Sean Maguire seems to be a bit popular these days. In fact, the post where I realised that the young Aidan from Grange Hill was in fact the gay guy in The Class (now on E4 on repeated loop) is the third most popular of the blog (via Google Image Search, unsurprisingly).

While wandering around St Anns shopping mall in Harrow on the Hill the other day, I couldn't help noticing his name on the poster for Meet the Spartans, the new 'comedy' starring Carmen Electra and Kevin 'Hercules' Sorbo, among others. Does anyone else think that perhaps there's something in the tap water at Grange Hill that produced a certain physical change? Or maybe that's a stunt chest.

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24: Never give jessie-wuss girls a gun because they'll never use it, even when it could shorten a whole season and save the US
30 Rock: Is getting seriously cerebral. I thought Numb3rs was the only show on tele that could talk about "transitive properties"
Battlestar Galactica: James Callis can do a pretty good Yorkshire accent (he did go to the University of York, apparently); the class war will continue in space
The Class: Adultery is perfectly acceptable if your husband mixes you up with one of his ex-wives.
CSI: William Petersen's beards can be used as plot development
Heroes: Is just so cool
Lost: Some flashbacks can be amazingly tedious and pointless and should be best left forgotten
Numb3rs: Just occasionally, Ken Sanzel can write a good episode. It's still not great, though, not even though it's ripping off 24
Studio 60: If you're going to go, go out on a bang or your chances of ever coming back are scuppered.
The Unit: It's possible to make the LA metro look like the Berlin underground system. A bit.

Read other posts about: 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica, CSI, Heroes, Lost, Numb3rs, Studio 60, The Class, The Unit

24: There is a law of the television universe called the “Conservation of Family Goodness”. The total net goodness of any TV family must be 0. The more good one family member is, the more evil the other ones must be. If a family member disappears for some reason, their goodness or evil must be redistributed among the remaining family members.
The Class: There really is nothing funnier to American sitcom writers than English people. Or English people faking American accents. Or Americans faking English accents.
CSI: All the best ones die young.
CSI: Miami: No matter how stupid you think the show is right now, it just keeps getting stupider. David Caruso can heal people now, just by touching them.
Heroes: If you need a load of superheroes, in-breeding seems to be the way forward.
House: Sometimes, it's the simple explanations that are the most interesting.
Lost: When Lost dawdles, it's rubbish. When it starts explaining stuff, it's great
My Name is Earl: No matter how good you think the show is right now, it will just keep getting better.
Prison Break: All cabals and conspiracies require a cigar-smoking room for their headquarters.
Smallville: Lana Lang is the western world's biggest stalker magnet. She should be stuck at one end of Hollywood Boulevard to draw out the crazies.
Supernatural: After a while, the phrase “yellow-eyed demon” stops being scary and starts to become a bit funny.
Scrubs: Developing characters in a long-running show is a good idea.
Studio 60: Aaron Sorkin really can't write women well. Also, after a given point in any Sorkin show, it will actually become impossible to work out what characters are talking about.
The Unit: A show, no matter how good, automatically jumps the shark as soon as the psychics episode arrives.

Read other posts about: CSI, Heroes, Lost, My Name is Earl, Prison Break, Scrubs, Smallville, Studio 60, Supernatural, The Class, The Unit

24 (Fox)
There are ways to make family reunions bearable.

Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 4/E4)
People will watch anything. Judging by the ratings, racism is entertainment.

CSI (CBS)
Sometimes, the plots of even the best shows make absolutely no sense.

Heroes (NBC)
A week is a long, long time when a show is really, really enjoyable. I want the next episode now! Also, Christopher Eccleston will never be cast as anything except an angry northerner, no matter where in the world he's employed.

Psych (The USA Network)
Give a show six months' rest and when it comes back, sometimes, just sometimes, it will be better than when it went away.

Smallville (The CW)
Even when a plot has been done well by countless other TV shows, it's still possible to do it again and still make it good, creepy and interesting. Also, actors who have been in shows for six years will remember how to act when they're given something new to do for a change. Things we already knew: Clark is an idiot - go with Chloe, you nutter.

