker Must Die or Prom Night, they were busy watching Battlestar Galactica reruns frame by frame to find hidden clues about the history of organic memory transfer. Because we geek out like that.

Clippage from, say, an episode of American Dreams? Not a chance, the clips at YouTube are all fanvids with loving sweeps across the visage of Milo Ventimiglia, which is not what you're looking for, at least not right now. But they're there, go look if you must.

How about a clip from the film she was in at Sundance, called The Vicious Kind? 'Cause I totally have one of those and it's after the jump.

Gossip Girl Prequel Spinoff Actually Sounds Like Something I'd Watch

You know why? Because it's a prequel, taking place in the 80s in Southern California I can connect to it, in a way I just could never connect to these ultra-rich teens on the Upper East Side of New York. Mostly because I was here in the 80s.

(Plus, I hate the east side. I don't even like getting on the 4, 5 or 6 trains when I'm in the city unless I'm way downtown. I'm more comfortable in the much less aggressively fabulous Upper West Side and I love the Fairway Market, but mostly for the cruising. And who can afford to do all their food shopping at Whole Foods, anyway?)

So, here's the scoop on the spinoff from Nellie Andreeva at the Reporter:

Written by (Josh) Schwartz and (Stephanie) Savage, the spinoff will center on young Lily Rhodes (her maiden name) who, after a falling out with her parents, is forced to move in with her sister, the black sheep of the Rhodes family. Overnight, Lily has to transition from a life of luxury and education at a wealthy Montecito boarding school to living deep in the San Fernando Valley she once made fun of and going to public school. Caught between two worlds, Lily dives into the fast-paced Sunset Strip and the Hollywood lifestyle of the '80s, journeying over the hill to a world of wealth and excess that used to be her own.

Eventually, she meets rocker Rufus Humphrey (played on "Gossip" by Matthew Settle) for a fling that will result in Lily's secret pregnancy, but "that wouldn't be for quite a while in the run of the show," Schwartz said.

Plausible? As much as anything else you might click over to on The CW. If there's any question if this could happen, I'm sure the moment Lily runs into a hair metal guy and Hoovers a line of Peruvian Marching Powder off his ass we'll all forget about all that and just take the journey.

So, who could plausibly play a 25-year-younger Kelly Rutherford (pictured above)? Does it make sense to look for a Blake Lively clone? You have any other better ideas? Leave a comment below.

Around the Horn On a Random Weekend

It's just a throw of the dice today.

First, Lyle Masaki at Crocodile Caucus writes about the week's gay stuff on Gossip Girl, Yes, there is a gay character on the show, you just don't see him a lot, hardly as much as you get to see Maxxie on Skins, which is a much better teen show on BBC America Sunday nights, but I digress.

He says:

I’ve gone on about Gossip Girl, a show that’s surprised me for duplicating the mix of trashy/substantive that I loved about Footballers’ Wives (both shows are also ones with fans that leave me wondering if I’m just fanwanking the depth I see in them). I was disappointed with the show’s post-strike episodes last season, but I’m happy that the show is back to its previous glory. Someday, I’ll have to get into what I love about this show in more detail.

Last night’s episode, gave a little bit of story to resident “barely there” gay but went off the charts in regards to the blatant homoerotism… even including a scene featuring an everyday phallic food.

Hopefully more like a zucchini than a gherkin.

Next, I watched a doc on Ovation (it's a cable channel, it might even be on your cable system lurking among the other channels you surf by on the way to that horrible Kimora formerly Simmons show). The show was called The Lowdown on Lowbrow and featured an interview with artist Josh Agle, also known as Shag.

If my friends are reading, you can buy me anything at the Shagmart site, but the piece I love the most is The Thinking Has Been Done. I don't feel comfortable using his image, but here's the direct link to the serigraph.

I also love this painting called The Angry Ex. Click here for that one.

You know what, I just clicked around the web and everyone has his stuff on their sites so I'm gonna post some detail from The Angry Ex, not the whole thing, and if Josh Agle tells me to I'll take it down.

Finally, JPB at CatchrsPad had a friend from Ohio email a YouTube clip of other Ohioans who don't mind showing the world how misinformed they are as they walk out of a Republican rally. Ah, you gotta love those low-information voters, huh?

