• On the Lot, the reality show that’s had aspiring filmmakers buzzing for months and would-be-writers getting asked “why don’t you enter that there contest?” by their out-of-touch relatives who don’t get the difference between a director and a screenwriter for months will premiere alongside American Idol on May 16th. The series, which follows 16 contestants as they compete for a million dollar development deal at Dreamworks Studios, will then return after the Idol finale on May 22nd and 23rd. (Because, you know, finding out which bland poppet is going to be shoved down our throat as some kind of talent for the next eighteen months constitutes a national holiday now.) On The Lot is produced by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett (of Survivor) and airs on the FOX network.
  • The last time ultra-badass Ving Rhames starred in a television pilot, it was Aquaman, which didn’t get picked up but became a hit on YouTube. Hopefully, Rhames’s latest foray into the television universe will be a little bit more successful than that – he signed to star in the already-overhyped Football Wives for ABC. Rhames will play the GM of a pro football team in the series, which stars Gabrielle “Bad Boys II” Union and Lucy “Veronica Mars” Lawless. I haven’t been too excited for this show, which seems to a glossy exercise in camp before it’s even started shooting – but Rhames is an actor you can almost always count on to bring his A-game. I’ll watch.
  • THUD recently reported that ABC was prepping a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy focusing on Kate Walsh’s Dr. Addison Montgomery (formerly Montgomery-Shepard). Now, Reuters is reporting the show may have its first costar – Taye Diggs, formerly of Day Break and Kevin Hill. (The sound you just heard was thousands of Rentheads squealing.) It’s unclear whether Diggs is going to guest star in the Grey’s episode serving as the spin-off’s backdoor pilot or even what character he’s going to play, but I think he’s an actor with charisma and talent to spare who’s been out in the hinterlands far too long. Hooking up with one of the most successful tv creators in television right now could only be good for his career. Reuters also reports that Grey’s creator Shonda Rhimes is also going ahead with her long-in-the-pipeline war correspondents series starring Jeffrey Dean “Why Am I Always Cast In Girl Stuff, Somebody Get Me An Action Movie” Morgan, although that pilot won’t shoot until summer. I’m more excited for that show than I am for anything related to Grey’s, but it seems like the very hands-on Rhimes might be spreading herself a little too thin with all these new projects.
  • Samaire Armstrong was one of the best things about the first season of The O.C., and it’s a point of contention with some fans (me) that her character Anna never wound up with Adam Brody’s Seth Cohen, who preferred instead the mini-Fran Drescher that is Rachel Bilson (and her boobs). Armstrong went on to star in Entourage and Stay Alive, but just signed to play “Paris Hilton type” Juliet Darling in the ABC drama pilot Dirty Sexy Money, about an idealistic attorney (the always awesome Peter Krause) who gets involved with some “ethically flexible” rich people.
  • Dancing With The Stars, yet another reality show I couldn’t care less about, announced the almost-somebodys, the tangentially famous, and the has-beens making up the fourth season cast yesterday. They include Heather Mills, ex-wife of an ex-Beatle, Billy Ray Cyrus, ex-mulleted ex-country star now known for starring on some Disney Channel Piece of Shit, Leeza Gibbons, who they got because Delilah Rene was unavailable, Joey Fatone, the boy-bander Rent and Little Shop of Horrors signed when they were selling less tickets than they used to, Laila Ali, Muhammad Ali’s daughter, and Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore, who I won’t dare make jokes about. The rest of the cast is Apolo Anton Ohno, speed-skater, Paulina Porizkova, supermodel, Clyde Drexler, basketball hall-of-famer, Ian Ziering, former heartthrob, and Shandi Finnessy, beauty queen. Dancing With The Stars premieres March 19th on ABC.
  • Hey, you remember a couple of years back when the Emmy Awards did that thing where they got tv celebrities to perform musical numbers and called it “Emmy Idol?” Yeah, so do I. And you remember how it was pretty much the kind of joke that’s more painful than funny? Yeah, so do I. Well, as Variety reports, the tv academy is “stepping up their game” – American Idol producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick are the new executive producers of the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. Fantastic. The Emmys air September 16th on FOX.
  • Bill Carter, the television critic and author who doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “conflict of interest” reports that it’s not Carson Daly, but Jimmy Fallon who’s being courted to take over the 12:35 AM slot previously occupied by David Letterman and Conan O’Brien after the redheaded goliath takes over The Tonight Show. When I previously reported on the rumors that Daly wanted dibbies on Conan’s slot, I said that Carson is painfully unfunny and that NBC would be insane to give him that spot on their schedule. Well, I think Fallon is even less funny than Daly, and NBC is certifiable if they go with Fallon. The only two things that are notable from Jimmy’s tenure on Saturday Night Live is that girls thought he was cute and that he couldn’t keep a straight face in his sketches. Unfortunately, Fallon is, like, total BFFs with SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who Carter reports will play a fundamental role in choosing the new host of Late Night. Coupled with competitor Craig Ferguson’s touching monologue on Monday night, this news makes me think I’ll be switching over to CBS come 2009.
  • Much has been written in the television press already about the fast rise and rapid decline of The O.C., which has its series finale this week. I was a fan of the show in the first couple of seasons, where the good (Adam Brody, the music, Peter Gallagher’s Stallone impression) often outweighed the bad (Mischa Barton, Mischa Barton, Mischa Barton). But as the show went on, the bad, the ludicrous, and the outright ridiculous overtook the good. Many of these articles wrote about where the show went wrong, and I think putting more and more emphasis on Melinda Clarke had a lot to do with it. From the beginning, Clarke, as Barton’s mother Julie Cooper, was out of place. She seemed to embody all the soap conventions the show mocked – greedy, manipulative, seductive, over-the-top – but she was also one of the show’s breakout characters. Clarke did a fine job in her role, but it never seemed like a role for The O.C., which constantly struggled with wanting to be the next great teen soap and yet wanting to be a show that mocked the teen soaps at the same time. Farewell, Ryan, Seth, Summer, Kirsten, Sandy and his eyebrows, Julie, Jimmy, Caleb, Alex, Anna, Lindsay, Zach, and George Lucas – it was fun, it was sometimes real, but it was almost always real fun.