After an amazing job hosting the Tony Awards this past June, Neil Patrick Harris was tapped to host The 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

How was he?

Yet again, pretty amazing. It seems as if he elevated the entire production to another level.

When the show first started and Neil came out singing, I have to be honest, I really didn’t enjoy it. I thought that while Neil has an amazing voice, the song just wasn’t anything great. Especially when compared to everything else that would happen during the course of the night.

Still, I didn’t give up hope. I love Neil Patrick Harris (NPH) and knew that ultimately he would do a great job. His background in acting, magic and Broadway created this perfect Doogie Howser showman. He didn’t disappoint. His jokes were great. His delivery was casual, but cool. I honestly believe that everyone in attendance thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

I must take a moment to talk about the production value and set design. They were wonderful. I loved how everything was placed on the stage; from the orchestra to the control room, you could see everything as it was happening and the way they went in and out of commercials with the multi-camera views and the directors’ voice cueing up the next shot. Just great.

Alright, now back to the awards…

The show kicked off with “Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series” and good thing the hilarious Vanessa Williams showed her comedic prowess by being the only person not to go along with the joke of wearing goofy glasses during the nominee announcement. At that point I wasn’t so much interested as who was going to win because I had turned all my magical powers (What? I have them.) on making sure that she didn’t.

Luckily, that didn’t happen and the delightful, ball of energy, Kristin Chenoweth, came away with the award. She’s great and always puts a smile on my face. I was a big fan of Pushing Daises and was sad to see it get canceled. It seems like Brian Fuller just doesn’t have much luck with his television series. While always imaginative and playful, they just don’t last. First it was Dead Like Me and now Pushing Daises.

After that was “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series,” of which 30 Rock was nominated for 4 out of the 5 spots. It’s really great that a show like 30 Rock gets the acknowledgment that they deserve.

Next was my biggest disappointment of the night, “Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series.” I have to be honest here and say that I’ve never liked Two and a Half Men. I don’t understand what’s funny about that show and for some reason it bugs me when people enjoy it (I know, I’m a horrible person). That being said, I do like Jon Cryer… as “Duckie” in Pretty in Pink, but nothing more.

I was so sad that 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan didn’t win. I’m still not sure if I even thought he was the most talented actor in the group. I believe I just wanted to see what he had to say. I know that I can’t be the only one. I love just making things up and doing a horrible Tracy Morgan impression. You can say anything and believe he just might say it (”Live every week like it’s Shark Week”).

“Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series” followed and once again I was a bit disappointed. I love Sarah Silverman and felt that she didn’t necessarily deserve the award for her show, The Sarah Silverman Project, but because, in general, she always delivers the laughs. Case in point was her wearing a fake mustache while the camera was on her during the nomination announcement, but playing it completely straight. I had a feeling that Toni Collette would win. I had watched United States of Tara and completely give her credit for doing so many characters.

I just feel that my hatred of Diablo Cody skewed my opinion on this, but that’s her fault for being really horrible with her “hip” references. Ain’t that right, Baby Ruth, Mac & Cheese Daddy? (See… completely took those lines out of Juno 2: Judgment Day.)

At various times, the awards were broken up with little bits by NPH. Some of them involved Harlem Globetrotters, “The Best Seat in the House” and others, like this, involved him railing on how he didn’t win. With a live feed of Jon Cryer in the press room on all the screens, NPH asked a question from his pulpit on the main stage. He just wanted Jon to make sure that the envelope actually said “Jon Cryer.” It was a great way to break up the monotony that comes with award shows.

After a wonderful acceptance speech from Tina Fey about winning her Schmemmy last weekend, it was on to “Outstanding Directing In A Comedy Series.” The Office took the award for the episode “Stress Relief” and I’m content with that. I understand that this past season of The Office had many weak points. It always seemed that some great episodic storylines were always paired up with weak/unfunny subplots. “Stress Relief” is a perfect example of this. The opening of this episode always makes me laugh, but the great story line of Dwight screwing up got weighted down by that horrible Jack Black/Cloris Leachman illegal movie downloads subplot.