He comments:

Oh, God. I guess I would expect this kind of stuff in Western Ohio, even Southern Ohio....but NORTHEAST OHIO??? Geez - these folks are the VERY PEOPLE that need change ...that need a break - yet for some reason, they have fixated on believing FOX NOISE and the republican blow-hards that have somehow convinced them that Barack Obama is, indeed, a terrorist.

Clip after the jump. Not for the faint hearted. It's hard to watch people make complete asses of themselves in this way.

TV Week's Joe Adalian Writes About My Pals At the Parents Television Council

 

Click there now! He says:

The PTC doesn’t want to make TV safe for kids. It wants to make it safe only for those shows that fit into its narrowly constructed worldview of what constitutes acceptable TV. And when it identifies programming that doesn’t mesh with its agenda, the PTC goes into overdrive whipping up its base to take action.

“All they’re about is fund raising and court cases,” said one network executive who, like everyone interviewed for this column, spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “They would rather curse the darkness than light a candle.”

Consider: This summer, the PTC called on CBS affiliates to pre-empt the network’s “Swingtown” -- even though the show aired in the last hour of prime time across the country. “‘Swingtown’ undermines the institutions of marriage and family,” the PTC said in calling for its boycott. “This show should not be on broadcast television -- period.”

It doesn’t matter that “Swingtown” contained no obscene language or nudity. The fact that CBS aired the show at 10 p.m. in most of the country is irrelevant. Adult viewers simply shouldn’t be able to watch this show, period, according to the cultural crusaders of the PTC.

Go, Joe!!!

I'm glad I'm not the only one out here getting sick and tired of these holier-than-thou types that spend their days trying to find ways for the federal gov't to do their bidding on social issues.

If you don't like the damn show, change the channel. Don't want your kids to watch? Control your kids!!!

Are you purported people of faith so weak of faith that you can't follow the rules of your religion without using government agencies to keep you in check?

Because that's what it looks like to me.

Around the Horn Today is a Potpourri of TV (that you need to read)

Sorry, it's just a rhyming thing.

Up first, Brent is a child of television, hence his blog, I Am A Child of Television. And any good child of television will tell you that the pilot for Kath & Kim just suuuuuuuucked:

I am not going to give an episode recap of the first episode of Kath & Kim. I have no desire to relive that memory, and it was a basic pilot episode designed to set up the characters. It was something about Kath Day, who is described by her daughter Kim as being a loser magnet, being exultant about her new romance with Phil who owns a mall sandwich shop. At the same time Kim has broken up with her husband of a few weeks (days? – with Kim it could be either), Craig because he wants her to "do things" like microwaving supper and asking him how his day was. Kim has decided to move home only to discover that Kath has turned her  old room into a home gym. There are some problems about Kim's romance with Phil because he sees her eating a sandwich from another shop in the mall, but by this point my head was really throbbing and I didn't write down much more about the show.

I didn't even write down notes, myself. Brent, you are stronger than I.

Our TV pal (from Olbermann and many other shows) Michael Musto from the Village Voice has Gossip Girl actor scoop from just last night. Timely much? He says:

Spotted walking around the West Village the other night: Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick and two other friends. For about a quarter of a block, housemates Chase and Ed locked arms in a very touching way--but don't swish to any conclusions. I'm sure it was just to purposely play into the rumors and have fun with them, just like when they went to a gay bar together, mainly for a wink-wink bit of camp! Right?

Oh Michael, so much thanks for being you. Love it.

And finally, from one of my fave Facebook groups, "Rachel Maddow Fans," administered by our pal Lindsay Carroll of MaddowFans.com fame, a Wall post by a viewer about the David Frum interview I posted about previously.

He says:

The more I saw of Ms. Maddow on Countdown the more I grew to like and appreciate her. When she got her own show I have to admit I was worried that MSNBC was becoming a left-of-center Fox News. Last night Rachel put my worries to rest. She had every opportunity to disembowel Frum when he turned the point of the conversation to attacking the show. Very impressive display, definition of the word 'unflappable'. I still love listening to Keith eviscerate The Right (I myself am more of a pugilist) but I have a whole new appreciation for Rachel Maddow and will try my best in her honor to pay it forward a bit.

