TV

Check out Joy Tipping's story on how some Texans fared at the Antiques Roadshow taping over the weekend.

It appears that one potential Dancing With the Stars contestant has let the cat out of the bag way early. Warren Sapp, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders defensive tackle, let slip in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times that the show has asked him to participate and he is leaning toward accepting. If you're the lucky lady who gets paired up with him, look out: his playing weight hovered right around 300 pounds. And that's when he was still working out regularly. That being said, football players have a solid track record on the show. Jerry Rice made the finals and Emmitt Smith won it the year he was on it. They seem a little more fleet of foot though.
(Photo: Getty)

NBC will pay tribute to George Carlin on Saturday by airing the first episode ever of Saturday Night Live, which the late comedian hosted in 1975. Mr. Carlin died on Sunday of heart failure at the age of 71. The episode airs at 10:30 p.m. on Channel 5. If that's not enough Carlin for you, HBO Comedy will air a marathon of his specials beginning at 3 p.m. on Saturday, while regular ol' HBO well show his final special for the network, George Carlin: It's Bad For Ya, Friday night at 9. (Photo courtesy of AP)

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences must be sensing a strong epidemic of Emmy Fever as the organization felt it necessary to release the 10 semifinalists in its best drama and comedy series categories on Thursday. To me, the only purpose this serves is to let some shows (Heroes, Desperate Housewives, for example) know they weren't even good enough to be in the final 10, much less the final five nominees, which will be announced July 17. But for what it's worth, here they are:
Drama series: Boston Legal; Damages; Dexter; Friday Night Lights; Grey's Anatomy; House; Lost; Mad Men; The Tudors and The Wire.
Comedy series: Curb Your Enthusiasm; Entourage; Family Guy; Flight of the Conchords; The Office; Pushing Daisies; 30 Rock; Two and a Half Men; Ugly Betty and Weeds.

I was watching Celebrity Circus yesterday (yes, I'm going to admit that) and I had to rewind the DVR when Stacey Dash said that she's 41 and a mother of two. I mean, she's doing this. And she looks amazing and is amazingly fit.

HBO announced today that the complete The Sopranos will be released this November, just in time for Christmas. Weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds, the box set is yours for the low low price of $399.

So how much is too much? How big of a fan do you have to be to throw down that kind of cash? And if you are that kind of fan, weren't you buying up box sets as they were released?

Here's how Tony and Co. fare against other faves (list prices from Amazon.com before discounts):

• The Sopranos (HBO) - seven seasons - $399
• Stargate SG-1 (Showtime, Sci Fi) - 10 seasons - $329
• Sex and the City (HBO) - six seasons - $299
• Friends (NBC) - 10 seasons - $299
• Six Feet Under (HBO) - five seasons - $279
• Queer as Folk (Showtime) - five seasons - $249
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer (The WB, UPN) - seven seasons - $199

From the Associated Press:

Acerbic standup comedian and satirist George Carlin, whose staunch defense of free speech in his most famous routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.

Read more and share you George Carlin memories.

I thought Camp Rock was was OK. Just to be clear: I am not the target demographic for such Disney shows, but I did dig both High School Musicals.

That said, I repeat, Camp Rock was OK. Personally, I think Joe Jonas was the best thing about the movie. Sure, there was music, and there was a message. Which is all wonderful and good. But it just didn't strike me as HSM-worthy. I think Disney was counting on the Joe Jonas (who, sadly, isn't the world's best dancer) to pull it through.

Would I watch CR again on a Sunday afternoon? Yes. Will I buy the DVD? No. My High School Musicals are on the way. That should hold me for a while.

Tim Russert memorial starting now on msnbc.com.

The Clintons are seated next to Madeleine Albright. There is running commentary and interviews going on right now outside of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where the memorial service is being held. The broadcast background music: Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" is playing from Tim Russert's ipod. Wow! Nice touch.

The overwhelming outpouring of sentiment from people, worldwide, really is astonishing. This man did not know how much of an impact he had on people's lives. And neither did we, until now.

Do you sometimes miss that dastardly ol' rascal, J.R. Ewing? Still can't believe that Pam woke up in the spring of 1986 to find that the entire preceding Season 7 was all a very bad dream?

Well, take heart, fans, with a 30th-anniversary retrospective of Dallas. If you happen to be down in Austin over the summer, check out the exhibit at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum: Dallas: Power & Passion on Primetime TV, through Sept. 14.