Studio 60 (NBC)
If you're the hero of a TV show, you can act like a stalker and the girl will still want you by the end of the episode. It's also really easy to learn Mandarin Chinese from a phrase book.

Supernatural (The CW)
If you're doing a “monster of the week” show, don't bring the same monster back – twice – unless you can actually make it interesting.

The Class (CBS)
If you piss off sitcom producers, they can excise you from the titles and publicity material faster than Stalin.

Read other posts about: 24, Big Brother, CSI, Heroes, Smallville, Studio 60, Supernatural, The Class

Doctor Who

• You could win a place at the series three launch night party in central London.

Film

• Clive Owen is to play Philip Marlowe.
• Little Man and Basic Instinct 2 topped the Razzie nominations this year.

British TV

• Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre's going to slag off the Beeb in a speech. Bit of a busman's holiday, surely?
• Big Brother: The show's up for review but hasn't been cancelled. Ooh, there's brave...

US TV

• 24
  • The city of Valencia is annoyed (spoilers)
  • You can now buy a Jack Bauer adventure bag
• The Class: A member of the cast has been unceremoniously shed, as predicted.
• Heroes
  • Ali Larter talks and spoils
  • Eric Roberts is joining the cast
  • An online companion for the show launched last night
  • E!'s Kristin has lots of spoilers, too.
• Lost: A dead 'Lostie' is returning for another episode
• Prison Break: Third season, shmird season. Wentworth Miller's heard it's going for five.
• Smallville: There are no plans for a Justice League or Green Arrow spin-off
• Supernatural: More spoilers for the rest of the season

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Read other posts about: 24, Big Brother, Heroes, Lost, Prison Break, Smallville, Supernatural, The Class

Film

• Peter Jackson, director of Lord of the Rings, has been blacklisted by New Line.
• Gail Berman has left Paramount.

British TV

• The BBC has been ordered to publish the minutes of the meeting that forced out Greg Dyke. [registration required]
• Ricky Gervais describes the second series of Extras as the funniest thing he's even done.

US TV

• Quantum Leap: The Second aka Journeyman has received a cast-contingent pilot order from NBC.
• Ask Auriello has a spoilertastic interview with Tim Kring, creator of Heroes.
• The Chicago Tribune has an even more spoiling interview with Ronald D Moore and David Eick of Battlestar Galactica.
• There's going to be a live webcast of the table read and run-through of an episode of The Class.
• Chloe is hotter by design this season of 24.

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Read other posts about: 24, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, The Class

Choose life

Art

• One of Francis Bacon's Pope paintings is up for auction next month.

Commercials

• Bruce Campbell is going to be the new face of Old Spice in the US!

Film

• Apocalypto has had the best UK opening weekend for a foreign-language film.

British TV

• Sex channel Look4Love becomes the first (?) channel to lose its broadcasting licence because it failed to pay a fine.

US TV

• Fox has a trio of new pilots: Canterbury's Law, about a rebellious female defence attorney; Supreme Courtships, which is about the personal and professional lives of six Supreme Court clerks; and an untitled comedy drama about the lives and loves of nurses.
• NBC has greenlit two pilots as well: one is a “light-hearted drama about a female police office”; the other is based on Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle, so there's the hint of Sex and the City about it, apparently.
• There's an interesting interview with Thomas Schlamme, exec producer of Studio 60, in a magazine. It's a Christian magazine, incidentally.
• Erik Estrada got annoyed when someone called him Emilio Estevez.
• There's a long interview on EW.com with Kiefer Sutherland about season six of 24
• From E!'s Kristin:
• Six Degrees should be back in the next two months.
• One of The Class's cast is leaving.
• Some juicy Prison Break spoilers.