We'll go around the horn again tomorrow.

Survivor Junkies, These Moralistic Prigs Have a Problem With Your Show, Too!

 Lisa de Moraes at the Washington Post:

The self-appointed watchdog group Parents Television Council has filed an indecency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over the season debut of "Survivor: Gabon" -- ironically the first episode of this series to be broadcast in high-definition.

If you look closely at participants in a race, you see Marcus Lehman's little colonel "falling out" of his boxer shorts as he runs to the finish line, PTC reports. "The image was not obscured in any way," PTC notes in disgust. In fairness, the episode had a lot of pixelation -- just not of Lehman's male pride.

"Although this instance was brief, it was nonetheless shocking and purposeful," PTC President Tim Winter said in a statement.

Purposeful? Let's see how purposeful is defined in the dictionary:

So, wouldn't you say that Tim Winter is a lying sack of crap?

(I could have gone with another sack, considering the topic at hand.)

What he is contending is that the people on the show responsible for the pixelation didn't pixelate "Little Marcus" on purpose. Which he couldn't possibly know.

He knows that he is not capable of reading people's thoughts, so this statement makes him a liar. Because he is lying in order to achieve a self-serving goal, that makes it malicious.

And that's hardly God-like now, is it.

Don't you people have enough to do in coordination with The CW to continue promoting Gossip Girl and 90210? Can you really also promote Survivor?

Hey PTC, the Cast and Crew of Gossip Girl Say Thanks (and would send a gift basket if they weren't busy corrupting your kids)

HA!

Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd, at his blog:

The third episode of “Gossip” (3.7 million viewers, 1.9 preliminary adults 18 to 49 rating and a 5 share) this season was up 11% from its previous two episodes and marked an all-time high in every demo category. Among the CW’s key women 18-34 demo (4.2/12), for example, “Gossip” was up 27% from its second season premiere.

You people said about the show most recently:

Upon accepting the 2008 Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Drama, Penn Badgley - who plays Dan Humphrey on CW’s Gossip Girl (Mondays, 8:00 p.m.) - promised fans and critics alike that for the show’s second season, “We’re bringing the heat, I mean it.”  After a summer of hype which included racy print ads featuring the quote “Mind-blowingly inappropriate” from the Parents Television Council, a spread in the August issue of Vanity Fair, and a total of six awards at the above-mentioned award show, viewers were primed for the season opener which aired on September 1st.  The publicity seemed to pay off as 3.38 million viewers, mostly younger people, tuned in, giving the fledgling network a reason to gloat.

And all that publicity came directly from you. And you seem proud. And that's why I'm writing this post right at you people.

So thanks, Tim Winter, Dan Isett, and all the gang over at the Parents Television Council. And hey, GG's network colleagues at 90210 would like to send a hearty hello and want to remind you in kind to not forget about them and their highly inappropriate content.

And you, Dawn Ostroff from The CW, you should be buying these people dinner. And breakfast the next morning.

Note to Chuck Producers -- You Got the Whole Year, Use It Well!

The rare good TV news that comes out of the tower on the Universal lot up there in what you might as well call South North Hollywood (despite the tourist trade and the only Dalt's Restaurant in Southern California (great fried things with cheese).

C'mon, with "failing upwards king" Zucker and "I never met a product placement that didn't get me erect" Silverman in that building, you can't expect much, but today someone came through, probably Teri Weinberg, who's quoted below.

Variety:

NBC is giving an early vote of confidence to "Chuck," picking up the back nine episodes of the sophomore skein.

(snip)

"Chuck's" full-season order comes more than a month before the show's Sept. 29 premiere date. Exec producer Josh Schwartz called the pickup "unexpected."

"It's an incredible show of faith by NBC and so amazingly nice to get based on the work alone," Schwartz said. Peacock execs said they were pleased with the first six episodes in "Chuck's" second season and wanted to keep the momentum going.

"This show has really hit its stride and deserves a full-season commitment to carry out the producers' vision for this unique series," said Teri Weinberg, exec veep of NBC Entertainment.

Maybe Josh is spending more time here in California these days rather than on the set of his other show, the one with the hot, hot, hot young adults playing tony teens in NYC.

