TNT is pulling out all the stops for its launch of their Timothy Hutton-driven action-thriller series "Leverage" (premieres on Sunday 12/07 @ 9:00pm). They've got a major press tour (more on that, Friday) and they're even launching an online game on Sunday where players can win $100,000. We haven't seen an effort this coordinated in a while. Anybody out there using Amazon Video-on-Demand for TiVo? Supposedly you will be getting HD streaming sometime soon. Also,......

Oops, she did it again: Were you one of the 3.7 million people who watched Britney on Sunday? That "documentary" blew all of MTV's other shows out of the water, viewershipwise, other than their Video Music Awards broadcasts. Happy Birthday Britney. What's all this nonsense about TiVo guilt? It's called the "Clear" button, people, use it and get on with your lives, lives that are obviously too busy to watch all the TV you TiVo'd.......

The finale of one of the best programs to ever hit the tube happens tonight at 10:00pm on FX. "The Shield" has been a pioneering show from the beginning - by pushing the limits, it paved the way for every other gritty show on cable that network TV has yet to successfully emulate. "The Shield" has never been a "police-procedural" show, it has never been repetitive or cookie-cutter, you will never see "Robot Chicken" do......

A couple season finales happen this Sunday on HBO. Ironically, "True Blood" finishes its first season on the weekend that the film "Twilight" premieres. Somehow the hype machine has ensured that "Twilight" will be a big hit this weekend even though it is nothing more than a teen romance movie with marginal acting and poor writing. In contrast, "True Blood" has been a rollercoaster with some great character development and performances, ensuring that we will......

Dear CW fans, apparently none of you are watching the network on Sundays so management is yanking all of it's original content from that night ("In Harm's Way", "Valentine", "Easy Money", etc. - you know, the shows you've never heard of) and replacing them with repeats of "Jericho" and "The Drew Carey Show" which will somehow result in higher ratings(?) because as we all know, we don't get enough rerun content today, especially of shows......

Ladies and gentlemen, if you need but one reason to watch the updated 90210 allow me to give one to you: No other prime time drama offers such probing insight into the world of high school lacrosse. And if that doesn't do it, how about cat fights, new and old? We pick up this week exactly where we stood last week, on the porch of the ballooned and be-ribboned Wilson home, where Annie's Sour Sixteen......

President-elect Barack Obama's interview on Sunday's "60 Minutes" garnered the venerable news magazine its highest ratings in nearly a decade. NBC should have got him to do a cameo on "My Own Worst Enemy". You might occasionally get a celebrity tidbit from the TV Junkie, but that's not our thing. If that's what you're really going for then bookmark Viewzi.com, which tomorrow will launch it's Celebrity Gossip View, just to make it even easier to......

In the battle of the November sweeps, CBS is ahead (will Letterman now stop saying nobody is watching his network?) but all the networks, and let's be really progressive here and call The CW a network, are down from 8 to 24% compared to a year ago (with The CW as the biggest loser). Oh yeah, and hey, do you remember the SAG, that Screen Actors' Guild thingy, and how they still don't have a......

It's Thursday so it's got to be all about NBC, right? First of all, you've got Jan (Melora Hardin) from "The Office" going off to Broadway to do "Chicago", then you've got Jennifer Aniston (pictured, right) guest-starring on "30 Rock" (a triumphant return to NBC-Thursdays?), and then we see that NBC finally cancelled the oft-maligned but truly terrible, Christian Slater series, "My Own Worst Enemy" along with the equally terrible "Lipstick Jungle". The TV Junkie......

Despite how much some people might despise the show, "American Idol" has organized a very capable charity with its "Idol Gives Back" event. The event, which was held in April, resulted in the donation of over $64 million to six domestic and international charities including The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Malaria No More; Children's Health Fund; U.S. programs of Save the Children; Children's Defense Fund; and Make It Right, Brad Pitt's......

I distinctly remember the detention bad-boy turned "gourmet" chef (he made grilled cheese) tell Naomi he didn't play games in last week's episode, but she's a girl who only changes her hairstyle, not her stripes, so it's games, games, games for the kids of West Bev. And we're not talking Candyland. The games begin when Naomi sees Annie and Ethan playing seven minutes in heaven in the complete un-privacy of a bio classroom at West......

With very few TV news gems today, it should be noted that Tony Dow, the Beaver's brother Wally on "Leave It To Beaver", is having a figurative sculpture shown at the Louvre. In other news, no good deed goes unpunished as evidenced by the promotion of Charlie Collier to president of cable network AMC. Collier, as VP and GM, was responsible for pushing the network to take on the scripted series' "Mad Men" and "Breaking......

With election night drama over, we are left only with the depression that end-of-season TV brings. Peppered left and right by "only X episodes left!" messaging, we're already amassing vast quantities of DVDs to get us through T-giving and the holidays. What can we look forward to other than next season with it's dialed in premieres of "Lost" (January 21st - back on Wednesdays) and "24" with a two-hour seventh season "prequel" on November 23rd......

Looks like HBO will buy a documentary on president-elect Barack Obama and will air it in 2009. The documentary was produced by actor Edward Norton's production company, Class 5 Films, and was bought "in the seven-figure range". A nice bet by Norton paid off evidently. A whole bunch of premieres air tonight and late night TV looks pretty good too. The TV Junkie Plan: Tonight - "Whale Wars" (pictured right), "The Soup", Leno, Conan; Saturday......

Barack Obama's win on Tuesday means that not only will there be a changing of the guard at the White House, but entire new teams of television reporters will be heading to Washington D.C. as well. Evidently reporters who did exceptionally well on the death march of a campaign trail will be rewarded with coveted D.C. assignments, but at this point the networks aren't issuing any specifics. The TV Junkie Plan: "The Office", "30 Rock",......