Among the nostalgic goodies on view:

A 10-gallon cowboy hat, boots, and a safari jacket worn by Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing) in the series; ostrich boots, chaps, and a cowboy hat worn by Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs) in the show; a black evening gown worn by Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), created by Academy Award®-winning costume designer William Travilla; the book, Sam Culver: The Early Years, written by Susan Howard-Chrane's character, Donna Culver Krebbs; autographed scripts, shooting schedules, and memos from the production; clips from the show in four different languages; merchandise ranging from J.R. Beer to board games that capitalized on the success of Dallas; and Dallas Morning News photographer David Woo's rare behind-the-scenes images.

Take it as a sign of this new series' success that, as you're watching, you can't believe that it's taken this long for someone to make this show. Coming from the same production company that brought us Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, Black Gold -- the new original series from TruTV -- is yet another winning iteration of this brilliant/breakthrough reality TV formula. Rather than throw a bunch of strangers into a ridiculously artificial and contrived environment and film them "acting" like real people, this approach finds groups of intimately connected people working in extreme conditions and film them being real people.

The fourth season of Weeds returned Monday night and the first episode of a new (to America, anyway) series, Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Let's start with the old show and then move onto the new. Please consider everything that follows to be a spoiler if you haven't yet watched the episodes and wish to remain blank-slate ignorant of what transpires.

Mr. Dallas, a devoted Meet the Press follower, weighs in on Tim Russert's possible successors.
The stunning news of host Tim Russert's death Friday leaves a big, empty, important chair on the Sunday morning staple Meet the Press. Some very early handicapping of who might take his place:
Even money: David Gregory, veteran White House correspondent, Today show stand-in and host of his own election show on MSNBC. Angular, charming, not as avuncular as Mr. Russert, but definitely a high Q-factor guy.
2-to-1: Andrea Mitchell: The NBC foreign affairs reporter has been tracking the 2008 presidential race, with principal emphasis on the suspended Clinton campaign. She'd be breaking a glass ceiling by putting one of the major Sunday morning news fests into the hands of a woman (not forgetting Cokie Roberts' co-hosting days on ABC's This Week). As with Mr. Gregory, an easy-as-Sunday-morning personality with just slighty more edge.
5-1: Chris Matthews, the volcanic host of MSNBC's Hardball, would certainly wake up the show. Mr. Matthews clearly adores Mr. Russert (and maybe wanted to be him). But he's a much more partisan figure who's ruffled a lot of feathers among pols and is an easy target for conservative media critics.
Mr. Dallas

So yesterday, Katherine Heigl announces that she declined to submit her name for Emmy consideration because, "I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination."
Where to even begin with this?
Here's a place -- Are you telling me that the same writers who wrote good enough material last year for you to WIN a supporting actress Emmy are suddenly not giving you anything to work with? Seems unlikely. The phrase, "A good carpenter never blames his tools," comes to mind.
What seems more likely here is that Heigl is doing her darndest to get fired from Grey's Anatomy so she can get on with that acting career she so clearly thinks she's ready for. And, admittedly, she is -- she starred in last summer's biggest comedy (Knocked Up) and proved that she can open a movie on her own in January when 27 Dresses scored a $23 million opening.
But there is such a thing as class, and it doesn't sound like Izzy has it. She's not the first TV actor who's ever wanted to ditch the show that made them famous in order to pursue the silver screen (see Clooney, George for starters). But there are ways to do things behind the scenes that keep everyone's reputations secure.
Here's hoping the sure-to-be-annoyed writers work in a scene next season that has Izzy struck with a horrible case of uncontrolable self-slapping.

Men in Trees ended not with a bang, but with a whimper -- with plot lines still trailing, indicating that the series' end came as a surprise to its scriptwriters. It's sad, too, because silly as it could be at times, the characters were appealing, the Alaska setting intriguing and, well, where will we go now for Anne Heche gossip now that her most visible vehicle has crashed and burned?

It's a sign of just what a readymade commodity hipness has become that the funniest/snappiest commercials on TV right now are a series of spots for -- not established cool-makers like Apple or Target or BMW or some recreational beverage producer -- Holiday Inn.

That's everyone's favorite funny lady, Tina Fey on the cover of the current issue of Emmy Magazine. At this point, her cover is blown and the secret is out that Ms. Fey is drop-dead, knock-down gorgeous but the cover portrait and inside photos certainly make that abundantly clear -- my personal favorite in the page 129 image of her sitting on a white pedestal decked out in a black Dior dress and white Christian Louboutin shoes.

