Happy or not that The CW will air a new version of Melrose Place, you must admit that you'll at least watch the premiere out of curiosity, especially if you watched the first show.

Tidbits about the show released these past weeks will have viewers tune in to know how the show will revive Sydney, a very much dead character played by Laura Leighton on the original series.

If that mystery is not enough to get you to tune in on Tuesday, September 8 at 9 p.m., maybe the new spoilers and casting information below will.

Warning! Spoilers coming up!

(S02E24) "If you think we're bad, you should have seen our parents." - Gossip Girl about those who complain about today's youth

After weeks, if not months, of hearing about it, we finally saw what the Gossip Girl spin off could be like. Set in the 80s, the spin off would star Brittany Snow as a young Lily, Krysten Ritter as her sister Carol, and Andrew McCarthy as their father. The action would, as expected, follow Lily's life as a young woman trying to make sense of the world and find her place in it.

This past week, the Internet has been filled with reports that the potential spin off was dead even before this week's episode aired. Other reports claimed that there was still a chance for the spin off to be picked up and find its way on The CW's 2009-2010 schedule. How about we don't listen to those reports and make our own decision on if the network should give the spin off a chance?

Back in October 2007, we learned that FOX was looking into making a Prison Break spin off set in a prison for women. The plan was to introduce the new series as an episode of Prison Break. This way of testing the waters before officially launching a spinoff has been used to introduce series such as NCIS and Private Practice and will be used this spring to launch the planned Gossip Girl and NCIS's spinoffs.

The Prison Break spinoff idea was put on the back burner and most of us thought it would never happen after all. However, a casting call for PB's episode 4.23 makes me think that FOX is going forward with the spinoff set in a prison for women, especially now that Prison Break has been cancelled. Or they at least want to test the idea before making their final decision.

Spoilers for episode 4.23 and potential Prison Break spinoff coming up!

Spinoffs are nothing new in TV. Some of the biggest hits of all time were spinoffs -- Frasier, Boston Legal, Private Practice, The Jeffersons, The Andy Griffith Show, Rhoda, Maude, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI...the list goes on and on.

The news today that TNT is backing a spinoff from The Closer is no surprise. It makes sense.

The Closer is the top drama on cable in the ratings and has garnered Emmy notice. That kind of success demands replication, and TNT has empowered the brains behind The Closer, creator James Duff to make it happen.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the Silverman-Graboff executive session (which I promise will be up later today ... probably this evening) is that, though Amy Poehler has been signed to be in a show produced by The Office's Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, that show will not be an Office spin-off. It'll have the same comic sensibility and style as The Office, but the characters won't be part of the Office universe. However, a real Office spin-off is still in play, and there's potential for Rashida Jones to be a part of it.

Got that? Neither did the critics, who repeatedly asked mostly Silverman to clarify the situation during both the panel and the scrum that followed.

Some quickie news from Showtime, presented by entertainment president Bob Greenblatt:

• Ilene Chaiken is developing a spin-off for The L Word, which will feature a yet unspecified character from the original show, whose upcoming season will be its last. There will be an open-ended plot in the season finale that Chaiken will continue online, then pick up if the spin-off comes to pass.
• Two more 13-episode seasons of Weeds have been ordered.
• A seventh season of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! has been ordered, making it Showtime's longest-running show.
• A reality/documentary show called Lock 'N Load has been ordered; it's filmed in a gun shop, and it shows the various people who purchase guns and "exploit their right to bear arms," according to the press release.
• Two new pilots have been ordered and filmed. The United States of Tara, produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Diablo Cody, stars Toni Collette as a suburban mother with multiple-personality disorder. John Corbett stars as her husband (yes... it's a comedy). The other pilot is tentatively-titled Nurse Jackie. It stars Edie Falco as a New York City nurse with a painkiller addiction who sometimes crosses moral lines to help her patients (no... it's not a comedy). Tara will begin airing in winter 2009, and Jackie will begin airing in late spring or early summer.
  

