All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

-Just not a good month for TV celebs: On the heels of the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, MTV video legend Michael Jackson and pitchman Billy Mays, The Gale Storm Show and My Little Margie star Gale Storm – one of TV’s first big stars – died on Saturday at age 87, while comedian, celeb impersonator and frequent late-night TV guest Fred Travalena died Sunday at age 66 after a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

- The B-Side Blog has a sneak peek at the new Big Brother house, where the latest round of reality TV hamsters will move in on July 9.

- For TV fans, this is the year to attend Comic-Con in San Diego. The TV-heavy line-up includes panels with the casts of Lost, 24, Chuck, Bones, Burn Notice, Glee, MythBusters, The Cleveland Show, Futurama, Heroes and upcoming series V, Flash Forward and Human Target.

- No good Oprah deed goes unpunished? May be, as her gifts to her staff – a fancy luxury cruise – is reportedly going to cost each of them $1,000 in taxes.

- As the Sept. 18 series finale of long-running daytime soap Guiding Light grows sadly closer, 60 Minutes is planning a special Sept. segment that includes interviews with cast, while the Daytime Emmy telecast on Aug. 30 will also include a special tribute. Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter’s Roger Friedman claims the show’s sponsor, Procter & Gamble, is purposely trying to turn fans against the show because the company wants out of the soap biz.

- Casting news: Reaper star Missy Peregrym has signed on to star in ABC’s Canadian cop drama Copper, while Desperate Housewives guest star T.J. Ramini – he played Gabby’s trainer, Yaniv – will be a recurring star on season eight of 24, where he’ll play Tarin, a cohort of the Middle Eastern leader who’ll be played by Anil Kapoor.

- And tonight in primetime:

- The premiere of Oxygen’s Dance Your Ass Off (10PM ET), a Biggest Loser-meets-Dancing with the Stars/So You Think You Can Dance-ish reality competition
- Brenda and Fritz clash when they work together on a missing person/murder case on a new ep of The Closer (9PM, TNT)
- New York will apparently be unemployed after the season finale of New York Goes to Work (10PM, VH1)
- Zoey wigs when she loses her first patient on Nurse Jackie (10:30PM, Showtime)
- Celia’s baaaa-ack – and living in Nancy’s garage, while Agent Roy Till also pops back into Nancy’s life on a new Weeds (10PM, Showtime)
- Buddy bakes a cake and plans to stash live birds inside of it on Cake Boss (10PM, TLC)
- Kathy Griffin hangs with Paris Hilton (is getting off the D-list really worth that?) on My Life on the D-List (10PM, Bravo)
- Guy Fieri hits the road for pumpkin-oatmeal pancakes and bacon-wrapped meatloaf on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (10PM, Food Network)
- And it’s down to five on The Bachelorette (8PM, ABC)

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• Filed in 24, Reality, TV News
• Tags: 24, Big Brother, Big Brother house, Cake Boss, Comic Con TV, Dance Your Ass Off, Desperate Housewives, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Fred Travalena, Gale Storm, Guiding Light, Guiding Light finale, Guy Fieri, Kathy Griffin, Missy Peregrym, My Life on the D-List, New York Goes to Work, Nurse Jackie, Oprah, Paris Hilton, The Bachelorette, The Closer, Weeds

All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

- Mad Men, season three, August 16 at 10PM ET on AMC. Be there, or be somewhere else, somewhere where people don’t knock back three vodka gimlets before lunch, aren’t nearly as dapperly-attired as Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and don’t have offices that are bigger than my entire New York City apartment. Yeah, not sounding nearly as much fun as Mad Men, right?

- Is designer Vera Wang going to be competing on the next season of Dancing With the Stars? And if so, does that mean we can count on less cheesy costumes?

- Plus-size model Emme has been hired to host Fox’s More to Love, the reality dating show that will feature “average-looking” people

- Discovery Channel’s 22nd annual Shark Week kicks off on August 2.

- Matt Mitovich at TVGuide.com says Rick Springfield will play, fittingly enough, Rick Springfield, when he guest stars on the new season of Californication, but he’ll be a naughty Rick Springfield, one whose sex play makes David Duchovny’s Hank “look like a Jonas brother.” Not that I’m buying that whole purity ring business about the Jonas Bros. …

- In celebration of its 15th anniversary, TCM has created its own social network site, TCM Classic Film Union, for movie buffs.

- Gordon Ramsay has apologized for, well, basically, for being a tool. You can watch the apology here.

- I reeeally want to like Dr. Drew and trust his motives, but a real doctor prolly should offer to help Lindsay Lohan, or a less-famous addict, whether or not she accepts a reported six-figure offer to appear on his reality show, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, right? Of course, the story seems to be originating with Lohan’s dad, so, grain – no, make that rock, huge, ginormous rock – of salt on the whole thing.

- The Shield creator Shawn Ryan is going back to FX with a comedy about private detectives, called Terriers.

- Futurama’s back! With 26 new episodes in 2010!

- Good news for David Letterman: He, with guest Julia Roberts, beat Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show on Tuesday. Worse news for Conan: His ratings keep dropping. Don’t count him out tho; remember his first years as Late Night host?

- More ratings wars news: Judge Judy beat Oprah. Whoa.

- ABC’s getting a jump on the competition by announcing its fall premiere dates.