Rob Lowe came out, made some Dr. Vegas quips and then it was on to “Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series.” It was pretty obvious who was going to win. It was either going to be Tony Shalhoub or Alec Baldwin. I had a feeling it might Tony Shalhoub because Monk is ending. Nope, Alec Baldwin won it yet again and it’s completely deserved. He’s great on 30 Rock. Although, I don’t think he should count on winning it next year because I have a feeling Tony Shalhoub will be picking that up as a swan song to Monk.

That was the close of the comedy section until the big award, but they saved that for the end. Up next was reality and I’m not going to be so wordy with these awards. I’ll just make some comments.

(Pg 2 for winners in Reality and Drama)

• Dr. Horrible Emmy Video Skit
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• Dr. Horrible At The Emmys
• Tubey Awards For The 2008-09 TV Season
• Nathan Fillion’s Castle Stands Strong

This year, Bravo’s Television Without Pity, Access Hollywood, TV Guide and MediaWeek joined forces and had a massive fan vote session called the Tubey Awards and they’ve recently announced their Tubey Award winners! The system works where fans vote on different categories of things that are television related and from what I understand, the votes were in the millions.

It’s rather telling, and yet not very surprising, what people are trying to tell the networks. Below are the top category winners from the 2008-09 season that folks voted on for the annual Tubey Awards.

Best Programming Trend:  Single camera sitcoms.

Here’s one we’ll love:

The Worst Programming Trend: “Too many non-scripted series.”  (Can you say Reality TV?  I knew you could!)  Another surprise top placer in this category was “Networks not aggressively programming Saturdays.”

Worst Renewals: According to Jim, Wife Swap and Scrubs were the top 3.

Best Programming Move: Holding back Lost (ABC) and 24 (Fox) and others until midseason.

Worst Programming Move: “ABC giving up on Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money”

Best Drama: was The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (Good move Fox.)  It looks like The Sarah Connor Chronicles won multiple categories!

There are a ton of other categories, too many to list here.  If you’re interested, check out Television Without Pity for a comprehensive listing of different categories.

Come back and let us know what you think!

Source: Media Week, Television Without Pity

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• The Dark Knight Tops 2009 DVD Critics Awards

ABC is hitting us with a bunch of new shows for their upcoming 2009-10 season.

The new shows include Cougar Town, The Deep End, Eastwick, Flash Forward, The Forgotten, Hank, Happy Town, The Middle, Modern Family, Shark Tank and V.

While shows like Better Off Ted, Castle, Scrubs and True Beauty will be falling in line with other mainstays of the network like The Bachelor, Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Ugly Betty and others.

I know that most of the shows mentioned are not of primary interest to the majority of Screen Rant readers, but we’re tossing them out there for everyone.

ABC of course stuck with their best rated scripted dramas of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy.

If a show is shown as having been picked up, but does not show in the below list, that means it is debuting later on in the 2009-10 season.

ABC’s fall prime time schedule is as follows (all times listed are Eastern):

Notes:  The Bachelor will air Monday nights from 8:00-10:00 p.m. after Dancing with the Stars has its run.  Scrubs and Better Off Ted will fill the 9:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. time slots.

The New Fall And Mid-Season Shows

The Deep End is a legal drama starring Matt Long, Ben Lawson, Billy Zane and Clancy Brown to name a few.

Is that a young Cylon Next to that Benton Fraser?

Eastwick is a TV version of The Witches of Eastwick starring Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jamie Ray Newman.  Of note, for the serious Due South fan, of which I am, Paul Gross will play Darryl Van Horne in Eastwick.  Paul Gross used to play Constable Benton Fraser on Due South and now I may have a reason to watch this show.   “Thank you kindly.”