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Read other posts about: 24, Prison Break, Sex and the City, Studio 60, The Class

Best taken with some bacon or a rollmop herring:

Doctor Who

• It was the press screening of The Christmas Invasion yesterday, so news and spoilers are all over the place:
  • BBC One controller Peter Fincham says that the show has a long future ahead of it. The Beeb still hasn't confirmed a fourth series, though.
  • The OTT blog has a review of the press screening itself, including a couple of spoilers.
  • Which are as nothing compared with the Daily Mail's spoilers.
• Colin Baker is to appear in one of Big Finish's Sapphire and Steel audio plays. League of Gentleman star, future Who guest star and current Who author Mark Gatiss will be returning to the series as Gold. Sarah Douglas from Superman II will be appearing in the season's (and likely the series') final episode.

British TV

• I was wondering a while back what was happening about that remake of The Prisoner, given that Chris Nolan was making a film as well. Turns out, as suspected, that there are two versions going ahead now. Universal, which is behind Nolan's flick, have the film rights and are still going ahead with a movie. But now US network AMC has come on board with Granada and Sky One to co-produce at least six episodes of a TV version. Production will begin in Spring, with the first episodes airing in the US and the UK in January 2008. It's going to be an 'entirely new reinterpretation'. Um...
• There's going to be a ratings system for British television, although it's going to debut in Channel's 4oD online service.
• The big ratings winners on digital TV are the networks that spun off from the terrestrial channels.
• The Hogfather has stolen Torchwood's record to become the highest ever rated digital TV show, with 2.8 million viewers. Meanwhile, Torchwood's ratings have dropped below Lost's again, bringing in 900,000 viewers for BBC3.

US TV

• Raines has had its order of episodes cut to just seven, even though it won't air until March. That doesn't sound promising, does it?
• E!'s Watch With Kristin has notable news and spoilers, including:
  • Paul Reubens will be appearing in 30 Rock.
  • The BSG spin-off, Caprica, now has a script and is waiting for network approval
  • My Boys has had another nine episodes commissioned
• Frank Skinner's British sitcom, Shane, is being remade for the US by its British producers, Avalon. Avalon also has some other comedies up its sleeve, including Evil Genius, about a super-villain who takes over the world and realises it's bit harder to run than he first thought.
• The L Word is launching a social networking site.
• There are format changes ahead for The Class as attempts are made to make the sitcom more conventional. Curses. However, some of its themes of suicide, infidelity, etc will be preserved.
• One of The Nine's producers tries to explain why the show flopped.

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Read other posts about: 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica, Big Finish, The Class, The Prisoner, Torchwood

Justice, which I kind of liked but which I admit has been going downhill a bit since the first episode, has now been pulled from the Fox schedules indefinitely. Another one bites the dust, huh?

As well as US networks, this is all kind of disappointing for British networks since a number of their big acquisitions have already been cancelled. It might also be very disappointing for anyone who's had to wade through my reviews over the last few months and had their hopes pinned on some of these shows appearing.

Here are the winners, though. UK viewers will see these trumpeted onto their screens from January next year for complete (and so far open-ended) seasons. Don't forget, mid-season shows Raines and The Black Donnellys are still to air, so no one knows what's going to happen to them yet.

ITV1/ITV2/ITV3/ITV4
Jericho (good to very good)
Friday Night Lights (okay to good)

Channel 4/E4/More4
Studio 60 (good)
Ugly Betty (very good)
Brothers and Sisters (absolute arse)
The Class (good to very good)

Five/Five US
Shark (below average to average)

SciFi Channel
Heroes (very good)

Living
Men in Trees (average to good)

FX
Brotherhood (good to very good. Already airing)
Dexter (outstanding)

There are a few stragglers whose fate is ostensibly still to be decided: Standoff (Fox/Sky One), Six Degrees (ABC/ITV), The Nine (ABC/Five) and Vanished (Fox/Five). But they're all pretty likely to be hitting a dustbin/trashcan some time soon. Also Friday Night Lights' fate is a little bit up the in air, but the smart money is on it getting a full season.

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Read other posts about: Brotherhood, Dexter, Heroes, Jericho, Studio 60, The Class, Ugly Betty

Ratings are improving so CBS have ordered four more episodes of The Class.

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