All the tube news that’s fit to surf …

– Guiding Light is a lame duck, and now a CBS honcho says As the World Turns may be next on the network’s daytime hit list.

– Gotta love that Joan Rivers, whose new show How’d You Get So Rich?, premieres on TV Land tomorrow, still doesn’t censor herself. And I agree with her; Chelsea Handler is not funny.

– Who’s the Boss and Charmed star Alyssa Milano is headed back to TV in the ABC midseason series Romantically Challenged. The comedy stars Milano as a woman who has to compete with her boyfriend’s best friend for his attention.

– Turns out Screech, a.k.a. Dustin Diamond, didn’t decide to bail on People magazine’s Saved by the Bell cover shoot; he was banned.

– One of the many signs that the reality TV genre needs some freshening up: E!’s latest reality show is a fake reality show called Reality Hell.

– Another sign: No one is watching The T.O. Show on VH1. Okay, correction: The number of people watching The T.O. Show is roughly the same number of people watching a 5AM airing of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on Nick at Nite.

– Emmy Awards producer Don Mischer ‘fessed up that the annual TV award show is in danger of becoming irrelevant, as viewers are turned off by the fact that the shows most of them watch aren’t generally represented among Emmy winners. Good thing they have fan fave Neil Patrick Harris hosting this year.

– Bethenny Frankel confirms she’s returning for the next season of Real Housewives of New York City. Meanwhile, the Real Housewives franchise’s Atlanta season two premiere was the highest-rated in the show’s history.

– Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath says Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson inspired him to write a song called “She’s Got the (Woo-Hoo!).”.

– And tonight in primetime:

– Tom Green and J. Peterman (John O’Hurley) are dinner guests on Hell’s Kitchen (8PM ET, Fox)
– Kat joins shop class on 10 Things I Hate About You (8PM, ABC Family)
– A green record label is among the topics discussed on the third season premiere of Big Ideas for a Small Planet (8PM, Sundance)
– It’s the season finale of The Superstars on ABC (8PM)
– Ruby has car problems on Ruby and the Rockits (8:30PM, ABC Family)
– The Power of Veto competition unfolds on Big Brother (9PM, CBS)
– Luke takes one of his bachelorettes to Vegas on More to Love (9PM, Fox)
– Chuck sister Sarah Lancaster guest stars on Hawthorne (9PM, TNT)
– Former NBA-er Brandon Williams gets a garage makeover on Man Caves (9PM, DIY Network)
– Shark Week continues on the Discovery Channel with Sharkbite Summer (9PM)
– Stargate: Atlantis‘ Joe Flanigan guests on Warehouse 13 (9PM, SyFy)
– Jessie and PC have (another) fight on NYC Prep (9PM, Bravo)
– Paris chooses her new sidekick on the season finale of Paris Hilton’s My BFF (10PM, MTV)
– New Saving Grace on TNT (10PM)
– William tries to help a surgeon who insists he performs better under the influence on The Cleaner (10PM, A&E)
– Work comes between Maria and Ariel on Miami Social (10PM, Bravo)
– Maura Tierney begins a guest stint as Tommy’s new fling on Rescue Me (10PM, FX)
– Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood ends season four (10PM, Oxygen) with Stella’s birthday party and the hope that Granny Spelling will show up
– Oxygen also has the just-after-primetime premiere of Addicted to Beauty (11PM), which follows the shenanigans of an L.A. spa

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• Filed in Reality, TV News
• Tags: Alyssa Milano, As the World Turns cancellation, Bethenny Frankel, Dustin Diamond, E! Reality Hell, Emmys, Guiding Light, How'd You Get So Rich?, Joan Rivers, Neil Patrick Harris Emmys, Real Housewives of New York City, Saved by the Bell reunion, The T.O. Show, Vicki Gunvalson

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