The overnight ratings numbers are in for the premieres of Dollhouse and Smallville and they’re not as rosy-looking as we’d like.  Then again, it is Friday night and our favorite returning shows are up against some heavy hitters.

CBS dominated Friday night with their shoe-in season premiers of Ghost Whisperer and Medium.  Both shows raked in over 8 1/2 million viewers.

Even the encore presentation of FlashForward dusted our favored shows by bringing in an additional 4.6 million viewers.

Ghost Whisperer, Law & Order, Smallville, Dollhouse, Medium & Numb3rs are all returning tonight… and then we have the premiere of a FOX comedy with a retired football player?

Friday hasn’t been this popular for television since ABC was in its hay-day with TGIF and Boy Meets World (Feeny!). With seven hours of new and returning programming stuffed into a three hour block, you’re either going to have to make some tough decisions on what to watch, or be a DVR master.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s lineup.

Just a brief update on this Monday: Plan your prime time with the 2009 TV Fall Schedule; Smallville is getting another new guest star; A certain “Foxy” lady might be kicking off SNL this year; Learn how to catch up on all the NBC shows you missed last year (for free!); and speaking of NBC, how about a first-look photo of Jim and Pam getting married on The Office?

And as a bonus (because I love you) I let you know about the government’s “Cash for TV Clunkers” program.

Let’s get to it!

Today we have some news and more for the show Medium and the big late night talk shows. We’ll talk about Medium’s new network and the issues it has caused as well as which talk shows are doing well, which are not, and what Jay Leno’s up to with his new program that will be exploring a different format.

Today’s Weekly TV Wrap Up has some news about the Syfy channel picking up a show called Alphas, news on Chuck air dates, plus renewal news on In Plain Sight and other USA shows.

I’m also chatting about some Ghost Whisperer bits, Futurama voice casting news and some news about Medium on CBS.  I’ve also found some casting news on Game Of Thrones.

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Syfy Picks Up Alphas

Syfy has picked up a 90-minute action-adventure pilot called Alphas.

Alphas is about a team of ordinary citizens who possess hyper-developed neurological abilities.  Each person has a slightly special feature about them, but as a team, they combine to have extra-special skills.  It’s to be written by Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand), Michael Karnow and BermanBraun Television.

For whatever reason, NBC and ABC passed on Alphas while Syfy, having the opportunity, jumped on this superhero genre show.

Source:  Hollywood Reporter

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Today NBC announced their 2009 Fall and mid-season television schedules.  As you will see, there are some new shows, some old shows, and you might notice there are a couple of shows that are missing from the roster.

We’ll touch on the missing shows in a moment – and in the case of some of them, the situation may not be as bad as it looks. Here are the 2009 NBC Fall and mid-season schedules, as they stand today: