All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– Billboard has 10 hints about what happens in the Glee season two premiere.

– The Paley Center in New York is launching a TV awards show to rival the Emmys. If they’ll give Katey Sagal the nomination she is past due for Sons of Anarchy, I’ll promise to watch their alt-Emmys show.

– More Sons of Anarchy news: An explanation of that shocking ending in the season premiere, and season premiere ratings news (hint: it’s good overall, but a slight fall from the season two premiere).

– Psych‘s mid-season finale airs tonight, but when the show returns on Nov. 10, the last half of the season will include an homage to Twin Peaks, one of series star James Roday‘s favorite shows. EW.com reports that Peaks stars Sheryl Lee and Sherilyn Fenn are among the cast members who will guest star in the Psych ep.

– Is House star Jennifer Morrison the titular mama in How I Met Your Mother? Could be …

– Actor Glenn Shadix, best known for his role in Beetlejuice (though I remember him best from Seinfeld, as Harold, one of Jerry’s landlords in season two), has died.

– Ken Jenkins, a.k.a. Dr. Bob “What has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap? Bob Kelso!” Kelso on Scrubs, will reunite with Scrubs guest star Courteney Cox on Cougar Town this season, where he’ll play her character’s dad. PS – ABC has released the first pic of Jennifer Aniston guesting on pal Cox’s show … makes you long for a Friends reunion, no?

– Jersey Shore‘s Snooki has been fined $500 for annoying people. I have no doubt she’ll be a repeat offender.

– And Judd Apatow‘s coming back to TV, as a producer, on a new HBO coming-of-age comedy. The Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared creator certainly knows that genre well.

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• Filed in Award shows, Psych, Seinfeld, Sons of Anarchy, TV News
• Tags: Paley Center awards, Psych Twin Peaks homage, Snooki annoying, Sons of Anarchy season 3

Star Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman, Maggie Siff, Kim Coates, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Tommy Flanagan, Taylor Sheridan, Dayton Callie, Mark Boone Junior, Theo Rossi and Hal Holbrook

The Big Idea: When last we hung out with the SAMCRO gang, Jax’s baby son Abel had been kidnapped by Cameron, the Irish gun runner who thinks Gemma killed his son (and fellow gun runner) Edmond, and Gemma fled town after nasty ATF Agent Stahl set her up to take the blame for Edmond’s murder.

Season three opens just a few days later, and Jax is a drunken mess. BFF Opie and the Sons sober him up by tossing him in the shower (yes … Hunnam … shower scene), and Jax is off fast and furiously to track down Abel.

Gemma, meanwhile, with Tig in tow as her bodyguard, lands home, her original home, where she reunites with her ailing dad Nate (guest star Holbrook), who’s slipping further and further away into his Alzheimer’s disease.

To Watch or Not to Watch: Absolutely. We already knew that the beginning of the season, at least, was going to revolve around the search for Abel, and SOA creator Kurt Sutter is cleverly using that storyline to launch into more of the Sons backstory. Without spoiling too much, the fact that Cameron, the True IRA gun runner, has taken Abel back to Ireland opens the path to new characters (and at least one familiar face from the past) and new revelations about others. Suffice it to say we, and I’m guessing Jax, are going to find out some surprising tidbits about John Teller via this Irish connection.

Family also continues to be one of the show’s strongest themes, not only with Jax and Clay’s temporary truce as they try to bring Jax’s son home, but, most poignantly, with Gemma’s reunion with her dad. Much light is shed on Gemma’s relationship with her late mom, but her interactions with Nate, and a difficult decision that has to be made about his care, put the fierce motorcycle mama in a rare state of vulnerability, and makes for yet another Emmy-worthy performance by Sagal.

Elsewhere in the first four episodes of the season, there are some great moments of comic relief with Tig, Gemma and Tara, as they deal with a situation involving Nate’s home caregiver (Coates, by the way, also deserves some Emmy love as perpetual scene stealer Tig); and, though I feel like TV critics throw the word “shocking” around a little too often, the last few minutes of the season premiere are so (sorry) shocking that I wasn’t even sure what I thought had happened did actually happen until episode two. And that shocking event is going to have huge blowback (one of my favorite phrases that’s oft repeated by Jax and company) for SAMCRO and the entire town of Charming.

TV Screener Tidbit: In episode three, Caregiver (airing on Sept. 21), a guest appearance by Stephen King is every bit as wonderful as you trust Kurt Sutter would make a guest appearance by the likes of King be.

Sons of Anarchy‘s third season premieres Tuesday, September 7, at 10PM ET on FX.