In the viewing wars of election night, evidently ABC came out on top - a network we never even considered viewing - so tell us, did you watch ABC last night and why? While ABC scored 65 million viewers vs CNN's 12.3 million, CNN tells TechCrunch that they had record web traffic of over 27 million unique visitors and over 276 million page views. The TV Junkie Plan: "The New Adventures of Old Christine", "MythBusters",......

Since the CW opted not to fully pre-empt last night's 90210 we won't either, although after viewing it via DVR as recorded from local CW affiliate KTLA, it seems Angelenos were left with more "Secrets" than lies last night. In fact, "Secrets and Lies" was as holey as a hunk of Swiss cheese (but boy, what a night, huh?). Memo to CW: Go ahead and pre-empt. We know you wanted to. Things start of with......

In case you've been in a coma for the last two years, here's some breaking news: today is Election Day. Even Palestinian terrorists/freedom fighters are watching coverage (see right) so get locked and loaded "my friends". As you arrive home and turn on the tube get ready to be assaulted by caffeine- (and probably cocaine-) fueled pundits of every psycho stripe. We've got some suggestions below of how to navigate through this mess of an......

Senator Barack Obama's Wednesday night appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" scored the show's biggest audience ever. Let's see what tonight's appearance by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin does for ABC's "20/20" as well as tomorrow night's Senator John McCain cameo effect on NBC's "Saturday Night Live". Some good music tonight on late night TV. Sunday brings the season finale of HBO's "Little Britain: USA" (pictured right). The TV Junkie Plan: Tonight......

Douchebag: "Would you like to NOT go to the dance with me?" Annie: "Sure. I'd rather learn how to drive with the help of my State Farm booklet!" | Photo: Scott Humbert/The CW Weeeeeee're baaaaaaack! After a two week hiatus the sparkly new 90210 returned to the airwaves last night with an episode centered on the time-honored American tradition known as Homecoming, which celebrates the...uh...well, you see, it pays homage to...err, well...hmmm. Okay, well,......

With less than a week to go before the election, Barack Obama is taking the time to appear on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" tomorrow (Wednesday) night. Is this the official referendum that the so-called fake news show is in fact a leading source of news with an intelligent and politically aware viewership? We're talking about ourselves here, of course, and it's always necessary to stroke the ego. There ain't much on TV tonight - if......

Tonight Michelle Obama will be making an appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show" - what affect will she and fellow Obama advocate, Chris Rock, have on the right-leaning Jay Leno? Definitely tune in to check it out. Otherwise, TV is slipping into a lot of reruns right now, a kind of a mid-season lull. ----- ABC is announcing drastic cost-cutting measures which means executives fly coach, fewer banquets, and other intolerable hardships. ----- The TV Junkie......

It's a Jon Hamm/"Mad Men" weekend: on Saturday, the man who plays Don Draper will be hosting "Saturday Night Live" and Sunday brings us the season finale of the mult-Emmy-winning show from AMC. Both are a must watch. TV icons Ron Howard, Andy Griffith, and Henry Winkler recreated their roles in a pro-Obama piece on Funny or Die, that's right, Opie opines. Also, Comedy Central bailed on their German channel after it's high profile debut......

The rumor of our favorite serial killer series, "Dexter", getting picked up for more seasons turns out to be true. Showtime bought two more seasons of the Peabody Award winning show (take that Colber(t)). Shooting of season four begins in the spring of '09 in Los Angeles. [Hey Showtime, where's the love? You sent me no screeners this season.] "30 Rock" season premiere is now online. If you're watching TV and are seeing coverage of......

Other than the Sarah Palin edition of "SNL" last weekend, there weren't too many bright spots for NBC in terms of viewership. FOX and ABC didn't fare much better and of all the big networks only CBS had more viewers last week than the week before. Those waves of pilots and new programming haven't paid off at all, perhaps because everyone is in the movie theater watching "Beverly Hills Chihuahua". "Top Gear" fans, if you're......

CBS Interactive is up to a lot lately and has created a mash-up for online viewers who will be able to chat, vote on polls, and throw virtual crap at their screens. The 10:00pm slot is kind of busy tonight but it appears to be a lot of crap, an exception being the utter insanity of Animal Planet's "Living with the Wolfman" - you'll have to see it to believe it. The 11:00pm slot brings......

In case you missed the Sarah Palin rap on "SNL", you have another chance to see it via NBC online. Gotta love Amy Poehler rocking the joint even at 14 months pregnant. The TV Junkie Plan: very slim pickins tonight so with only Monday Night Football as an alternative we're going to watch some DVDs and review them for you. 8:00pm Chuck NBC - The agents must attend Sarah's high-school reunion to prevent the sale......

Supposedly Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will make an appearance on tomorrow's "Saturday Night Live" - Lorne Michaels really knows how to ruin a good thing. I can see where he's going though, since evidently just getting a Republican to show up on your show after making fun of them for weeks pays off as David Letterman learned with a spike in viewership of last night's face-to-face with John McCain that trounced Jay Leno's......

Gob from "Arrested Development", aka Will Arnett, has struck a deal with Fox to create his own show. His absence from the small screen will finally come to an end and here's to hoping that the show won't turn into some kind of generic garbage. Hubby Amy Poehler is also slated to get her own show on NBC sometime after their first child is born. I dunno, both parents are actors with starring roles on......

Be sure to "Hack the Debate" tonight (check out today's LAist interview with Current TV about this Twitter partnership) while watching McCain and Obama slug/slog it out (again). Good news is that David Letterman favorite Amy Sedaris is working on a TV pilot along with some "Strangers With Candy" alumni. She was on Letterman last night and was great as usual, sorry if you missed it. Tonight brings the debut of David Alan Grier's "Chocolate......