All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– FX is launching a new animated comedy that will spoof James Bond and other pop culture spies. Archer will premiere this fall, possibly with the new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

– Kevin Bacon will direct an upcoming episode of wife Kyra Sedgwick‘s The Closer, which will also feature a guest appearance by the couple’s teen daughter, Sosie, who will play the niece of Sedgwick’s Brenda.

– Wings star Steven Weber may be headed back to the tube, in the Twins Peaks-ish midseason drama Happy Town.

– 1960s TV western Big Valley, which helped launch the careers of Lee Majors and Linda Evans, is the latest series headed to the big screen.

– Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock talks about how he became involved with The Simpsons to help celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary.

– Speaking of anniversaries, Sesame Street has been on the air for 40 years, and that’s a lot of Muppets. How many can you name? Can you name 101?

– Is the current line-up of reality series featuring plus-size Americans really dispelling myths, or are those shows perpetuating them?  

– Showtime has great series like Nurse Jackie and Weeds, but their latest, the upcoming Shannon Elizabeth-hosted comedy/”Neo-burlesque” series Live Nude Comedy could not sound more boring.

– A former Baretta producer is suing ABC, claiming he actually created the series that became Lost, way back in 1977.

– And tonight in primetime:

– It’s the 80th Major League Baseball All-Star Game, live from St. Louis (8PM ET, Fox)
– Bianca tries to ingratiate herself to Chastity with a carnation sale on 10 Things I Hate About You (8PM, ABC Family)
– The first Power of Veto competition unfolds on Big Brother 11 (9PM, CBS)
– ABC has another delightful new episode of Better Off Ted (9PM)
– PC acts like a creep. Again. On NYC Prep (9PM, Bravo)
– A tired crew leads to mistakes on Deadliest Catch (9PM, Discovery)
– New Hawthorne on TNT (9PM)
– Bravo has collected the most unlikable people in all of Miami and put them together in a new reality series called Miami Social (10PM)
– Mayim “Blossom” Bialik guest stars on Saving Grace (10PM, TNT)
– William helps a whole family of addicts on The Cleaner (10PM, A&E)
– Sean gets out of the hospital with a new lease on life on Rescue Me (10PM, FX)
– Oxygen’s 25iest counts down the 25, uh, coolest (?) “Celeb-U-Tots” (11PM)

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• Filed in Boob Tube to Big Screen, TV News
• Tags: Big Valley, Happy Town, Kevin Bacon, Live Nude Comedy Showtime, Lost lawsuit, Morgan Spurlock, plus size reality shows, Sesame Street 40th anniversary, Shannon Elizabeth, Steven Weber, The Closer, The Simpsons documentary

Here’s the official line-up from ABC, followed by the network’s description of its new series:

ABC PRIMETIME SCHEDULE: FALL 2009
(All Times ET)

MONDAY
8PM – Dancing With the Stars
10PM – Castle

TUESDAY
8PM – Shark Tank
9PM – Dancing With the Stars results show
10PM – The Forgotten

WEDNESDAY
8PM – Hank
8:30PM – The Middle
9PM – Modern Family
9:30PM – Cougar Town
10PM – Eastwick

THURSDAY
8PM – Flash Forward
9PM – Grey’s Anatomy
10PM – Private Practice

FRIDAY
8PM – Supernanny
9PM – Ugly Betty
10PM – 20/20

SATURDAY
8PM – Saturday Night College Football

SUNDAY
7PM – America’s Funniest Home Videos
8PM – Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
9PM – Desperate Housewives
10PM – Brothers & Sisters

…Read more

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• Tags: ABC, Cougar Town, Courteney Cox, Eastwick, Ed O'Neill, Elizabeth Mitchell, Flash Forward, Hank, Happy Town, Jerry Bruckheimer, Julie Bowen, Kelsey Grammer, Mark Burnett, Modern Family, Neil Flynn, New fall schedule, New fall season, Patricia Heaton, Rebecca Romijn, Shark Tank, The Deep End, The Forgotten, The Middle, Upfront, V

A rundown of what is/isn’t/might be popping up on the 2009-10 primetime schedule at ABC during this week’s Upfront presentation …

ABC (Upfront presentation: Tuesday, May 19)
Returning series: America’s Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Better Off Ted, Brothers & Sisters, Castle, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Private Practice, Scrubs, Supernanny, True Beauty, Ugly Betty, Wife Swap
On the bubble series: Surviving Suburbia
New series:

– Cougar Town (Comedy)
Plot: The dating adventures of a newly-single mom and her teen son
It stars: Courteney Cox, Busy Philipps, Brian Van Holt, Christa Miller, Josh Hopkins and Ian Gomez, created by Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence
It’s like: Janice Dickinson‘s life

– The Deep End (Dramedy)
Plot: Newbie attorneys at a prestigious law firm
It stars: Billy Zane and Tina Majorino
It’s like: Scrubs or Grey’s Anatomy in a law firm

– Eastwick (Drama)
Plot: Three witches come into their powers when a mysterious fellow arrives in town
It stars: Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price, Matt Dallas and Sara Rue
It’s like: The John Updike novel and big-screen movie The Witches of Eastwick, on which it’s based

– Flash Forward (Drama)
Plot: Sci-fi-ish story about what happens when the world blacks out for two minutes and everyone has visions of the future
It stars: Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho and Courtney Vance
It’s like: Every show that has employed the unfortunately ubiquitous time travel gimmick on TV recently (i.e. the network hopes it’ll catch on just as Lost unrolls its final season)

…Read more

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• Filed in Comedy, Drama, Lost, TV News
• Tags: ABC, Alyssa Milano, Better Off Ted, Billy Zane, Castle, Cedric the Entertainer, Cougar Town, Courteney Cox, Eastwick, Ed O'Neill, Elizabeth Mitchell, Empire State, Fall TV season, Flash Forward, Geoff Stults, Hank, Happy Town, Inside the Box, Kelsey Grammer, Kim Raver, Lost, Matt Dallas, Modern Family, Morris Chestnut, Patricia Heaton, Rebecca Romijn, Reiko Aylesworth, Romantically Challenged, Scott Wolf, Scrubs, Shonda Rhimes, The Deep End, The Forgotten, The Law, The Middle, Twin Peaks, Upfront, V