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• Filed in Review - TV, Sons of Anarchy
• Tags: Sons of Anarchy season 3, Sons of Anarchy season premiere, Sons of Anarchy Stephen King

When last we left the SAMCRO crew, they were furiously rushing to the docks to try and rescue Jax’s baby son Abel, who’d been kidnapped by Cameron, the Irish gunrunner who was grieving his own dead son, Edmond.

MAJOR cliffhanger, in other words, as Jax (Charlie Hunnam) and the guys got there just in time to see Cameron sail off with the baby, helpless to get Abel back.

I’ve watched a screener of the season 3 premiere (which airs on FX on September 7), and … wow. Any fears fans of the show might have had that it would be impossible to top last year’s incredible sophomore season will be quickly allayed by the season opener, which ends with an event so shocking that it rivals that explosive season two premiere.

Spoilers … nah. Would you really want them, anyway? This is one of the few shows too delicious to have spoiled; you need to watch it for yourself. Suffice it to say that series creator Kurt Sutter remains at the top of his game, as do all the cast members (especially those who were robbed of their incredible well-deserved Emmy nominations … this means you, Katey Sagal!).

A few non-spoilery tidbits of interest: Hal Holbrook joins the cast for a multi-episode arc, playing Gemma’s dad, and we meet him in the season premiere; Stephen King (yes, THAT Stepehen King) guest stars in the third episode of the season; and, as the season three storyline hints, some of the action in the new season will take place in Ireland.

Below, take a peek at the season three promo, followed by BuzzFocus‘ interviews with Katey Sagal and Charlie Hunnam, filmed at San Diego Comic Con … what do you think, SAMCRO fans? Sept. 7 is still feeling too far away, right?

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• Filed in Sons of Anarchy
• Tags: Sons of Anarchy season 3, Stephen King Sons of Anarchy

All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– Kudos to NBC for the get-well message to Celebrity Apprentice contestant Bret Michaels at the end of last night’s show. Not so much for Apprentice host Donald Trump, who’s spouting off today about the supposed negative prognosis for the rocker and his brain hemorrhage … often he’s amusing, but sometimes, Trump should just keep his mouth shut.

– Madonna got her own episode of Glee, and now Britney Spears wants one, too. And series creator Ryan Murphy says he’s into the idea.

– More Glee news: Murphy’s description of this summer’s Glee tour makes it sound like it’ll be sort of a live performance of a TV episode.

– TheWrap.com has a first look at Rob Lowe and Party Down‘s Adam Scott as the new cast members of the most improved show of the season, Parks and Recreation, which means season three could be even better.

– Another show that’s likely to be even better in its third season: FX’s Sons of Anarchy, which started filming on season three last week. The new season, set to premiere this fall, will feature Hal Holbrook playing the father of (the so Emmy-worthy) Katey Sagal‘s Gemma. Holbrook, whose last TV guest gig was on ER in 2008, was married to Designing Women star Dixie Carter, who died earlier this month.

– And a show I hope improves upon its last season, which was the lamest in the show’s history: Entourage, which makes its seventh season premiere on June 27, along with season two of Hung and season three of True Blood. According to the current plan for Entourage, by the way, season seven will be the show’s penultimate one, with a big-screen Entourage movie in development for after the show’s eighth season.

– After a year on The CW, the Daytime Emmys are headed to CBS. They’ll air live – from Las Vegas, for the first time – on June 27.

– The Lost series finale just keeps getting bigger. ABC will now air the Lost two-hour pilot on May 22, the night before the series ender that (hopefully) will answer most of fans’ big lingering questions.

– If you have HDNet, check out the list of awesome performers the channel will host for concerts in May and June, including Green Day, Paul McCartney, Jack Johnson and John Legend.

– One of my fave TV critics, Alan Sepinwall, says the last six season three episodes of Chuck, which begin airing tonight (8PM ET, NBC) are even better, thanks to the Chuck and Sarah romance.

– And Mad Men star Vincent Kartheiser is definitely the opposite of those people on Hoarders, but he may be taking it too far: He has no toilet in his house.

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• Filed in Boob Tube to Big Screen, Glee, Lost, Sons of Anarchy, TV News
• Tags: Bret Michaels, Chuck and Sarah, Daytime Emmys, Entourage season 7, Glee Britney Spears, Glee summer tour, Lost series finale, Mad Men Vincent Kartheiser, Rob Lowe Parks and Recreation, Sons of Anarchy Hal Holbrook, Sons of Anarchy season 3