carrie fisher

Fox has apparently responded to the lackluster ratings of its new reality series, On the Lot, by trimming down the number of episodes. Instead of airing on two nights each week, the network is going to condense its unreasonably long results show with its competition for a single, one-hour installment each week.

The change is effective immediately: On the Lot will only be seen on Tuesdays at 8 pm starting June 5. There will still be a two-night finale on August 13-14.

The schedule change will also cause a shift in the schedule for the remaining episodes of The Loop. Now The Loop will not appear on Tuesdays, will air twice on Sundays at 7:30 and 8:30 pm on June 24 and July 1.

(S01E04) This may go down as the longest hour of TV in the history of TV. Tonight's episode was only an hour long, but it felt more like thirteen thanks to the lame effort to American Idolize the show with all the awkward pauses and the "we'll tell you right after the break" nonsense.

It probably sounds strange for a guy who practically typed a novel during yesterday's review to be criticizing the length of anything, but what else could I do? There were still 24, pardon me, 18 contestants left, and I couldn't very well not talk about someone's film. It'd be like the producers of this show completely leaving out an episode. Things like that just shouldn't happen.

Anyhow, I guess there's no real reason for me to stretch this out any more than it needs to be. I'll tell you who got cut, but we're going to have to wait...until...after...you...click..the...jump.

(S01E03) New host, new show format, and a new time slot on a new night. If I didn't recognize the judges and the directors, I wouldn't have even realized I was watching On The Lot this week.

Call me crazy, but they should have gone with this American Idol like format from the get go. After watching tonight's episode, the shows from last week feel even more disjointed from the series.

I'm afraid that the plodding, "me-too-reality-show" that was portrayed last week probably turned more people off the show than anything. It's a shame too, because this week the pace really started picking up, and we got to see what the show truly has to offer.

Namely, a great bunch of films from a great bunch of directors. Well, mostly great films from mostly great directors. Click on for a walk through of 18 one-minute comedy shorts from 18 good and not so good up-and-coming directors.

(S01E01) I'm a reality TV junkie, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Well, almost not afraid to admit it.

If I were to compile a list of all the reality shows I've watched you'd find some real stinkers on it (*cough* Temptation Island), but I can't say I could include a single Mark Burnett produced series in the bunch.

Although On the Lot got off to slow start, I really see some potential in the show and think it's going to be another bona fide hit in the realm of Survivor and The Apprentice.

Why you ask? Because it takes all the things we like about the aforementioned shows (i.e. the competitiveness, the warring type A personalities, the bitchiness, and the everyman appeal of the contestants) and wraps it around a topic most of us have more than a passing interest in - movies.

Where were you on November 17, 1978? If you were alive (I keep forgetting how young some of our readers are), you were probably in front of the one TV in your house, with your family, waiting on pins and needles for the evening news to end. Why? Because ABC was about to air the highly-anticipated show The Star Wars Holiday Special, that's why. Most of us had seen the blockbuster Star Wars about a dozen times by then, and we were looking forward to seeing our favorite characters in an all-new adventure!

Unfortunately, it stunk. It stunk so bad that, according to IMDb, George Lucas tried to buy up all master copies of the show so it would never be shown again. And it hasn't; its only broadcast was on 11/17/78. It's never been released on home video, either. Bootlegs of the show have been floating around for decades, but have been hard to find.

But now, thanks to our old friend YouTube, you can now watch the entire special, which has been broken up into 10 parts. Part one is after the jump; click here to go to the YouTube page for it, where you'll see the other parts in the "Related" section.

Meg Ryan will play the role of Carrie Fisher in a mini-series for HBO. The series is an adaptation of Fisher's novel, The Best Awful, which is semi-autobiographical and fictionalizes many of the events in Fisher's life. The main character is Suzanne Vale, a bi-polar actress who marries a studio executive who leaves her and their three-year old daughter for another man. She's also the daughter of a former Hollywood starlet and is addicted to drugs and alcohol. The novel chronicles her mental breakdown and eventual build-up to a somewhat stable life. It seems like a good fit, since Meg Ryan does 'crazy' characters pretty well.

Carrie Fisher is writing the small screen adaptation of her novel, which is considered a sequel to Postcards From the Edge. Fisher and Ryan are producing the project, along with Bruce Cohen and Richard LaGravenese, the duo who produced American Beauty and ABC's upcoming thriller series, The Traveler.