Flash Forward is about a mysterious event that causes the entire world to black out, and during the black out,  humanity is given a glimpse of its near future.  Executive producers are David S. Goyer (co-writer of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) and Brannon Braga (24, Star Trek: Enterprise) and stars Joseph Fiennes, John Cho & Jack Davenport to name a few.

The Forgotten is a police drama from executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Happy Town looks like a crime drama mystery.  After a decade of peace this small town’s first crime since reveals dark truths about some familiar faces. From her short stint on Dollhouse, Amy Acker stars as Rachel Conroy.  (Watch out!  She’s a doll!)

V is the re-imagining of the 1980s miniseries about the world’s first encounter with an alien race with a seemingly friendly agenda.

The Comedies on the list are:

• Cougar Town with Courteney Cox.  (Oh hold me back.)
• Hank with Kelsey Grammer.  (I’ve enjoyed Grammer in the past.  Maybe)
• The Middle with Patricia Heaton. (Meh.)
• Modern Family with Ed O’Neill. (I just don’t have the time folks.)

Dropped and Forgotten

Cupid has been sent back to where he came from, while maybe Dirty Sexy Money was just too blatant for the mouse network.

Eli Stone and In the Motherhood are also gone and there was not enough love left to keep Pushing Daisies around.  The other casualties were Samantha Who? and The Unusuals.

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• Fall 2009 TV: What’s Premiering Tonight?
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – March 19th, 2009

It’s been an interesting week indeed.  Today I bring some DVD news about Star Trek: TOS, Pushing Daisies, Ugly Betty, Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights.  It’s all good!

I’ve also have a couple of bits of business news about Disney and its slow, creeping take over of the entertainment world!

REMINDER: Don’t forget, Friday night on The Sci-Fi Channel:  Stargate Continuum.  It’s a great movie.  Vic and I saw it last year with the cast of the show.  There was a great time had by all.

Let’s start the show with the numbers from the last week of television viewing:

Since many of you said you were interested in numbers for a lot of shows, well, I slapped in a lot of show! As you can see, American Idol trumped everyone yet again.  The first non-reality show, The Mentalist, was third on the list and then the shows scatter throughout from there!

Rank, Show, Millions of Viewers

Source:  TV By The Numbers

Star Trek TOS Coming To Blu-ray

The first season of Star Trek: The Original Series comes out on Blu-ray April 28 from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment. It’s a seven-disc set including all 29 first-season episodes and many special features.

It will have both newly enhanced and original special effects.  Also, an enhanced soundtrack and the original one.

Source:  Sci Fi Wire

Speaking of Star Trek

Jeri Ryan, who portrayed 7 of 9 on Star Trek: Voyager, will be playing a lawyer on Law & Order: SVU for a few episodes.

She’ll be playing attorney Patrice Larue on the April 7 episode, and will reprise the role in at least 2 other episodes.

She’s come a long way from her space faring ways!

Source:  TV Guide

Pushing Daisies News

For the fans desiring the fulfillment of seeing the last episodes of Pushing Daisies, well guess what?  Though you won’t get the final unseen episodes on TV, they will be included in the complete second season release on DVD and Blu-ray.  Hey!  The release date is my birthday:  July 21st.

Source:  EW.com

Ugly Betty

The final 3 episodes of Ugly Betty, which you have yet to see, will be returning to air after its surprise spring break.  Expect them to show up starting on May 7th.

Source:  EW.com

Friday Night Lights

NBC and DirecTV have come to terms and Friday Night Lights will be given 2 more seasons!  As you know, the two networks have worked out an agreement to share the costs of production, keeping the show on the air.  DirecTV airs it first, then NBC.

Something you should prepare yourself for is that it’s a show about high school.  Students do move on after graduating.  I just thought you should know.

Source:  E Online

Breaking Bad

A late breaking bit to add to my article here is that Breaking Bad, despite only being 4 episodes into its second season, has been picked up for a third season.

Source:  THR

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTS AND OTHER NOISE

ABC, ESPN and YouTube

The Leader of the Band, Disney, is eyeballing a deal that will put ABC and ESPN videos on YouTube.  This is all a plan that will help Google make YouTube a more commercial entity for them from the advertising that will ensue.