Now that you know you have the season, some big idea arcs would be nice to counterbalance the weekly yucks. This way, you can retain that lightness each week and drop in the drama in service to the big arc of the season.

It makes for more tasty viewing. And this cast deserves it. They're very good together. and I love Yvonne Strahovski, I just can't resist a hot, kick-ass blonde who looks great in lingerie.

I know, it even works on me.

Chuck/Sarah fanvid by YouTube user aluapfalcao after the jump, with plenty of Yvonne and a song I really like.

Five "Mind-Blowingly Inappropriate" Minutes Of the Season Premiere of Gossip Girl With Comments

Ah, The Hamptons.

Or, rather, bleccch!

I've never been much for the tony enclave to the right of my hometown Nassau County (where people are regular people and the swells just get our derision). Never even been there, actually, and I haven't even ever been to either the Pines or Cherry Grove, which would be much much more fun for me. Riverhead and Montauk have been the totality of my eastern Long Island hopping.

So, as you watch this five minutes of horribly rich and horribly raised teens grope their way east in the first couple weeks of the season, repeat to yourself over and over, "It's not real, it's a TV show."

But do enjoy the eye candy. These boys are just stunning. (Okay, the girls are too, I do check them out from time to time.) Too pretty for my tastes, of course, I like adults with experience and, ahem, skills.

But they are pretty, huh? Kind of like staring wantonly at shiny things in a jewelry store.

Not that I'm much of a jewelry fan. I do enjoy a nice Movado watch (not the knockoffs offered to me last weekend in Chinatown but the real deal from the NY Times Magazine, which is as close as I will probably ever get to one).

Watch it, after the jump.

Does Gossip Girl Buzz (But Low Ratings) Earn It a Spinoff? Really?

Because The CW is already talking about this exact concept.

(Disclosure: Never once watched this show, it makes me feel like a dirty ol' man and you should feel that way too if you're over 40.)

THR.com (Hibberd):

(T)he story would likely draw on the arc of Momsen's character Jenny Humphrey in the "Gossip Girl" book series for inspiration.

Humphrey is a self-esteem challenged outsider who struggles to fit in. In the books, a series of public embarrassments (such as appearing in a teen magazine wearing next to nothing) results in Humphrey having to either repeat ninth grade or find a new school. She elects to enter a boarding school and reinvents herself as a popular girl. Her story is told in a series of six "Gossip" spinoff novels called "The It Girl."

The big question is whether such a project would be picked up by the CW. The network already has two teen dramas set in high school this fall -- "Gossip" and "90210," a contemporary spinoff from the 1990s Fox series -- as well as "One Tree Hill," in which the characters recently graduated from high school. Plus, though "Gossip" has a devoted following and significant cultural buzz, its ratings are pretty modest.

Pretty modest, indeed, for the 2007-8 TV season it was the 196th highest rated series in total audience.

The NY Times Asks Josh Schwartz Some Questions

Here is one of them and his answer:

Why are the characters uniformly white, with old-money names like Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen that hark back to a time when high society was not integrated? Why are there no Jewish characters? It’s interesting, because on “The O.C.” I went out of my way to make those characters Jewish, not what you would expect to find in Orange County. But in New York, weirdly, I failed. I was working off of the source material.

So yes, there are certainly many Jewish-American kids amond New York's mega-rich. They just don't happen to have Jewish names in the Gossip Girl books and so they don't have Jewish names on TV, either.

I think it's time for the TV series to go to shul.

Hey Look, it's a Michael Buckley Weekend!

Things you need to know about Internet Superstar Michael Buckley:

• Loves Gossip Girl
• Hates Kid Nation
• Suffers through The Tyra Banks Show (like we all do, for the unintentional comedy)

LINK

Friday Night Lights Season Premiere Online NOW!

Just click here and a new window will open for your convenience.

Also on the page are links to DVD extras and all kinds of the usual good stuff that Yahoo! TV brings you in coordination with the networks.

In fact, they have more fall season and series premieres at this link. So if you're at work and bored out of your socks, at least there's some TV to watch on your computer. In fact, I think you'll find that if you missed the Gossip Girl pilot this week you can watch that at this link. Starting Monday, you can see Aliens in America, although it does premiere on The CW later that day.

