john wells

Really, this isn't a huge surprise.

NBC has renewed the new Thursday night police drama Southland for another 13 episodes. The reason why I don't think this is a big surprise is because the show is getting some attention (though the ratings aren't as good as they were when the first episode debuted) and because it's a John Wells, show, and if there's anyone who is going to get a thumbs up from NBC its Wells, who also did ER, The West Wing, and Third Watch for the network. I guess it's interesting that it's 13 episodes and not a full season, but that order could be upped later (or maybe this will become more of the norm, renewing shows with a shorter episode order).

Now, NBC, when you announce which shows you've picked up and which shows aren't coming back on Monday, could you please renew Chuck for another season? Thanks.

Southland, the gritty new police drama from film producer Ann Biderman, puts the spotlight on the dark and grimy corners of Los Angeles as seen through the eyes of uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives. Unfortunately, the series premiere is mired in cop show clichés and forgets to deliver anything we haven't seen before.

The first episode – stream it now or watch it below, a week before it debuts on NBC – owes a lot to NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street and countless other cop shows that came before it. It's a procedural with a large cast about cops struggling to balance "the job" with their personal lives.

If you've been watching NBC this week, you've probably seen all the promos for tonight's episode of ER. The episode is called "Old Times" and will feature former stars Juliana Margulies and Eriq LaSalle (joining Noah Wyle, who has been back for a couple of weeks). But one star who is supposed to be on the show before it ends in early April, George Clooney, isn't in the promos for tonight's episode. Does that mean he's not on until a later episode?

Probably not. Producer John Wells is telling fans to make sure they watch tonight's episode, and Margulies has already said that she has filmed scenes with Clooney, so it's a good bet that he's on tonight's episode. Also, if you notice that at the very end of the promo, the screen suddenly goes black when Margulies says hello to someone she sees. Above is a pic of Clooney on the set when he filmed his scenes in January.

Oh, ER. Not again, not again.

If you watched last night's episode of ER, you saw the return of Dr. John Carter. His wife is visiting family in Paris, and he's back in Chicago to...well, we don't exactly know why he's back yet, but he's actually going to be working part-time at County General again. That's the only good news about what happened last night (I thought this was just going to be a quick visit by Wyle for a few episodes, I didn't realize he'd be working at the hospital again) because the ending probably made longtime ER fans sigh and/or grit their teeth.

The last scene showed Carter hooked up to...well, I'm not a doctor, but I'm assuming it's a dialysis machine or some sort of cancer treatment? He had a haunted look on his face, and he had a rather somber attitude throughout the entire episode. Scenes from episodes coming up showed Carter saying that he came back to Chicago specifically to talk to Dr. Banfield (?) and we also saw a scene of Carter dropping to the floor in the emergency room looking really, really bad.

Are they going to kill off Carter a la Mark Greene?

...Yes!

Entertainment Tonight is reporting that George Clooney will indeed come back to ER in this final season. In fact, he's filming his secret scenes later this week.

The on again, off again dance between Clooney and John Wells is on again, after rumors that he was coming back to the show one final time in this last season, then he wasn't, then he was, then he might, then he was too busy and handsome, etc.

No word yet on whether or not Juliana Margulies, Clooney's significant other on the show, will make a return with Clooney. Well, actually, there is word, and the word from Margulies is no. But that was Clooney's word, too, until he decided to come back.

Juliana, if you're reading this, please come back, so they don't have to come up with some excuse (divorce, death) as to why Carol isn't with Doug when he visits County General.

I think ER first started saying farewell like eight years ago or something. Then last year was the final season. Then this year was the final season. And now NBC has added three more episodes to the final season of ER to push the last episode back just a little bit more. Of course, the end result is that this season of ER is now 22 episodes which makes it the same length as any other normal season. It also gives them a little more time to come up with an excuse to renew the show for another year and make next season it's new final season. What else do you have going on NBC?

They'd have to move it to 9:00 though because of Jay Leno, but it's not like the NBC lineup is brimming with hits they'll have to shuffle around. Of course, there is new programming to think about. In fact, the deal that netted the additional three installments was part of a negotiation involving Warner Bros. TV and another show they've got in development called Police, about the ... uh ... police ... in LA.

I was afraid this might happen to new shows.

Brett told you last June about a new show from ER producer John Wells titled LAPD. Well, the show has been retitled to Police, and NBC is still interested in it. However, not only is the number of episodes ordered under dispute (they're looking for 12, but NBC might want six instead), there might not be a place on the schedule for it. Jay Leno is taking up the 10pm time slot Monday through Friday later this year, so they might only want it for a short period of time. And that's if they have room for it at all.

This originally was going to be yet another post on how George Clooney might come back to ER one last time in the final season of the show (executive producer John Wells says he hasn't asked him yet). But we've been back and forth on that so many times that we really don't know what's going to happen. However, TV critic Terry Morrow did ask Wells if any characters on the show would be killed off in the show's last season, and Wells says that yes, at least one person on ER will die before the show ends. He didn't, however, say whether it's a current cast member or if it's someone new that will be introduced this season.