This means that Disney Media Networks will be able to sell advertising  attached to its content.  Oh lord, that means an ad about a Disney movie every few minutes.  Goody.

Google and Disney will be splitting the ad revenue generated from their partnership.

Starting next month, you’ll start seeing channels for ESPN, ABC Entertainment, ABC News, ABC Family and SOAPnet.

When I watch On Demand, CBS has an ad or two.  NBC, well, I don’t know.  They charge 99 cents on this venue that has mostly free content.  ABC, egads.  The ABC On Demand venue has just as many ads for their upcoming movies as they do ads on the network when it airs live.  The hard part is, it’s the same ad, over and over.  I hope they don’t do that with their online content.

Source:  Hollywood Reporter

Speaking Of Disney: Hulu

Huh?  Not only is Disney looking to spread out to YouTube, they’re also looking to buy an equity stake in Hulu.  Disney will probably look to distribute content to Hulu once this takes place.

The funny angle to this is that this is the cheapest route for Disney to get their content on Hulu, versus a direct licensing deal.

Crumbs… more ads on some Hulu content now.  I’m doomed!

Source:  THR

Guiding Light To End

I know you all probably have secretly scheduled this in your TiVo…  It’s OK, you don’t have to admit it!  All joking aside, the milestone this show represents warrants a little attention.

After 72 years, Guiding Light will be coming to an end.  SEVENTY-TWO years…  that was not a typo.

That comes out to 15,700 episodes that aired on radio and television.  It started out as a 15 minute radio program and just grew from there.

I know this will probably shock you, but the 72-year-old veteran show is getting dumped because of reality shows like Judge Judy and Dr. Phil which crank in better ratings and cost less to produce.  As it stands, the production company is looking at some other options to try and continue the show, like DirecTV or other avenues.

A few alums that ran across the show through the years:  Kevin Bacon, James Earl Jones, one of my favorite vampires – Chris Sarandon*, Christopher Walken and Billy Dee Williams – just to name a few.

Its final episode airs on Friday, September 18th.

I have to go now.  I’m going to go pray to my porcelain container after writing that Judge Judy and Dr. Phil helped destroy a television legacy.

*Does anyone know what I’m referencing when I call Chris Sarandon one of my favorite vampires?

Source:  NY Times

• Weekly TV Wrap Up – March 19th, 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – July 2nd 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 28th, 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 21st, 2009
• NBC 2009 Fall Premiere Dates Announced
• 2009 ABC Fall TV Line Up: Pushing Daisies A Casualty

Here’s the second post of our new regular feature: The Weekly TV Wrap Up.

The 2nd half of the 08-09 season is officially underway and I am pretty busy trying to watch so many of the new shows that have come out that my recorder is starting to smoke. This morning it said “EAS” and I had to reboot it. (I have no clue what EAS means.) I don’t think my recorder likes me anymore.

But with all the new shows coming up, there’s still news and events to report on. So let’s get this show on the road and get you caught up on some of the things going on behind the veil of our television glass.

Reminders:
1. The resident private eye / vampire, Mick St. John is back in repeats of Moonlight. Moonlight stars Alex O’Loughlin, Sophia Myles & Jason Dohring and will air on The Sci-Fi Channel, starting this Friday night, January 23rd.

2. Do you remember when aliens were taking people over and the infiltration was an insidious process that drove you nuts? If you’re thinking about the 2005 series, Invasion, yes, that’s what I mean. It too is going to get some air time in repeats on The Sci-Fi Channel starting this Friday, January 23rd. I liked the show when it was on. It starred William Fichtner, Eddie Cibrian, Mari Matchett and Lisa Sheridan (Whom I really enjoy watching!).

