'Friday Night Lights' star Connie Britton is in talks to join NBC's freshman drama 'The Event.'

According to Deadline Hollywood, producers are actively wooing the Emmy-nominated star. The recurring role in development is that of a senator's wife who sets out to prove herself worthy of his seat when he unexpectedly dies.

Britton is the first choice for the role. The actress spent five years as Tami Taylor on the critically-acclaimed 'Friday Night Lights.'

In other TV news ...

• Larry Wilmore may be going from senior black correspondent on 'The Daily Show' to sitcom star. Wilmore has sold a pitch to NBC that would see him as the father of a family who become the subjects of a British documentary. [Live Feed]

• Prep your ears for Disney's 'Madison High,' it's bringing more singing teens to TV. The comedy project about tweens and teens who are working toward producing an original theater production based on their lives is from Lester Lewis and Paul Hoen. It's expected to go to pilot. [Deadline Hollywood]

• TLC ordered a new reality series called 'Bama Belles.' The one-hour series will premiere Dec. 6 and follow the everyday activities of rural Alabama women. [Variety]

Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed remorse about Cerniglia's suicide in a statement. The chef took his own life this weekend by jumping from the George Washington Bridge in New York City.

"I was fortunate to spend time with Joe during the first season of 'Kitchen Nightmares,'" Ramsay said in a statement. "Joe was a brilliant chef, and our thoughts go out to his family, friends and staff."

Cerniglia isn't the first former Ramsay reality fixture to take his own life. In 2007, 'Hell's Kitchen' alumna Rachel Brown committed suicide by shooting herself.

In other TV news ...

• Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe and her assistant Brad Goreski will amicably part ways effective Oct. 1. Goreski was a fixture on Zoe's Bravo TV series 'The Rachel Zoe Project.' "I love Rachel and she's taught me everything I know," Goreski said. "But there's a point where either I do it now or I'll never know what it's like to spread my wings and soar." [People]

• TV puppeteer Van Snowden has died. Snowden worked on 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' and played H.R. Pufnstuf. Snowden lost his battle to cancer at the age of 71. [Hollywood Reporter]

We told you earlier this week that the syndicated action show 'Legend of the Seeker' had been canceled. ABC Studios still won't comment officially on the status of the show, but multiple sources, including Entertainment Weekly, say that because of the number of stations around the country that dropped the show and the state of sci-fi/adventure shows right now, the studio is just not going to do a third season. (The show is currently in its second season.)

Overseas sales of the show aren't strong, either -- a surprising fact, considering that a lot of syndicated action shows do better overseas than they do in the United States.

Sorry, 'Legend of the Seeker' fans. The syndicated fantasy show couldn't cast a spell over enough viewers to earn a third season, as the Ausiello Files is reporting that Sam Raimi's swashbuckling series has been canceled.

'Seeker' was having a tough time pulling in decent numbers for local stations associated with its distributor, Tribune Stations Group. Apparently, not even a steamy girl-on-girl kiss between 'Buffy' alum Charisma Carpenter and hottie Tabrett Bethell could generate enough interest to keep the show alive. A number of Tribune stations dropped 'Seeker' last month, and the networks have shown no interest in picking it up, leading to its cancellation.

Now is not a great time for action-oriented cult TV shows. With 'Seeker' on the chopping block and last year's cancellation of 'Stargate Atlantis,' it seems like the tube is being scrubbed clean of light, fun, geek-friendly series. It's definitely not the '90s anymore, when shows like Raimi and Robert Tapert's 'Hercules' and 'Xena' could go for six seasons. Let's hope one of the better action-packed shows to debut this year, Fox's 'Human Target,' can beat the current trend.

When you're bombarded with one panel after the other, it's sometimes hard to figure out how to group them together. One writer I was sitting with at the BBC America panel, for instance, was blogging each individual panel, and was such a frantic blur of writing and Photoshopping that she developed what can best be described as SCTS (Sudden Carpal Tunnel Syndrome).

You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. Me, I figured that there were three panels that could be put in what I call the "Comic-Con group": Spartacus on Starz, and Doctor Who and Being Human on BBC America. These shows got extensive showcases in San Diego over the weekend, and there wasn't many details revealed in any of these panels that you wouldn't have heard over the din at SDCC. So I'm going to go over the three of them in brief after the jump.

Let me give you a good teaser: If you were on the fence about seeing Spartacus, the prospect of a naked Lucy Lawless may convince you.

If this trailer, straight from Comic-Con International, is any indication, then January 2010 can't come soon enough! The 13-episode Starz (You read that right, Starz!) series Spartacus: Blood and Sand boasts Sam Raimi (Spider-Man), Rob Talpert (Drag Me to Hell) and Steven S. DeKnight (Smallville) executive producing. It features Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess), Peter Mensa (300) and Erin Cummings (Dollhouse).

