The TV Zone

The Canadians are invading! "Flashpoint's" Back in January...

Honestly, you need a guide to keep track of all the TV program stuff that has come down in, oh, the last five hours or so.

Hence, here's your guide.

Let's get straight to it:

"Primetime:" Let's start with this ABC mag, which will morph yet again into something that woulda caused howls years ago but now will barely raise eyebrows - so degraded has this once fine franchise (that's popped on and off the schedule so many times I've lost count) become. A new January edition entitled "Primetime: What Would You Do?" will actually stage FAKE STUFF, or in the presser's words, it "sets up everyday scenarios and then captures people's reaction...Often people speculate on how they might act in a difficult situation, but this series looks at how they actually do in the face of everyday dilemmas that test their character and values."
I dunno. This one makes me queasy.

"Kings" has a trailer that NBC has just posted, and you can go here to watch, or head on down south to the jump...where 'Zone has posted. (A Target ad accompanies, so beware cookies..) Does "Kings" - with the incomparable Ian McShane - have an airdate yet? Not sure but per reports, could get the post-"Super Bowl" catbird seat for launch. We'll see.

"Flashpoint's" back! On Fridays, Jan. 9 at 9. I liked this writers'-strike-inspired-Canadian-import when it arrived last summer on CBS, and then got kinda sick of its extremely violent and twisted storylines. What's happened to our neighbors to the north? Have they learned how to make American TV!!?

"Harper's Island" has a start-date. The CBS mid-season show (with the best and yet most incomprehensible trailer) will air as an "event" starting Thursday April 9 (at 10) and end July 2. "HI" is set on some island in Puget Sound, and it's not exactly an island you wanna hang with. Show starts with a wedding and then, murder. Someone is dispatched week, by week by week, until...Someone finally calls the cops. Just kidding, but honestly. Why don't they just LEAVE?

Ashton Kutcher is back! What is it with this guy? A game show factory must be churning in his brain at all times. And as proof, his new show, for CBS,"Game Show in My Head," will launch Jan. 3 on (get this) a Saturday. Saturdays, of course, have been the dead zone on network TV for a few years now, so this is a notable launch. Show's kinda like a "Candid Camera," in which people perform amazing tasks before "unsuspecting" people to win 50 Large. (I know no more.) Joe Rogan hosts. Kutcher cashes the checks from CBS.

"Eleventh Hour" just got an order for five more episodes, per Marc Berman of Mediaweek. This'll bring the show up to 18 and carry it through January, at least. Still...one wonders. Has it really held on to the "CSI" lead-in? Show averages only around 11 million viewers, which is a seven million plunge off of the "CSI" cliff.

"Cupid" finally lands in March. You remember "Cupid," right TV fans? It's the Bobby Cannavale dramedy produced by "V Mars" Rob Thomas, and it's about this Roman God, who's sent down to earth and has to get 100 couples together before he can return to Mt. Olympus. I know. I know. It sounds ghastly. But maybe it's not. Anyway, airdate is March 24, at 10 (a Tuesday.)

"Castle," with the fab Nathan Fillion as a novelist who suddenly finds that a serial murderer is copying the murders in his books. That'll go Mondays March 9 at 10...Also, that new Amber Tamblyn cop show got a slot too - "The Unusuals" will go Wednesdays, April 8 at 10.

"Caprica" gets a full series order. Yes! Big big news. This prequel to "Battlestar Gallactica" was supposed to be only a two-hour movie this winter and then maybe, maybe, maybe Sci Fi would decide whether to go to full series. They've decided; it just got a full 20 hour order and will launch next year. Don't yet have an exact date. "BG" fans who want to know more, please head on down to the jump, where I've posted the press release.

"Chicken Soup for the Soul:" And sports fans, this. We've all read the books, and now it's coming to the tube. Dick Clark Productions will do the honors. Not sure how this will be translated to the small screen (and doesn't Oprah already ladle out all the chicken soup we can handle?) And the press release didn't get into details. But it's comin.'

"Caprica:" Now we'll learn how it all began...

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