3. It never goes well when you ask your rag-tag fleet of surviving humans to accept an alliance with Cylons. And that is exactly what Admiral Adama is going to be finding out tomorrow night on Battlestar Galactica, in the episode titled “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”. Source: SciFi.com

News Tidbits:
4. Speaking of Battlestar Galactica, last Friday nights premiere episode did very well for NBC’s Sci-Fi Channel. At least as well as a sci fi show on Friday night is concerned. It brought in a total of 2.1 million total viewers. It ranked first in men 18-49 and men 25-54. Source: Media Week

5. CBS president Nina Tassler tossed out a few bones last week while talking to reporters that a pilot for the NCIS spinoff is happening. It will air as an episode of NCIS. That seems cost effective! Source: Variety.com

6. In that same chat, from item No. 5, Nina Tassler pointed out that though Eleventh Hour isn’t doing so good in the ratings department, they’re not ready to drop it yet. Rightfully so!

If you remember back in August we reported that Eleventh Hour was one of the most expensive shows ever made. $4 mil for the pilot and $2 mil per episode and they were committed up to at least 13 episodes. That’s why they aren’t throwing the towel in! It was a pricey gamble on an adaptation of a British mini-series. Source: Variety.com

7. If you’re a fan of NBC’s Chuck and Chevy Chase, you’ll be in heaven. Chevy Chase is guest starring in 3 episodes as a mega-billionaire tech mogul who is accused of stealing Chuck’s fathers ideas. Source: Hollywood Reporter

8. Speaking of Chuck, Scott Bakula has found himself a spot back on TV. He’ll be playing Zachary Levi’s dad in Chuck. His stint is scheduled to kick off for a few episodes in April. Source: EW.com,

9. The cast of Stargate: Universe continues to grow! They’ve added Justin Louis (Hidden Hills) to play Colonel Everett Young, the experienced Stargate team leader. Jamil Walker Smith (Hey Arnold) will play Sr. Sgt. Ronald Greer, a Marine with a temper. David Blue (Ugly Bette, Moonlight) will play Eli Wallace, a slacker genius. And finally, Brian J. Smith () will play Lt. Matthew Scott, the junior member of the Stargate team. Filming will start in the Spring with a targeted Fall 2009 launch. Source: SciFi Wire

10. NBC announced this last week the renewals for The Office, 30 Rock and The Biggest Loser for the 2009-2010 season. (How on this green Earth did Joelle actually end up staying. Egads!!!) Source: NBC

11. You keep asking about My Name Is Earl and at the moment, I’m thinking that no news good news? There has yet (At the time of my writing this article) to be any news as to NBC’s plans to renew My name Is Earl. As soon as I hear anything, you will know it. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t. Would they?

12. How bad is it when you get replaced by a cooking competition show? Ouch.

When Knight Rider closes out its ordered number of episodes, the reality cooking show Chopping Block will be taking its place. It will debut on Wednesday, March 11th at 8 p.m.. Talk about adding insult to injury. Source: Media Week

14. Bob May, the man who wore the “Robot” suit in the 1960’s sci fi show, Lost In Space, passed away last weekend. Our condolences to his family and friends. Incidentally, he was not the voice of Robot. May was just the power behind the flailing arms while Dick Tufeld voiced the Robot. In particular, one infamous phrase we all know and love, “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger, Will Robinson!” while May did all the flailing of his arms around! Source: Sci Fi Wire

15. As it stands, almost 7% of U.S. households will see “snow” when the “Digital Transition” kicks in on February 17th. Right now, there might be a delay in the transition, but as of right now, they seem to be moving along on schedule. Source: Media Week

Double-Talk Of The Week:
16. When asked about the dropped shows Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money, ABC’s President Steve McPherson says that they would have liked to air the end of those shows but “… because of the way the timing worked out, we weren’t able to“.

He said he wished they could have given the producers enough notice to write up finales. McPherson added that “For us, it was a frustration that we couldn’t find a larger audience – or that Nielsen couldn’t find a larger audience. I really love those shows. They delivered what they promised.”