Weeds began it's fourth season Monday night on Showtime and showrunner Jenji Kohan told E! Online that she's thinking about doing a Weeds spin-off. The possible spin-off would focus on Conrad's story and take place in a pot club. Kohan explains that it was time to split up Nancy and Conrad but she still felt like Conrad's story was compelling: "I love those characters; I just think those relationships wore themselves out, and I wanted to be true to where the characters were. Truthfully, Heylia and Nancy had nothing more to say to each other. Conrad and Nancy weren't going to be the loves of each other's lives, so it was time to move on."

As for the style of the spin-off, Jenji Kohan has a good idea of what she wants the show to look like. "I'd shoot it sort of fake reality-show style. It could be pretty like The Hills!," she says. While The Hills is indeed a "pretty" show, I think comparing the Weeds spin-off to The Hills is a downgrade for me. I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen.

Word on the street yesterday was that the 90210 spin-off executive producers were thinking of actor Rob Estes to portray Harry Mills, a father who relocates his family in Beverly Hills to take care of his alcoholic mother. The show had yet to find an actor to play the pivotal role and they were now getting ready to just hand it on a silver platter to a "name" actor.

The stars quickly aligned (read here that Rob Estes became available since ABC canceled Women's Murder Club) and the actor will join the already beautiful 90210 cast.

Earlier this week, The CW released this promotional picture of the 90210 regular cast. From left to right: Dustin Milligan, AnnaLynne McCord, Jessica Walter, Shenae Grimes, Tristan Wilds, Lori Loughlin, Ryan Eggold, Jessica Stroup and Michael Steger.

If you've been keeping up with information about the spin-off, you know that there is someone missing from that picture. No, it's not Jennie Garth or Tori Spelling since they will be recurring/guest stars. But it's the actor who'll play the pivotal character of Harry Mills, a father who relocates his family in Beverly Hills to take care of his mother.

When a series is successful, it's not surprising that there are talks of spin-offs. In the last few years, we had spin-offs for Grey's Anatomy, Girlfriends, CSI, Law & Order, etc., while others are in the works for Battlestar Galactica and Beverly Hills, 90210.

Therefore, I don't think you'll fall off your chair if I tell you that FOX is toying with the idea of a House spin off. But you may want to make sure you are properly seated before reading this: the spin-off would not focus on doctors but private investigators!

The Beverly Hills 90210 spin off was looking for an actress in her 60's who could play an actress and alcoholic. Who better for the role than Arrested Development's Jessica Walter? After all, she is an actress and her AD role of Lucille Bluth required that she pretends to be drinking/drunk in a lot of episodes!

TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly confirmed earlier today that the actress was cast in the lead role of Tabitha Mills, an actress who had her career prime in the 70s and who is now best friends with a liquor bottle. Worried about his mother's well-being, her son Harry moves his family to Beverly Hills.

The Berverly Hills, 90210 spin off found its mother! TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reports that Full House's Lori Loughlin was cast as Celia Mills, "an ex-Olympic athlete who relocates to Beverly Hills with her husband and two children."

As we revealed about a month ago, 90210 version 2.0 will revolve around the Mills family, which relocates to Beverly Hills so the patriarch can take care of his movie star mother who just fell off the wagon. Supposedly, he'll get a job as Beverly Hills High new principal.

The Grey's Anatomy boards and blogs, and even some of our articles here at TV Squad, have been experiencing a surge in negative comments and posts. Those comments are directed at solely one thing: the potential spin-off featuring the character of Addison.

Why are fans so unhappy with the end result? Will fan comments have ABC not pick up Private Practice?

Let's analyze a few of the negative comments left by the TV Squad visitors in our "Grey's Anatomy vs. the spin-off -- Part 2" post.

Less than two weeks ago, we pondered if the spin-off would be better than Grey's Anatomy based on the information and spoilers that had leaked so far. Now that the two Grey's Anatomy's episodes serving to launch the potential spin-off have aired, it is time to revisit our "Grey's Anatomy vs. the spin-off" article and reflect on if we were right or not and decide what series is better based on what aired last night.