Joiners, leavers and new stars

Michael Ausiello at TV Guide has revealed that Marsha Thomason is the latest Brit to join the cast of Lost (Sky One). Her former show Las Vegas (Sky One) has been renewed for a fifth season but James Caan is bailing out......NYPD Blue star Henry Simmons has joined James Woods in Shark, the series starts on Channel Five alongside House on March 22nd.....William Baldwin joins Peter Krause in the ABC pilot Dirty Sexy Money......Christopher Titus, Dylan McDermott and Michael Vartan have all been cast in an ABC drama about four businessmen.....Former Dream On star Brian Benben has been cast in the comedy The Mastersons of Manhatten alongside Molly Shannon and Natasha Richardson.....Leslie Hope has signed to a new FOX drama, and the same network has picked up Action News, a sitcom with Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton and Fred Willard for 13 episodes.......Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss will star in a drama Suspect for ABC.....

Heroes on Larry King and other goodies

If you've been hooked by Heroes this week, standby to get an insight into the show.

The cast and creative team will talk to Larry King on Friday night on CNN. The show airs in the UK at 2am Saturday morning with a repeat at 10am

If behind the scenes is your sort of thing, check out the schedule for E! which is currently showing 24 The True Hollywood Story, for an insight into the show.

Meanwhile in other news, Trouble will air the first series of How I Met Your Mother beginning with a double bill on Wednesday March 7th. If you missed it on the BBC, watch it now, its the best US sitcom on right now.

Channel 4 reckon they will show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in the summer. The show has been pulled from the NBC schedule leading to speculation again that its dead.

The same network will air the Sopranos on Monday week, this is the set of episodes that aired on E4 last year. The final final final (!) run comes to E4 in August.

The black art of scheduling

The schedulers claim that their job is a black art. To me it just looks blind guesswork. How else can you explain BBC1 scheduling 3lbs at 10.15pm on a Sunday night. They paid a lot for it, but CBS aired only three episodes of the Stanley Tucci show while only five were ever made. So why show it in primetime in the UK when the acclaimed Medium is banished after 11 o' clock??

Even more bizarre is the return of Seven Days, screening at half past midnight!! Worth catching if you have not seen it, if only to see how a hit show can become spectacularly derailed by the cast falling out and the writers running clean out of ideas........

Also what sense Channel Five holding back Greys Anatomy from Thursday nights because they were concerned over the competition - and then pitching it into the already overcrowded Sunday. Airing it opposite 24 on SKY One and ER on E4 (although that has other showings) will prevent it ever becoming a hit this side of the Atlantic.

Better news on More4. The new season of Without A Trace and the second series of the The Closer air back to back on Friday nights from 9pm next week.

Casting Around Part 1

Its that time of year. The networks are casting their pilots and there are some big names both sides of the camera. Many of these shows will never see the light of day, but here’s a round up of some of the notable shows that MIGHT happen

Canterbury Tales – Julianna Marguiles returns to series television with this legal drama about a defence attorney named Elizabeth Canterbury. Mike Figgis directs the pilot.

Demons – Another ER alum Ron Eldard takes the spooky lead here alongside Lost escapee Harold Perrinaeu and Hustle babe Jamie Murray

Dirty Sexy Money – Great title. Peter Krause plays an idealistic lawyer who inherits the job of representing a powerful and ethically flexible family after his father dies.

Los Duques – The title will change but look who’s back - Jimmy Smits new show is about a multi-generational Latin American family working in South Florida's rum business. Smits will play Alex Vega, an outsider given control of the Duque Rum works.

Football Wives – Bryan Singer is adapting this for US screens, and has cast Lucy Lawless as Tanya, the ruthless bitchy wife of bad boy Jason Turner. Lawless, best known as Xena, is currrently in Battlestar Galactica.

The Man – LL Cool J stars in a new show from CSI creator Anthony Zuiker.

Mrs and Mrs Smith – Doug Liman is adapting his own movie for the small screen and has cast the little known Martin Henderson and the under-rated Jordana Brewster in the leads.

Lipstick Jungle - Kim Raver (Thirdwatch, 24) joins Brooke Shields in the re-cast NBC pilot

Skip Tracer - Oscar nominated director Steven Frears is the behind the camera as Steven Dorff plays a man who finds people who are trying to disappear

And finally former NYPD Blue star Mark-Paul Gosselaar and ex West Winger Janeane Garrofolo will star in a new CBS drama about the lives of LA public defenders.

Battlestar will return

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Battlestar Galactica will return for a fourth season.
Despite critical acclaim and fan devotion, ratings for the show, which airs on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US have remained mediocre. But an announcement is expected today that there will be a fourth season of the show, a thirteen episode run that will begin in January 2008.

Battlestar last year won the prestigious Peabody Award and was among the American Film Institute's top 10 outstanding TV shows two years in a row.
The show has also been boosted by more than one million dvd sales.

The third series is currently airing on SKY One on Tuesday nights at 9pm with repeats on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. If you have not seen it, you don't know what you're missing. But as Charlie Brooker pointed out last week, you need to watch the 2004 mini-series first to make sense of it.

Channel Five dates

Channel Five are returning a collection of shows to the schedule. Criminal Minds and CSI Miami will both return on Friday March 2nd, if you are so inclined.

But the really good news is the return of House. The third season premieres on Thursday March 22nd at 9pm. If you watch that on Thursdays along with ER on E4 and Greys Anatomy on Living you will probably end up feeling quite poorly yourself.

The James Woods vehicle Shark will pair with House on Thursdays. This new CBS procedural apparently has the oldest viewership of any show currently airing in the US. James Wooods brand new head of hair is the only thing remarkable about it.

Where's Dave?

David Letterman is celebrating 25 years on the air this week. He debuted on February 1st 1982 and remains at the top of his game. During that time the show has been screened here on the Paramount Comedy Channel, SKY One, ITV2 and most recently ITV4. When he was in London for a week the show aired on BBC2. But now - nothing. Since ITV dropped the series to make way for presumably more X Factor spin-off repeats and sixth runs of Jean Claude Van Damme movies, there has been silence.

OK, I appreciate the fact that its expensive and that it needs to come over on a satellite every night but really is nobody prepared to shell out for it??? Is there no room in the sprawling Channe4/E4/More4 schedule? Would it not fit quite nicely into the wasteland that is Five US? Isn't Dave a better use of Bravo's money than shortlived stuff like Daybreak?

I'm a big Jon Stewart fan and enjoy Jay Leno from time to time, you can keep Conan, but there must be room in our multi-channel empire for David Letterman.

Schedule dates

Here are a collection of start dates that may not have been mentioned here before. The Unit begins its second season on Tuesday February 6th at 10pm on Bravo, with an espisode written by series creator David Mamet. Living bring back Boston Public on Thursday February 8th at 10pm. The fourth season of The Wire begins on FX on Tuesday February 13th at 10pm. SKY One return Bones at 9pm on Thursday February 15th with Rescue Me starting straight after (although I won't be believe it until I hear the strains of C'mon C'mon). SKY One open the Dresden Files on Wednesday February 21st at 10pm starring last years 24 villain Paul Blackthorne. Finally Anne Heche debuts in Men in Trees at 9pm on Wednesday 28th. Along with Friday Night Lights on ITV4, Heroes on Sci-Fi and the return of Lost, its a very busy month.