Kelsey Grammer stars in "Boss" which premieres tonight on Starz. --- We've posted our podcast with WTFpod creator and comedian Marc Maron. --- News items include DirecTV in fight with Fox, "Conan" vid clips, and more + The TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan. Saturday is a wasteland. more ›

Actor Andy Whitfield, who starred in the television series Spartacus: Blood & Sand, died Sunday following an 18-month-long battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 39. more ›

NBC is picking up full seasons of "The Event", "Law & Order: Los Angeles", and "Outsourced". This will hopefully let the producers of "The Event" even out some rough spots in the plot and bring it to its full potential. Obviously "LOLA" was going to get picked up as the network is so beholden to Dick Wolf regardless of how meh its portrayal of LA is. more ›

Weekend Edition more ›

Comedian, Doug Williams just finished his fourth season as Executive Producer & Host of "Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-Up" which airs on Starz. He has appeared on such TV shows as HBO’s "The Mind of the Married Man," Comedy Central’s "Premium Blend," and is a favorite on BET where his first one-hour special aired, and is a regular on Club Comic View. He is also executive producer on the talk show "Way Black When." more ›

Yesterday we noted a Variety article that printed viewership numbers for last Friday's premiere of Starz' "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" and stated that the show didn't perform as well as peer network premieres. more ›

Word has it that several of the networks (perhaps the one walking away with fewer or no awards) are in talks with our friends at the Paley Center to produce an alternative to the Emmys. more ›

Adam Scott is one of those actors that you always recognize but can't always quite place. He's worked all over film and television for the last fifteen years, but it's only in the last few that people have started to put name to face. For me, he's as good a working actor as we have right now. His breakout role in Step Brothers -- where he repeatedly stole the movie out from under Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly -- was the funniest supporting turn in recent memory (see here and here for proof). His latest film, The Vicious Kind, just opened in limited release. LAist recently had a chance to speak with him. more ›

The Internet is abuzz today with promotion of HBO's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" to air this Sunday. Some writer's are pointing out that the show doesn't address any of the problems going on in Africa these days (AIDS, war, famine, rape, pillaging of natural resource) - instead it depicts a laid-back and idyllic place with only quaint soap opera-esque concerns. more ›

Tonight marks the end of "Battlestar Galactica", for about 20 years until the geeks of the future resurrect it like they did the now-campy 1970s version. Some have complained that this final season swung the show onto a science-fiction track that was too science-fiction-y but the show had to return to its roots, its core, before wandering off into the cosmos. more ›

Like it or not, this weekend is all about Part I of the season premiere of "24" (FOX, Sunday @ 8pm). Kiefer did a good job on today's "Morning Edition" on NPR and will be on Letterman tonight. As far as we're concerned there ain't jack but Jack on this Sunday. This doesn't mean we won't be keeping an eye on the Golden Globes, but all reports have it that the awards ceremony will be "subdued". more ›

What's all this about Jeremy Piven dropping out of David Mamet's Broadway play, "Speed-the-Plow" due to a high mercury count from eating too much sushi? Mamet expressed doubts about the diagnosis. more ›

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 eagerly await its return. more ›

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. more ›

Comedian Doug Williams is co-creator and host of "Martin Lawrence Presents: 1st Amendment Standup" which airs at 10:00pm on Wednesdays (tonight) on Starz. more ›

You just can't keep an undead cable network down: TechCrunch has reported that The WB has been resurrected as TheWB.com, which launched today. The site will act as a source for all the TV shows that originated on The WB and has a number of interesting features. While one might argue with TechCrunch's assertion that TheWB.com is now a competitor to Hulu.com, they really do have a pretty awesome search engine that will hunt down TV show episodes that feature specific words and phrases. Any network website should jump on that action. more ›

NBC will be getting more than $1 billion in ad revenue from the Olympics this year. They've already sold off 85% of their inventory at a cost of $750,000 per 30-second spot. Looks like the network is looking to break a different kind of record. more ›

I dunno what's up but the 10:00pm and late night slots seem to have a lot going on. Lewis Black has a new show with a new format on Comedy Central tonight and he's on Letterman as well, kudos to Lewis! more ›

[The Junkie's been sick for a few days but we're back] LAist has some great coverage of the Project Runway finale tonight on BRAVO @ 10:00pm so I'm not even going to touch that. If you can't stand the fashion tension, you can always switch over to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Meeting broadcast on KLCS and your tension will be released utterly. more ›

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? more ›

From when the polls open until they close, there will be one cable outlet showing non-stop Arnold Schwarzenegger, at no cost to the incumbent Governor. Encore Action, channel 532 if you have DirecTV, will be having an Arnold Marathon today with a nice little rotation of Terminator, T2, and Conan The Destroyer. Interesting day to play these fine films all day and all night. Encore is owned by Starz, which is owned by Liberty... more ›