Everything about this trailer makes the show look amazing. Amazing costuming, good casting and dialogue. The effects style borrows heavily from the hyper-realism of 300, which adds a great dramatic flare. Damn, what more can I say? Just watch the thing and wait with bated breath until January like me.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• I'm always up for a good Dwight Schrute bobblehead, but a Terminator one? I'm not sure I really get the appeal there.
• I get more than enough of Evangeline Lily on Lost, so I'm definitely not sitting around wishing she was in more movies. However, she made the Cinematical Seven: TV Stars Who Should Be In More Movies (female edition) list. See who else made it over at Cinematical.
• Apparently fans have been up in arms about Jonah Hill remaking 21 Jump Street, saying that he was going to make it into a comedy. I loved 21 Jump Street, and I had no idea it wasn't a comedy already.
• I haven't seen Sam Raimi's newest horror flick, Drag Me To Hell yet, but I fully intend to. See what rating Cinematical readers are giving it.
• Cinematical is even suggesting you make it a double-feature weekend, seeing both Drag Me to Hell and Pixar's latest film, Up. Having seen Up, I highly recommend this. It is an amazing movie that will have you in tears throughout the entire thing (but was still really funny!).

My name is Danny ... and I am a slave.

As far as I can figure, I've been sitting here on my couch for 60 minutes, and my TV is trying to drag my eyeballs to their death.

It wasn't always like this. I had a real job with a real salary and real health expenses that would pay for glasses when my eyes were weakened by the incandescent glow of a television that could ruin the vision of a night owl.

My TV Squad editor sent my TV and I to a small network in the UHF channels. A producer had come to a remote cabin in the woods to create his latest reality show project, 13: Fear is Real. Bound in flashy camera tricks and dipped in sappy horror movie cliches, this reality show contained bizarre challenges, petty altercations, and a demonic, unoriginal mastermind who tortures and watches over all. It was never meant for the watching.

The producer released something dark on the network, something ... awful.

Director Sam Raimi, the man who created such gut-wrenching horrors as The Evil Dead trilogy and Spider Man 3, takes his talent for disemboweling innocent people and chopping off limbs with a dull ax to television ... for a reality show?!?

13 - Fear is Real premieres tonight January 7 on The CW at 8 p.m. eastern. It puts 13 innocent (not really) people in the middle of a fake horror movie, and the last one standing on their bloody stumps takes home the grand prize.

The reality show aims to do for horror movies what Next Action Star did for action movies - rip them off and turn them into another schlock reality show that requires little to no creative ideas or thought.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between. Since today is Halloween, I chose my favorite posts about the holiday:

• Freddy Krueger: Registered Offender. This Halloween, we take the time to reflect on what it would be like if a horribly-disfigured man who kills children in their dreams moves into your neighborhood.
• Not all Halloween movies have to be creepy; some are just ... unsettling. Check out the Cinematical Seven: Plain Old Creepy Flicks.
• Speaking of creepy, check out photos from the new Sam Raimi movie, Drag Me To Hell. They made my neck tingle ... in a bad way.
• Do you have an idea for your own Halloween movie (or any other film, for that matter)? If so, Details magazine wants to hear it. Find out how you can pitch them your idea and get your movie made.
• It may not be a horror movie, but it does open on Halloween and I am super-stoked: Zack and Miri Make a Porno finally opens! Check out Cinematical's interviews with Kevin Smith.

It sounds like the title of an mid-90s game show on Nickelodeon, but it's actually the title of a new syndicated adventure series from Sam Raimi.

Wow, "syndicated adventure series." Whatever happened to all of those cheesy syndicated adventure shows that used to dot the television landscape? There used to be dozens of them on the weekends and late at night. Sitcoms too. There aren't too many of them anymore, replaced by reality, home improvement, court shows, and talk shows, or not replaced at all.

It's taken a couple years, as we first posted about the series in August 2006, but Sam Raimi's adaptation of the Terry Goodkind books will finally be beaming into our televisions the weekend of November 1, 2008. That's about as specific as anyone can be, because this is a syndicated series. We'll all have to check our local listings. The good news though, is that Disney-ABC says they have cleared the show in 95% of the country.

The press release mentions that Raimi and his partners, Rob Tapert, Joshua Donen, Ned Nalle, and Kenneth Biller are the team behind Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Why they continue to excise Cleopatra 2525 from that list remains a mystery to me.

The series will kick off with a two-hour premiere and Raimi describes it by saying, "The amazing characters and heartfelt story, combined with the captivating backdrop of New Zealand, will have viewers on the edge of their seats." I'm pretty much in the bag for anything Raimi is involved in, so I'll be watching. Wizard's First Rule could be that something to watch on Saturday night we're all looking for.

A day hasn't gone by where we haven't received some sort of tip or email asking us, the TV Squad, how to get on [insert reality show here]. Unfortunately no, Simon Cowell does not work for us, and Donald Trump isn't my BFF, so we really can't help all that much.

The folks at RealityWanted.com often send us a list of new and existing reality shows that are looking for new, er, talent, and they've given us permission to make mention of them here. We'll try to make this a regular feature as often as we get a new list.

This time we have Trading Spaces, The Newlywed Game and other new shows.

Spider-Man's director is going real. Reality TV that is. After nearly two years of talking with the CW about this project, Sam Raimi is prepping a summer reality series called 13. Considering Raimi's unique vision, as seen in the Spider-Man movies and other features like Darkman and Evil Dead, you have to hope that he'll bring something fresh to a genre as played out as reality.

Raimi with co-executive produce the eight-episodes of 13 with a renown reality producer, Jay Bienstock (Survivor and The Apprentice). Also attached is Robert Tapert, Sam's Ghost House Productions partner.