traveler

Welcome to Subtle Subtitles. For those of you who are uninitiated to the purpose of this feature, we're asking you to come up with your funniest quote or description for what's going on in the screen grab we choose for the week. Winners are announced in the following Friday's contest.

First place to Tele-Toby:

2nd place to Halfbreed: "Pants? Where we're going, we don't need pants!"
3rd place to Bus: "At the law firm of Chipp & Dales we'll always take a firm stance with your case and make sure you see our whole package."

This week, a scene from the latest episode of Traveler:

(S01E03) I don't know that any of us can ever really understand the machinations that go into making the network schedule. After watching the first three episodes of Traveler though, I'm left scratching my head wondering just what it was that kept this one tucked away for so long. I'll give in where The Nine is concerned, because the pilot was very good. But how this one got passed over for Six Degrees, Men In Trees, and the collection of little sit-coms that couldn't is beyond me.

• At 8, ABC has a new The Next Best Thing: Who Is The Greatest Celebrity Impersonator?, followed by the season premiere of American Inventor and a new Traveler.
• NBC has the Senators/Ducks game at 8.
• The CW has a new Hidden Palms at 8, then a new One Tree Hill.
• At 9, FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance.
• TBS has the series premiere of Tyler Perry's House of Payne at 9, followed by another new episode.
• There's a new Mythbusters on Discovery at 9.
• The Travel Channel has a new World Poker Tour at 9.
• Also at 9: Sci-Fi has the season premiere of Ghost Hunters, then a new Destination Truth.
• At 10, Food Network has a new Good Eats.
• There's a new Top Chef on Bravo at 10, where cast members from the first two seasons compete for charity.

Check your local TV listings for more.

(S01E01 & S01E02) Ask and you shall receive, folks! TV Squad is officially covering ABC's Traveler. The show's third episode, "New Haven," airs this Wednesday, so it's time to play catch-up.The pilot episode and "The Retreat" provided a thorough look at all the key players and mysteries.

• At 8, FOX has a new, two-hour So You Think You Can Dance.
• ABC has the premiere of The Next Best Thing: Who Is The Best Celebrity Impersonator? at 8, followed by a repeat of the Traveler pilot and a new episode of Traveler.
• The CW has the premiere of Hidden Palms at 8, then a new One Tree Hill.
• History Channel has two new episodes of Modern Marvels at 8, then a new History Rocks.
• PBS has new episodes of Craft In America all night.
• At 9, Discovery has a new Mythbusters.
• Food Network has a new Paula's Home Cooking at 9, followed by a new Tyler's Ultimate.
• Travel Channel has a new World Poker Tour at 9.
• Also at 9: ESPN has the Jazz/Spurs playoff game.
• At 10, Bravo has a new Shear Genius.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Traveler was originally on ABC's fall schedule, but it kept getting bumped back. Now it's the end of the regular network television season, and Traveler is finally getting a chance to air. Why is this? After seeing the pilot, I suspect it is because ABC was worried that the show would get lost in a sea of new dramatic serials that premiered last fall. It seems like a reasonable assumption, because there really isn't anything wrong with this series. I'm not jumping for joy over it, but I do find it somewhat intriguing.

The premise of Traveler is this: Three best friends (Jay, Tyler, and Will Traveler) graduate from Yale and plan to go on a two-month, cross-country road trip. Only, it all comes to an end on the first afternoon when there's a terrorist bombing in a NYC museum that they're in. Jay and Tyler get out, but Will is gone. And so is his stuff from the hotel. Jay and Tyler end up becoming suspects in the bombing (trust me, it makes sense), and, instead of turning themselves in, they decide to go "underground" and try to find out who this Will Traveler person really is.

Here are AOL Television's top picks of the week.

The New Adventures of Old Christine (Mon., 8:30PM ET, CBS) 2nd season finale
A few months ago in Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens pondered, "Why Women Aren't Funny." We beg to differ. Week after week, Julia Louis-Dreyfus consistently knocks it out of the comedy park. And, of the three Seinfeld sidekicks, she (the only woman) is only one to break the "curse" and succeed in her own show. Tonight's finale has Christine fretting over a possible pregnancy -- and the end of any chance of dating hottie Mr. Harris (Blair Underwood). Hopefully, CBS will wake up, laugh and renew this sitcom for a third season.

ABC is giving Traveler some love. What is Traveler? Well, I'd honestly be surprised if you remembered. It was on ABC's fall schedule, which was announced almost a year ago, and then kept getting bumped back to later dates. The series is about two college grads who end up getting framed for a terrorist act by another college buddy. Bob has been looking forward to it for nearly a year now!

Earlier this month, ABC announced Traveler would premiere on May 30th, but now the network has bumped up that premiere and given it a sweet time slot. The pilot episode of Traveler will air on May 10th at 10 pm, following a new episode of Grey's Anatomy. Then, the pilot will air again on the May 30th date.

I'm not sure if this is a good marketing idea. It seems odd to give a sneak preview of a show and then make people remember that they need to pick it up again during a holiday week (Memorial Day).

When the new fall schedules were announced last year, one of the shows that I was most looking forward to, ABC's mystery-drama Traveler, wasn't on the schedule. Which was sort of surprising since it got a lot of positive buzz in the upfront presentation that the network gave. And then we had all of the serialized dramas failing badly (The Nine, Smith, Daybreak, etc) and it seemed like Traveler would never premiere.

But ABC has announced that Traveler will indeed make it's debut on May 30, at 10pm. The number of episodes has been trimmed a little, and it looks like it's going to be one of those shows that will have a definite end, maybe like a long miniseries, so viewers won't feel cheated. Which is good news for TV fans these days, I guess.

I hate summer. I think I mentioned that here before. I'm so happy when September rolls around. The humidity drains away, it starts to get colder, kids go back to school, the holidays approach, I can wear pants again, and, most importantly, the new TV season starts. So many new shows starting, so many shows returning...

Here are the five things I'm most looking forward to in the Fall of 2006.

1. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: It's from Aaron Sorkin, it's about the inner workings of a television variety show, and it has a terrific cast, so I think this might be the show I've been most looking forward to in years. The pilot was very promising, and if the rest of the episodes are half as good as The West Wing or Sports Night, Monday nights at 10 might be the new night of Must-See TV.

Now that pilot season is wrapping up, it's casting season in L.A., where mega-stars or yet-to-be-discovered actors sign on to all sorts of new shows in hopes that the networks will pick them up for the fall line-up. There are a lot of big names this time around. Check it out:

• Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) will star in the ABC drama pilot Brothers & Sisters, a soap-style drama about adult siblings.
• Heather Locklear is in negotiations for a leading role in the ABC comedy pilot, Women of a Certain Age. Locklear would play a recently widowed woman who starts a new life with her two best friends.
• Ron Livingston (Sex and the City, Office Space) is one of two leads in a FOX drama called Primary, which is about a male and a female hostage negotiator who balance their love lives with their jobs.
• Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos) has agreed to star in CBS' Waterfront, as the charismatic and "ethically-challenged" mayor of Providence, R.I.
• Steven Culp, previously known as Rex Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives, will appear in the ABC drama, Traveler, about three Yale graduate students who become a national security risk when one of them frames the other two for an art museum bombing.
• Swoosie Kurtz will take on a supporting role in the CBS comedy, Play Nice, which stars Timm Sharp and Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect) as a brother and sister who run a toy company.
• Jonah Lotan, who has been playing Spenser Wolff this season on 24, will take on a role on the FOX thriller, Beyond, which is about the space race.

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]