Interestingly, it is being pointed out that the network did have sufficient time to give the show runners a heads up on making show ending episodes. If I were a guessing man, I’d say these shows probably aren’t coming back, even if they do have unaired episodes still sitting in the can. Source: EW.com

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• NBC’s ‘Chuck’ Will Start Streaming Soon
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• Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 28th, 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – July 30th, 2009
• Chuck Premiere Date Announced By NBC

All kinds of goodies took place this last week. Let’s get on with the tidbits of TV!

1. Bruce’s Public Service Announcement: Be aware that the season premiere of season 4.5 (Is that just not the most ridiculous thing ever?) of Battlestar Galactica that is airing this Friday on January 16th will run over by 3 1/2 minutes. That means you need to make the appropriate changes to whatever recording device you may employ, if that is indeed what you are doing. Me, I’m gonna be there live! Despite in-laws crawling all over my place, they’ve been warned. Back off when my show comes on. Go to sleep, go for a walk, go for a drive, or watch it with me, but git out of my way and don’t talk during my show! I take my BSG serious! Source: SciFi Wire

2. Some of the biggest news this last week was the Golden Globes awards. Here’s a list of Television Series wins that came away with some of that award glitter:

• Madmen beat out Dexter, House, In Treatment and True Blood for Best Series
• Anna Paquin (True Blood) took Best Performance by an Actress - Drama
• Gabriel Byrne (In Treatment) won Best Performance by an Actor – Drama
• 30 Rock (NBC) beat out Californication (SHOWTIME), Entourage (HBO), The Office (NBC) and Weeds (SHOWTIME) for Best – Musical Or Comedy
• Tina Fey (30 Rock) took away the Best Performance by an Actress – Musical Or Comedy award.
• Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) won the complimentary award for Best Performance by an Actor – Musical Or Comedy
• John Adams (HBO) won the Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television award.
• Laura Linney (John Adams) won it for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture
• Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television:
  Actress: Laura Dern (Recount on HBO)
  Actor: Paul Giamatti (John Adams on HBO)

Source: GoldenGlobes.org

3. If you’re a Faye Dunaway fan, keep an eye out. Dunaway is making a guest appearance on Grey’s Anatomy in February. Source: EW.com

4. Speaking of Grey’s Anatomy: Melissa George who played the rambunctious, self destructive Sadie has left the show. Tuesday was her last day as she is off to “Do something else”. Rumor on the street says it was a mutual decision between her and ABC. Some think the character was too flamboyant. Source: EW.com

5. Stephanie March will be reprising her role of Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot on the popular crime drama show, Law & Order: SVU. Right now, she’s slated for 6 episodes. If her return is a success, will they consider keeping her on? Source: NBC

6. Pushing Daisies star Swoosie Kurtz is slated to make an appearance on NBC’s Hero’s this spring. Her character, Millie, will be on at least one episode. What’s not known is whether Kurtz’s role will become a recurring role. Depends on audience reaction I guess. Source: TV Guide

7. Remember Laura Vandervoort who played Kara on Smallville? I thought I’d follow up (Not stalking, really) on what she’s been up to since her Kara days. She’s had roles in The Jazzman, due out this year; she played Marcie Cutler in Out of Control, due out this year; Frankie in Damage that is due out in 2010 and presently she’s working on her latest project: Into the Blue 2, also due out in 2010. She keeps everyone apprised of her whereabouts on her website, lauravandervoort.net. She has a surprising versatility to her photo portfolio. Sources: IMDB,

8. Survivor castaways have been announced and the new trick this year is they will be split up into 2 teams immediately and 2 folk will be left behind before anyone even gets to know each other. Ouch. The kid who was always picked last for kick ball will probably be left behind again! The motley rice eating, bug crunching bunch ranges in age from 19 to 53. Source: CBS

9. Supernatural and Smallville kick off the 2nd half of their seasons on January 15th.

10. Stargate: Atlantis generated some great numbers for the Sci-Fi Channel, bringing in an estimated 1.15 million adults between the ages of 25 and 54. The highest rating since their season 4 finale. Source: SyFy Portal