Based on the premiere episode, producers may want to consider changing the name of this franchise to Law & Order: Criminal Negligence. I want to go on record as saying I'm a fan. Criminal Intent is my favorite of the L&O spin-offs. I like Vincent D'Onofrio, was happing when they brought back Det Mike Logan as the series' alternating-weeks crime-solver and thought it was a cool gambit when NBC Universal announced it was making USA Network the first-run platform for the show's seventh season. But the debut episode, which aired last night (Sunday, 06/08) was an uninvolving mess.

It appears the broadcast networks are (finally) reacting to the cable networks' re-animation of summer from a dead zone into a hot time for new, original programming. Case in point: NBC's unveiling on Thursday (06/05) of its new horror series, Fear Itself. The series will occur as a thirteen-episode anthology of hour-long tales of dread and terror.

Instead, you can waste endless hours playing this game. This is an example of the sophistication of simplicity. The name of the game: Throw Paper -- a virtual version of that most banal of office-time acts, throwing a ball of paper into a trash can. But that simple premise is so time-suckingly seductive, thanks to a few genius touches: the ever-shifting wind speed and direction (I guess this office has a really powerful and unpredictable air-conditioning system), the curveball arc of the paper ball (there is something so deeply, irrationally satisfying about clicking the perfect shot in a strong crosswind, watching it slowly bend and drop into the basket. And then there's the sounds, the clack-a-clung clunk of the two-rim shot.

So click away, but be prepared to lose a few hours.

Fans waiting for the next season of Entourage now have something else to look forward to, an upcoming installment of DIY Network's show, Celebrity Rides. Kevin Dillon, aka Johnny Drama will be the star of franchise starting with an episode on September 3. Over four episodes -- what Drama would call "a four-episode arc" -- viewers will watch Kevin, who we learn is both a car aficianado and a devoted James Dean fan, oversee the production of a replica of James Dean's 1955 Porsche Spyder.

If you've ever wondered how much art is imitating life when it comes to how convincingly Kevin Dillon inhabits his Johnny Drama character, this quote from the press release will only confirm your suspicions that there's not much "acting" going on.

"As much as I want it to look like James Dean's original car, there are a couple things that I'm doing to make it my own. His car was set up for racing...the windshield was so small it would mess up your hair, and I've got to keep my hair in shape! But it's still going to say James Dean."

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the perfect job just got a little more perfect. The core group of actors providing the voices of The Simpsons -- Dan Castellenata (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Hank Azaria (Moe, et al) -- have signed a new four-year deal with Fox, settling months of negotiations. They will now receive $400,000 per episode. Nice.

This is just the latest reminder that being a voice actor for a successful cartoon series is the greatest job in the world. All the money and privileges of a celebrity lifestyle with none of the privacy-obliterating hassles of it. Dan Castellenata could go into a Starbucks (product placement) or a Target (ditto) anywhere in the country -- except Los Angeles) and be just as anonymous as he wants to be -- maybe a hardcore Simpsons fan here or there might recognize him. But any time he feels like having a king-of-the-world moment, he just has to open his mouth and say "D'oh."

The cast is supposed to start work on the 20th season this week. Because of the lengthy negotiations, this season will contain only 20 episodes instead of 22. That's $8 million. For a job you could do in a bathrobe. I'll say it again: Nice.

This exciting news just in: Starting Sept. 8, Dr Phil -- the syndicated talk show starring that Oprah offspring, the bald guy with the mustache, what's his name?, oh yeah, Dr. Phil -- will be produced in glorious high-definition.

In the attendant press release, Dr. Phil (McGraw) says, "My goal has always been to give our viewers the very best in show content, and now we are able to offer the very best broadcast quality."

Well, that's just fantastic, what a thoughtful service he's providing viewers and it's all about the viewers, after all. This isn't some silly attention-seeking stunt, a gratuitous application of some zippy sounding but fundamentally pointless high-tech trick. Goodness no. Granted, Dr. Phil isn't exactly Planet Earth-type programming but high definition broadcasting really makes a difference when you're doing a daytime talk show. You want to be able to see the furrows in Dr. Phil's billboard forehead deepen as he chastizes the father who wants to marry his daughter. You want to see each hair in his moustache bristle as he dresses down the compulsive shopper who has squandered her children's college fund on eBay auctions.

So get ready. Come September you can see this mug in high definition.

The "Characters Welcome" network unveiled its new brand-enhancing project in the form of Sunday night's premiere of In Plain Sight. The new original series is the latest example of cable TV's ascendancy as a source (verging on "the" source) of edgy, innovative story-telling.