- The ratings for the Nurse Jackie series premiere were so good, Showtime’s already greenlighting a second season, so go ahead and get hooked.

- Heidi Pratt’s launching her own line of dry shampoo, after her shampoo shenanigans on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. I’m sure Oscar Blandi is shaking in his celebrity hair-cutting boots.

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• Filed in Celebreality, Late Night, Reality, TV News
• Tags: Californication, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Conan O'Brien, Dancing With the Stars, David Duchovny, David Letterman, Discovery Channel, Don Draper, Dr. Drew, Drew Pinsky, Emme, Futurama, Get Me Out of Here, Gordon Ramsay, Heidi Pratt, I'm a Celebrity, Jon Hamm, Jonas, Judge Judy, Julia Roberts, Lindsay Lohan, Mad Men, More to Love, Nurse Jackie, Oprah, Rick Springfield, Shark Week, Shawn Ryan, TCM Classic Film Union, The Shield, Tonight Show, Vera Wang

Nurse Jackie
Stars: 4.5 out of 5

Stars: Edie Falco, Merritt Wever, Eve Best, Paul Schulze, Peter Facinelli, Haaz Sleiman and Anna Deavere Smith

The Big Idea: Jackie Peyton (Falco) is an excellent New York City nurse, a nurse who truly cares about her patients and is willing to go the extra mile to help them when she can, or to exact a bit of karmic healing when she can’t. Jackie’s got her own issues, though, namely a secret life and, thanks to a bum back, a raging painkiller addiction.

To Watch or Not to Watch: The dark comedy is must-see-TV, in fact. Falco wisely held out for another quality series after her Emmy and Golden Globe-winning turn on The Sopranos, where her Carmela was always, at best, second banana to hubby Tony. Not so for Jackie, whose commitment to her patients makes her a fierce heroine, while her double life (the details of which are too good to spoil here) and her drug jones make her a flawed one.

Jackie is surrounded by an equally compelling round-up of co-workers, from her hospital BFFs, the flip Dr. O’Hara (Best) and sardonic fellow nurse Mo-Mo (Sleiman), to nervous hotshot doc Cooper (Facinelli), pharmacist Eddie (Schulze), ball-busting administrator Akalitus (Smith) and Zoey, the scene-stealing, overly eager nurse trainee who wears scrubs covered with bunnies, bakes muffins to try to win over the staff and immediately takes to Jackie as her healer role model.

TV Screener Tidbit: Showtime provided the first six episodes of the series for review, and that batch contains a number of clever twists that, again, are too delicious to spoil. Suffice it to say they involve a bloody ear, the hospital’s plumbing system, a house in the ‘burbs, an unrequited Sopranos love that becomes quite requited, and that, during a joint guest appearance by Swoosie Kurtz and Blythe Danner, we learn Heather isn’t the only one who had two mommies.

Nurse Jackie premieres Monday, June 8, at 10:30PM ET on Showtime.

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• Filed in Review - TV
• Tags: Anna Deavere Smith, Blythe Danner, Dark comedy, Edie Falco, Eve Best, Haaz Sleiman, Heather Has Two Mommies, Merritt Wever, New York City, Nurse Jackie, Paul Schulze, Peter Facinelli, Showtime, Sopranos, Spoilers, Swoosie Kurtz, Twists

All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

- Memorial Day weekend means TV marathons, and TVGuide.com has a round-up of ‘em.

- Nurse Jackie, the quirky new nurse dramedy starring Edie “Carmela Soprano” Falco, debuts June 8 on Showtime, but you can watch the first episode now, free, at Sho.com. The password: “shifthappens.”

- Now that the networks have announced their schedules for next season, they have to deal with the dismal stats of the just-concluded 2008/09 season: ratings were down 16 percent.

- Don’t read this EW.com story unless you want to know the major twist that will kick off The CW’s remake of Melrose Place in the fall.

- Tonight’s season finales: Starz’ terrific comedies Party Down (10:30PM ET) and Head Case (10PT), which features a funny cameo by Jerry Seinfeld.

- What was missing from the American Idol finale (besides an Adam Lambert win, of course)? A goofy Will Ferrell song that was cut.

- Fringe’s Kirk Acevedo took to his Facebook page earlier this week to say he’d been fired from the show. Not so, says a show producer.

- First Guiding Light is cancelled, and now All My Children killed Stuart Chandler. What is going on in daytime TV?!

- Just when you think you can’t possibly love Neil Patrick Harris more, you find out he has pop-up books in his guest room, Kiehl’s products in the shower and a selection of magazines in his bathroom. NPH!

- And in more things that make perfect sense to me, Project Runway star (and he is the real star of the show) Tim Gunn will become a Marvel Comics superhero.

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• Filed in American Idol, Comedy, Drama, TV News
• Tags: Adam Lambert, All My Children, American Idol, Carmela Soprano, Daytime TV, Edie Falco, EW.com, finale, Fringe, Guiding Light, Head Case, Jerry Seinfeld, Kiehl's, Kirk Acevedo, marathons, Marvel Comics, Melrose Place. spoiler, Memorial Day, Memorial Day weekend TV marathons, Neil Patrick Harris, Network ratings, NPH, nurse, Nurse Jackie, Party Down, Project Runway, Showtime, Starz, Stuart Chandler, superhero, Tim Gunn, TV Guide.com. TV marathons, Will Ferrell