So assuming that it's a character we already know, who do you think it should be? After the jump, a poll. Should a helicopter fall on Morris? How about Neela getting shot by a patient? Maybe an explosion in the emergency room can kill everyone except Frank? Are they bringing Noah Wyle back just to kill him with a Sno-Cone machine?

NBC has had it pretty easy for the last fifteen years where Thursday nights at 10, 9 Central, are concerned. ER was locked in, and for the better part of that run was a dominant force. Now that the show is finally coming to an end, they need to start grooming a replacement. It looks like it could be a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

ER executive producer, John Wells, has set up a new show, LAPD, at the network. It's an ensemble show that will follow the lives of police officers in Los Angeles and will be written by Ann Biderman. That's a solid choice as she won an Emmy for her work on NYPD Blue. The network has ordered a pilot and casting has begun. Another ER alum, Christopher Chulack, is on board to direct. Can it replace ER? Probably not completely. Remember, ER had a run as the number one show on television. That kind of success is hard to come by. Still, given the talent involved, it is something to look forward to.

[ via Cynopsis ]

ER has a way of either killing off beloved characters or sending them off in some other unnecessary, shitty way (remember Jeanie just leaving without saying goodbye to anyone because they were too busy?), but now a top star on the show actually wants them to kill off her character.

Maura Tierney tells AOL's TV Tattler that she wants the show to kill Abby. Tierney isn't coming back full time next season (she'll be on a handful of episodes) and she would like to see Abby killed off instead of walking into the sunset with Luka. But breathe easy, Abby fans. Tierney says that the producers have no plans to kill Abby off. I'm not sure why Tierney would want to have her character killed off. I mean, she's not going to be on the show anymore so why tick off fans?

But let's speculate, shall we? I'll leave it up to you, ER fans: if they do kill off Abby, how should she go? Helicopter chopping her head off? Drinking herself to death? Buffalo stampede? Caught in a black hole?

There's been talk for the last several months - and common wisdom would logically conclude - that this was going to be the last year for NBC's long running medical drama ER. The show has been on for 14 years and the ratings don't really justify spending the money on another season. But hold on ER fans ...

At a party celebrating the show's 300th episode (300 episodes? Yikes), producer John Wells said that he is going to being negotiations with NBC later this month to bring the show back for another year in the 2008-09 season. The ratings aren't that bad, and the network could cut costs in some way and make it doable.

In my latest New TV on DVD post the other night, some readers were wondering when the NBC show Third Watch was going to be released on DVD. Well, the home entertainment gods (or the folks at Warner Brothers) must have heard your prayers, because the first season set is coming on February 5!

The set will be six DVDs total, and wil include all 22 episodes from the first season, features, unaired scenes, and a gag reel.

If the comments section here is any indication, even though Smith was canceled rather quickly by CBS, it actually had a lot of fans. Of course, we didn't get 10 million comments, so "a lot" wasn't really enough.

TV Guide has a breakdown on why the show was canceled. It seemed like it could be a hit: West Wing/ER producer John Wells, big stars like Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, and lots of hype by CBS, but what happened? People have speculated that it was because the gang of crooks on the show weren't likable, but the magazine says that it was more the price of the show. Each episode cost about $3 million dollars!

I wonder how much that awful motorcycle chase with Simon Baker cost to film?

Abby  Lockhart has become the new Mark Greene.

As fans of the long-running ER know, Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) had some of the worst luck and unhappiness in the emergency room staff of County General. First, his wife leaves him, then he gets beaten up in the ER bathroom by a unknown assailant. Both his mother and father die in the same year, he's diagnosed with a brain tumor (which was successfully removed), his daughter feeds his newborn child Escasty, his brain tumor comes back, and he dies while in Hawaii. Needless to say, the man had no luck.

And now Abby (Maura Tierney) looks like she's wearing the albatross around her neck. Well, actually, she's been wearing it for several seasons now. It began when she was kicked out of medical school after her ex-husband failed to pay her tuition. Then, she had a rough set of relationships with Doctors Luka Kovac and John Carter. Her bi-polar mother stop taking her meds and her brother was diagnosed with the same mental disease as her mother. Last season she was kidnapped by a drug dealer who wanted Abby to treat an injured comrade.

 

(S07E22) Was anyone else struck by the differences between the pilot episode of The West Wing (shown tonight before the finale) and the episodes from the past couple of years, including this one? Such a different vibe. So much energy and passion and great writing (not to mention inspirational music and romanticism) in the pilot, compared to the last couple of years of so-so writing, dark camera work, bad changes in characters (although this season was a comeback). I would have rather have seen a retrospective, but it was interesting to see how the show began and how it will end.

The series finale got so many things right and also a few things wrong. Let's talk about them.