DarkUFO's got the first four minutes and change from Tuesday's Lost premiere, if you dare spoil yourself in the home stretch. The footage was sent in a flash drive to a couple hundred lucky sweepstakes winners who got roughly five minutes of exclusive cuddle time with the clip before all of us on the internet could access it. I'm trying to stay strong...just a few more days! [DarkUFO]
Jay Leno may have tried to put ConanGate to bed yesterday with a cool, defensive appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show but there were two other entertainment personalities who weren't willing to let him get off that easily. Click through for the clips of Rosie O'Donnell ripping into the Tonight Show host (after lip-synching to Robert Palmer) and Jimmy Kimmel's own digs, as well as the rest of last night's after hours highlights.
Before the Jay Leno Show premiered in September, Joan Rivers used a few public appearances to slam Johnny Carson's successor's move into primetime: "I think it's brilliant that Leno is at 10 p.m. because America can get bored more easily and go to sleep earlier." But when it came to ConanGate last week and NBC's mishandling of the Tonight Show, the comedienne, who has her own complicated history with late night, was conspicuously quiet. Until Vanity Fair caught up with her at Sundance.
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Another one of Joss Whedon's viewer-deficient, cult favorites dies tonight with Dollhouse's epic series finale. Star Eliza Dushku already presented the full autopsy to the Los Angeles Times yesterday (poor time slot, not enough advertising, Fox wanted a different show than Whedon had pitched), so let's forget the coulda/shoulda/wouldas and just celebrate Dollhouse's illustrious two-season life in tonight's epic 2020 reunion between Echo (Dushku) and Sierra (Dichen Lachman).
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· After considering several potential television projects, Maria Bello has committed to star in and executive produce HBO's upcoming series Emergency Sex. Bello will share EP duties with Russell Crowe and Oscar-winning scribe Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), the latter of whom will provide the script. The drama will be based on the book Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell on Earth, about the larger-than-life exploits of expatriate nongovernment-organization workers who find their sanity tested in the face of atrocities, loneliness and primal desires. [Reuters]
NBC tells The Jay Leno Show to get Lost, Fox supersizes Idol, and more TV Bites after the jump.
Back in 2008, ABC's The Bachelor decided to import a stud from overseas to headline the franchise's twelfth iteration, The Bachelor: London Calling. Matt Grant was textbook handsome with capped teeth, a set of abs hard enough to grind roses into potpourri, a dreamy career title ("financier") and even better, an adorable British accent. Perfect picnic dates came and went, and then in a shocking twist, Grant sucker-punched his adoring female fan base by proposing to Shayne Lamas, the then-22-year-old "actress" and daughter of Lorenzo Lamas, instead of pharmaceutical-rep-next-door Chelsea. Within weeks, the couple broke up after allegations that Shayne stepped out on her Brit Bachelor and Grant was never to be heard from again. That is, until Radar tracked him down and paid him for some shocking confessions about the producer manipulations, teeth bleaching and binge drinking that went on inside the Bachelor mansion.
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It's a good thing that the rotating celebrities who join American Idol's judging panel are adding a lick of spontaneity to these lame-ass weeks. I didn't know what to expect from either Neil Patrick Harris or Joe Jonas, besides droll one-liners from the former and postnatal cries from the latter, and get this: One of these dudes pulled through! He was entertaining and articulate and human-seeming! But you'll have to click ahead into our countdown of the night's three best highlights to find out who, if your love-worn Camp Rock bedsheets can handle it.
The president's State of the Union address coverage may have eaten up The Jay Leno Show last night, but there was plenty of other soothing late night viewing to be had. The most impressive was a parody trailer that Mel Gibson premiered on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which impressively showcased binge eating, illiteracy and Snuggie rage. That moment, as well as the others you may have missed while super-gluing that broken Sundance sculpture back together, after the jump.
· Fox has greenlit another Ron Howard pilot. This project, a single-camera workplace comedy set at an Internal Revenue Service district office, was initially pitched by the Arrested Development executive producer in September as a multicam. The Office's Brent Forrester will pen the script and receive EP credit along with Howard, Brian Grazer and David Nevins. [THR]
Michael Jackson's children consider the Grammys, The Bachelor schedules a wedding, and more TV Bites after the jump.
Unsurprising: ABC pulled the plug on Ugly Betty. Somewhat surprising: They also lowered the final season's episode count from 22 to 20. Genuinely surprising: I'm upset. Whether or not you believe America Ferrera's starmaking series withered in its third season, you must admit that Betty was a singular presence -- and not just because its one of the only telenovela-based series to work as an American reboot. Its swiftness, glut of popcult references, and quick-winking camp will be sorely missed. We explore the saddest reason for the show's demise (with video) after the jump.
With only 24 hours until The Oprah Winfrey Show airs the first interview with Jay Leno since NBC's sloppy Tonight Show mishandling, Harpo Productions has finally released a video preview of the segment. Surprisingly, a laid back Leno admits that calling Conan during the late night bloodbath did not seem like the right thing to do. (But wrestling the 11:35 PM time slot from Conan's hands did?) Click through to see the entire 40 second clip and decide whether Leno is still NBC's Maritime Disaster Hero or the Hitler of Late Night.
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American Idol was so caught up in guest-judges Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry last night that it forgot to inundate us with hundreds of delusional contestants! A real shame, as we all watch American Idol to see people with learning disabilities shunned. L.A. ended up giving us a few great candidates for Top 24 consideration and one slam to Kara DioGuardi's integrity that knew "No Boundaries," indeed.
Fans should have known that only a strong, Latina triple-threat might break How I Met Your Mother's Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) of his womanizing ways. In an upcoming March episode of the sitcom, Jennifer Lopez will guest star as Anita Appleby, a self-help author enlisted by Robin to get Barney to shed his Bro Code (perhaps in favor of gelled hair and flashy music videos parodying his paparazzi-plagued lifestyle?). [THR]
NBC may have passed the mighty Tonight Show baton last week, but there were other late night milestones to celebrate in last night's programming, like Jimmy Kimmel's seventh anniversary of employing his family members, 50 Cent's crossover into the Sundance and Smart Water demographic, and Mel Gibson's eighteenth day without a cigarette. If there was ever a chance that Jay Leno would die at the hand of a guest, on-air, it would have happened in last night's segment with Gibson. After the jump, those clips and the other moments you missed.
· Only days after Conan O'Brien retired his post as Tonight Show host and presumably put his career with the network to bed, NBC has picked up an hourlong pilot from the comedian's production company, Conaco. The project, known ironically as Justice, "follows an ex-Supreme Court justice who quits the Court to start his own legal practice." O'Brien, John Eisendrath, Jeff Ross and David Kissenger are set to executive produce. As part of O'Brien's massive settlement with NBC, Conaco was to continue working with NBC Universal through the end of development season. [THR]
The Jersey Shore stars inch back towards MTV, Julianne Moore gets some pilot love, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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