Stealing scenes on the small screen is nothing new to Christian Slater. The actor, known for films like Heathers, True Romance and Pump up the Volume, has made memorable guest appearances on shows like Alias, The West Wing and My Name is Earl. His first shot at his own series, the NBC spy thriller My Own Worst Enemy, struggled to find an audience, leading the network to cancel it halfway through the first season.

Slater is back starring in a new series, The Forgotten, produced by CSI head honcho Jerry Bruckheimer. The ABC procedural follows a team of amateur detectives who work murder cases involving unidentified victims, or John and Jane Does. Slater plays former cop Alex Donovan, whose search for his missing daughter inspires him in the field.

I got the chance to talk with Slater about The Forgotten, his new career in TV, and what one of his most famous big screen characters would think about his latest role.

Continue reading Christian Slater talks about The Forgotten, life at 40, and his love of TV

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, CSI, Interviews, Celebrities, Reality-Free

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• At 8, ABC has College Football, Oklahoma vs. Miami.
• FOX has a new Cops at 8.
• Nickelodeon has a new iCarly at 8, followed by a new True Jackson, VP.
• At 9, FOX has a new America’s Most Wanted.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• Spike has the movie JCVD at 9.
• BBC America has a new Robin Hood at 9.
• Also at 9: WE has a new episode of The Locator.
• At 9:30, Biography has a new Ghostly Adventures, then a new Celebrity Ghost Stories.
• At 10, CBS has a new 48 Hours Mystery.
• Style has a new episode of The Dish at 10.
• At 11:30, NBC has a new SNL, with Ryan Reynolds and Lady Gaga.
• At midnight, FOX has a new Sit Down, Shut Up.
• At 12:30, Cartoon Network has two new episodes of Bleach.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Filed under: Programming, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free

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I had a really hard time finding an image to include with this article. I went through every newspaper article that had “The Jay Leno Show” in the body of its text. I did searches on Google Images until Google got sick of me clogging their bandwidth. Even my editor Jane Boursaw couldn’t use her super press connection powers to find one stinking shot of Jay blowing his nose in between sets from Friday’s show.

Perhaps that’s because Friday’s late night appetizer on NBC wasn’t really all that eventful. Don’t take that to mean that it was totally dull, drab or boring, just a typical show for Jay and company.

And given some of the past episodes that sucked out loud, there’s nothing wrong with being typical. Compared to the Pee Wee Herman debacle, it’s a Devil’s Tower sized step up.

Continue reading The Jay Leno Show: Jenna Fischer

Filed under: Celebrities, Reality-Free, Jay Leno

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The Office star John Krasinski and actress Emily Blunt announced their engagement about a month ago but details about it have been scarce — until now!

Emily tells MTV, “All I can say is that there were flutes playing in the background, butterflies, there were angels showering us with rainbow drops.”

Rainbow drops!

As for when the wedding will be, Emily shared, “”We don’t know. We actually aren’t sure yet. We’re being uselessly unplanned about this. But I promise you will be the first to know. You will know before my mother.”

Thought it might be awhile ’till Krasinski’s real-life wedding, his on-screen one is next week! Pam and Jim will tie the knot on The Office this Thursday (October @ 9PM ET/PT on NBC.

Lady Gaga is looking for a Lord Gaga in this new Saturday Night Live promo video with Ryan Reynolds and SNL regular Fred Armisen.

This weekend, Ryan will be hosting the comedy sketch show with Lady Gaga as the musical guest. Tune in on October 3rd @ 11:30PM ET/PT on NBC!

ARE YOU LOOKING forward to SNL this week???

Seems like the networks are on a game show-buying frenzy. NBC has Perfect 10 coming up, and now comes word that FOX will bring the British game show The Cube to America. If you’ve never seen the show, the object is to bring an ice cube from one city to the next before it melts and if you do you win $1 million.

Well, no. Here’s the actual game.

Filed under: Industry, Programming, Game Show, Reality-Free

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Think Deal or No Deal is too easy? Want more interactive for that big prize? NBC might have the answer. They’ve ordered Perfect 10, a one-hour game show where contestants have 60 seconds to complete ten tasks for $1 million; tasks like unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper with your body.

Producers say they’ve developed easily replicated challenges because they want us to play along at home, like how we yell prices to contestants on The Price is Right. There are no prizes for participating at home, unless you count having to figure out what to do with an entire roll of toilet paper strewn about your living room.

They’re even going to set up a website where we can see 50 demonstrations of tasks people on the show might be asked to perform. Which means we can start right now trying to figure out what those might be. Fold a basket full of inside out shirts? Match 50 pairs of socks with your feet. Stack empty bottles of laundry detergent on top of one another on top of a running dryer. Sound off with your ideas!

Filed under: Game Show, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free

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The fall season has begun and we have a ton of new and returning shows to watch again. It’s great to have The Office and The Mentalist and 60 Minutes and The Simpsons back with new episodes, but I still feel a huge void in my TV-watching pleasure. And it’s not because Lost and Chuck won’t be back until next year.

I’m talking about 30 Rock. While all of the other NBC Thursday night comedies (Weekend Update Thursday, Parks and Recreation, Community, and The Office) have returned, 30 Rock won’t be back until October 15. Not sure why that is, but Thursday nights just aren’t the same without it. I even saw a promo for NBC’s Thursday night lineup and how the show were back, and they included 30 Rock in the montage. That was just painful.

Continue reading I can’t wait until 30 Rock starts up again

Filed under: OpEd, 30 Rock, Reality-Free

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Who won the Monday ratings wars?

I will ultimately get ALL the night’s shows up on the site, but the premiere of Trauma was not so good for NBC with only a 2.3/6 rating/share with adults 18-49.  House was tops for the night with a 5.7/15, followed by The Big Bang Theory and its 5.1/12.

Trauma did worse than Heroes (2.5/6) with adults 18-49.

Retentionistas will have a field day with the premiere of Lie to Me, which only pulled a 2.9/7 adults 18-49 rating/share out of House.

tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/29/s-tv-ratings-house-down-still-tops-traumas-explosions-lead-to-ratings-implosion/28773

Gay Torchwood star John Barrowman has revealed his anger at being told by his bosses he should keep his sexuality a secret.

In his autobiography I Am What I Am, published today, he said he was warned early in his career he should pretend to be straight in order to achieve success.

Barrowman claimed a gay producer was sent by his bosses to give him the warning. He claimed the producer said: “John, we wondered if you really wanted to reveal that you’re gay? We think it might change how people feel about you.”

The actor said he replied “I really hope you’re not saying this, because I’m not going in the closet for you or anyone. You’ve hired me to be a professional, not to have sex. Being a gay man has nothing to do with my abilities on this show.”

Remembering the exchange, Barrowman said: “The incident was even more offensive because they sent a gay producer to discuss this with me, as if somehow this would ease the blow.”

He has not identified which production company told him to stay in the closet but according to The Times, he has worked for the BBC, ITV and Five as well as the American networks CBS and NBC. All have denied telling him to keep quiet.

Barrowman said he had received an apology over the incident but added: “One of my explicit missions as an entertainer is to work to create a world where no one will ever make a statement like this producer did to me to anyone who’s gay.”

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