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The Greatest TV Shows Of The Noughties?
Lists, lists and more lists emerging as the year and the decade draw to a close.
There are many opinions about which shows have shaped the last ten years of television.
The Sunday Age on the weekend noted: The Sopranos, The Office, Australian Idol, Big Brother and Lost.
“Big Brother debuted in the Netherlands in 1999. By 2001 we had our own version, and we could not believe our eyes. For the first time we were seeing not just real people on television, but real people like us. Despite furious denial in some …
WGA Awards 2009 / AFI Most Outstanding
Awards season is certainly hotting up in the US.
The Writer’s Guild of America has announced the best of the bunch in television writing for 2009.
Mad Men, 30 Rock and The Office are multiple nominees while Modern Family and Glee are both up for Comedy and New Series awards.
Amongst the other New Series contenders are Nurse Jackie, Hung and The Good Wife –totalling four of five shows to air in Australia on TEN.
In Animation it is a five horse race between writers of The Simpsons.
Amongst the television nominees are:
DRAMA SERIES
Breaking Bad – …
Underbelly heads to US cable
Cable network DirecTV has picked up the US rights to all three Seasons of Underbelly to air uncut, commercial free and in HD.
It begins screening next February, directly following the season four finale of Friday Night Lights, to air on the 101 Network, which has 18.3m subscribers.
Oddly, the network has decided to run the series from S2, then 1 and then 3, presumably in an attempt to have linear seasons. But delivery of S3 throws that idea out the window anyway…
“In addition to the hit series we have acquired domestically, we …
Airdate: Mercy
Seven is set to screen new US medical drama Mercy.
The show, which premieres in the US next week, focuses on three nurses. Veronica Callahan (Taylor Schilling, pictured centre) has returned to Mercy Hospital from a tour in Iraq. Jamie Lee Kirchner plays Sonia (right) and Michelle Trachtenberg (left) plays rookie nurse Chloe.
The three will navigate the daily traumas and personal dramas inside the hospital and out.
Behind the scenes are executive producers/writers are Liz Heldens (Friday Night Lights, Boston Public), Gretchen Berg & Aaron Harberts (Pushing Daisies) and director Adam Bernstein …
Returning: Friday Night Lights
The third series of US drama Friday Night Lights will air on Arena in October. The highly praised series is a critics’ favourite for its realistic portrayal of Middle America and its sensitive portrayal of its central characters.
Coming back after winning the State Championship, the Panthers will need all the help they can get once the next football season arrives.
Season 3, which aired in the US last October, kicks off as Tami’s first major decision as principal of Dillon High stirs up controversy, Tyra is advised that she may not be …
Home & Away actor lands FOX series
Another Aussie actor is set to make his name in a new US drama, greenlit by the FOX network.
Former Home and Away actor Nicholas Bishop, will appear in Past Life, a 13-episode series about investigators who try to resolve their clients’ current woes by solving the mysteries encountered in their previous lives.
Bishop will appear as a former NYPD detective who work together with Kelli Giddish (All My Children), who plays a gifted psychologist.
Developed by David Hudgins (Friday Night Lights), it also features Ravi Patel and Richard Schiff.
The series is described as …
NBC renews Heroes & Medium.
NBC has unveiled programming for its all-important Fall season, announcing new medical action-dramas, Trauma and Mercy, the one-hour dramedy Parenthood, starring Peter Krause and Maura Tierney, and, for February, the apocalyptic series Day One.
In comedy, 100 Questions for Charlotte Payne and Community featuring Chevy Chase and Joel McHale received orders. Southland and Parks and Recreation, starring Amy Poehler, received 13-episode orders. Parks was the comedy rushed in to replace Kath & Kim.
Heroes also received a pickup.
UPDATED: Patricia Arquette’s Medium, although initially reported as receiving a pickup on Sunday morning, is expected, …
NBC renews Friday Night Lights
NBC has ordered two more seasons of Friday Night Lights, the critically acclaimed, if struggling, drama set before a Texan high school football team.
The approval is for two seasons of 13 episodes each to premiere on cable network DirecTV with a second screening on NBC. The deal follows a ‘roadblock’ in negotiations between the two media companies.
To keep costs even down, the two upcoming seasons will be filmed back-to-back.
Creator/executive producer Jason Katims is now overseeing the pilot of Parenthood, both series being produced by the same studio, UMS.
Of course FNL …
Lost star joins Vampire Diaries
Original Lost cast member Ian Somerhalder has joined the cast of the CW’s drama pilot Vampire Diaries.
Somerhalder, who played the marooned Boone, is set to play Damon, a smug vampire who can go from playful to evil in a split second.
Also joining the cast are Zach Roerig (Friday Night Lights), who will play the jock Matt, and Kayla Ewell (Entourage), who will play Matt’s sister.
Previously announced cast members include Nina Dobrev and Steven R. McQueen, grandson of actor Steve McQueen.
Vampire Diaries, based on a series of books from Alloy Entertainment, which …
D-Day for Definition
The arrival of ONE HD tonight is a big, bold step by Network TEN in the switch to digital television.
A 24 hour sports channel will provide many armchair sports fans with oodles of events, some of them big, many that are obscure, for TEN viewers in 5 capital cities. Regional viewers now know, somewhat belatedly, they are struggling to be heard in an issue TEN has handballed to Southern Cross.
Yesterday TEN announced its sponsors for ONE including Harvey Norman, Hungry Jacks, Mars, Panasonic, Pokerstars.net and Sportsbet.
But the arrival also marks the …
NBC casts Parenthood pilot
Dirty Sexy Money’s Peter Krause and ER’s Maura Tierney are expected to appear in NBC’s TV adaptation of Ron Howard’s Parenthood.
Once Tierney completes negotiations the two will play small screen versions of the characters portrayed by Steve Martin and Dianne Wiest.
Craig T. Nelson is also set to co-star in the pilot.
Parenthood, from Friday Night Lights creator Jason Katims, revolves around adult siblings, the Bravermans.
Krause will play Adam Braverman, a married man with two children who is a lunatic beneath the surface. Tierney will play his sister, Sarah Braverman, a single mother. …
Witches of Eastwick pilot announced
More drama pilots have been announced in the US by two big networks.
ABC: Eastwick, based on the 1987 feature The Witches of Eastwick follows three women in the town of Eastwick who embark upon lives with new powers after an enigmatic stranger comes to town. The story has already become a stage musical, and America just loves female ensembles these days so why not?
It is to be written by Maggie Friedman (Jack & Bobby).
NBC: Mercy is a drama with comedic elements that revolves around three nurses bound together in friendship by …