11. John Glover (You may remember him as Lionel Luthor on Smallville) is joining the cast of Heroes. He’ll be playing the part of Sylar’s biological father. He’ll show up about 5 episodes into the 2nd half of the season. Source: E Online

12. Everyone is reporting the hottest news this week that Prison Break will be canceled, or more to the point, be allowed to run its course and end gracefully. For whatever reason, they may add an additional hour or two to fully complete the endless story of the chain gang constantly having to escape something. Of course, if you’re a faithful Screen Rant follower, you knew this already since we reported it back in November. Stick with us… we’ll keep you on top of things.

• Ratings: ‘Smallville’ Flying High, ‘FlashForward’ Losing Viewers
• Neil Patrick Harris Returns Emmys To Glory
• First Look at True Blood’s Vampire Queen
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – February 26th, 2009
• Serinda Swan Is One Of Four Temptresses In Tron 2.0
• Smallville Ratings Are Improving: Best In A Year

Welcome! This is the first rendition of Screen Rants Weekly TV Wrap Up. This is where we pass on some of the TV news we come across, keeping you on the edge of news and updates. Our regularly scheduled day will be Thursday mornings, so be sure to check in every week with us.

When there’s TV news, it will be here!

1. Sci-Fi’s Eureka has a new character coming on board in the form of Tess Fontana (Jamie Ray Newman), who’s joining Global Dynamics. The 2nd half season will debut later this year. Source: SCI FI Wire

2. Sci-Fi Channel has ordered a second season of Ghost Hunters International and a sixth season for Ghost Hunters. Additionally, their new college based series, Ghost Hunters: Next Generation is headed at us with a 2010 premiere. Source: Sci-Fi Wire

3. In case you didn’t notice, Pushing Daisies has been dropped before it got to finish its run. (Is it that bad?) And at this time, there is no set air date for the remaining episodes of the brightly colored show. Sorry gang. Source: EW.com

4. The green-screen based Sci-Fi show Sanctuary has done well enough to be picked up for season number 2 with 13 episodes. Source: ENEWSI.com

5. Here’s a list of People’s Choice Awards winners from TV

• TV Drama: House M.D.
• TV Comedy: Two and a Half Men
• TV Animated Comedy: The Simpsons
• Sci-fi/Fantasy Show: Heroes
• Reality Show: Dancing With the Stars (Bruce admits… great eye candy if you have to sit through it)
• Game Show: Deal or No Deal (Why does everyone blow it on this show?)
• Male TV Star: Hugh Laurie (He’s the man! A sarcastically honest man.)
• Female TV Star: Christina Applegate
• Scene-Stealing Guest Star: Robin Williams, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• TV Drama Diva: Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Johnson, The Closer
• New TV Comedy: Gary Unmarried
• New TV Drama: The Mentalist
• Online Sensation: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (OK, it’s not TV, but I could get this on my TV… does that count?)

Source: pcavote.com

6. REMINDER: Friday Night Lights is back on NBC on January 16th!

7. Eleventh Hour will have a new agent for a few episodes. FBI trainee Felix will be joining Agent Young, played by Omar Benson Miller. Source: EW.com

8. The Unit (One of Bruce’s favs) is getting a new team member in the form of Wes Chatham playing a recurring role of Sam. He’ll show up sometime in March in a real whopper of an action packed episode. Hmm… when aren’t they? Source: EW.com

9. Don’t forget, in case you’ve missed any of the 1,000 ads that The Sci-Fi Channel has been running, tonight is the series finale of Stargate: Atlantis, and the season finale of Sanctuary.

• Syfy Announces Premiere Dates For Stargate Universe & Others
• Upcoming 2009 TV Season Finales
• Syfy Has Historic Month Of October Ratings
• 2009 CBS Fall TV Line Up: No ‘Eleventh Hour’
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – July 30th, 2009
• Sanctuary: Ashley Is Dead