The networks really want you to see their shows this year. In fact, I am going to check out for a while and watch some TV on my computer this afternoon (I'm in the west), too.

Advertsising Age Looks at Gossip Girl

My favorite line?

Now here comes "Gossip Girl," which transplants teen angst to Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, where privileged underage kids can slurp martinis at a ritzy hotel bar, smoke weed in Central Park or have sex in mom's townhouse (am I so old to think that bartenders still check young kids for I.D. when they order martinis?!).

Well, I don't know about Central Park, but back in the late seventies, you could get "three for two" on the steps of the Public Library. From there, you just slipped into Bryant Park (way, way before the renovation of said outdoor space) and elevated.

With Top Model as its lead-in, it has all the heft of The CW behind it as it debuts, but it also faces some stiff time slot competition, most notably from Kate Walsh's new series Private Practice and Bionic Woman, which is the show this adult will be watching (sorry Kate, I gotta go with David Eick over another sexy medical drama, talk to me when you make an outrageous comedy and I'll be with you).

Finally ...

"'Gossip Girl' could become another one of those young-woman and female-teen magnets that WB used to be so good at developing," said Steve Sternberg, exec VP-director of audience analysis at Magna Global.

"There is an audience from 'The O.C.,' and that show is no longer on TV. If this can do the ratings for CW that 'O.C.' did for Fox, I think CW would be very happy," said Brad Adgate, senior VP-corporate research director, Horizon Media.

Wanna See the First 10 Minutes of CW's Gossip Girl?

Well, just click here and then click the appropriate icon under the screen (a new window will open). Just saw it.

Certainly, it's not for me, I'm a 46-year-old man.

Maybe you'll enjoy it.

Sneak Peek Fall Schedule Clips from The CW

Hey, just because I've two times as old as the average viewer of The CW (although my grandmother was a regular viewer of Smallville into her early 90s) I'm gonna link you to two things. First, a show that will premiere at the end of the month, Hidden Palms, the show that got pushed back for that Pussycat Dolls reality (HA!) show that hit for them. It starts May 30.

LINK

And then, if you click this link, a new window will open up and you can see clips from their selection of series pickups, including Gossip Girl, Reaper, Life is Wild and Aliens in America.

Veronica Mars Travels Through Time, Improving Her Chances of Another Season on The CW

From Nellie Andreeva at the Reporter:

Cult favorite "Mars" had been on the verge of cancellation, but its fortunes have improved significantly in the past week with the announcement that "Gilmore Girls" won't be coming back and because of Thomas' well-received fourth-season idea.

If you don't know, what creator Rob Thomas did was propose to the netlet that Veronica gets older really quickly, signs with the FBI and moves to Quantico where she'll be training. And I guess The CW liked the presentation Thomas produced, and Mars is also pretty compatible with the aforementioned Josh Schwartz pilot Gossip Girl, so all together it makes a night of programming for them.

For the Mars fans out there, I hope it both works for them, and works, period, for the net.

Stay tuned, the upfronts are next week.

Tomorrow's Pilot News Today -- Lotsa News, Lotsa Predictions

Well, the story is dated May 7. From Nellie Andreeva at the Reporter:

CW, which is looking to add three to four new dramas, is said to be high on Schwartz's "Gossip Girl," "The Reaper" and the untitled South Africa project.

That's Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C., who may have two of his pilots picked up, Gossip Girl at The CW, and Chuck at NBC. I know that the little box at the bottom of the Hollywood Reporter homepage says he has three pilots ready to go, but for the life of me I can't find the third.

The show I really want to go to series in The Stumps of Hollywood, which this article is still calling Fugly, it's original name. I'm a big fan of all the leads (Nikki Cox, Michael Rapaport and Marissa Jaret Winokur).

I would also like The IT Crowd to make it, although I fear what it will do to my Friday night habit, E!'s The Soup, if Joel McHale leaves.

ABC seems to also like The Thick of It, which has a lot of pedigree going into it. Just check out the IMBD page, there's a lot of talent there.

The upfronts are in New York the week after Mother's Day, and if anyone who reads this blog will be there, could you send me an email? I would like to know what's going on as it goes on.

You know how to email, just click here.