TV

Two actually kind of newsy tidbits came out an afternoon panel of the producers of Fox's animation line-up.

1. Work on a follow-up to Family Guy's most-successful-episode-ever spoof of Star Wars (an hour-long retelling of the original Star Wars movie, recast with the Family Guy characters) is, according to creator Seth MacFarlane, "basically done." It's -- can you guess? -- a spoof of The Empire Strikes Back and will be "shipping off" to whereever the show is animated sometime in the next week. No word yet on when it will air, but soon, Mr. MacFarlane promised.

2. Seth Rogen has written an episode of The Simpsons. Longtime producer Al Jean revealed that episode has Comic Book Guy creating a superhero that gets made into a movie played by a slimmed-down and buffed-up Homer, thanks to his celebrity trainer, played by -- wait for it -- Seth Rogen.

Spring will be the new Fall in this strike-struck year of television, a forecast made clear in Monday morning comments from Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Company. Acknowledging that because of the writers' strike -- started last November and ending in February -- Fox was only going to have two new shows debuting this fall, Mr. Reilly said that the network was going to have a lot of new shows premiering in January, "by default."

But that's good, really, the executive went on to explain because the strike and its consequences are just forcing Fox to change and adapt in ways that an evolving media marketplace and shifting viewers' habits were going to force on the networks anyway.

He may have refused to appear before Congress, but Karl Rove appeared before a ballroom full of television reporters on Monday afternoon as part of the Fox News panel. Mr. Rove was there in his role as a "contributor' to the Fox News team, but his presence created a surreal buzz and dramatic tension to what is more typically just another assembly-line promotional event.

First came a general question about the whole slippery-slope aspect of Mr. Rove, so centrally involved in so many ongoing and headline generating stories, appearing in the role of a commentator on a news network covering those stories.

Thanks to the breakthrough success of shows like Lost and Heroes, it wasn't all that long ago that "serialized" television was all the rage. Over the past couple of years, while trumpeting new series at TCA events, producers talked enthusiastically about the depth of storytelling and audience connection/interaction made possible by the serialized style -- in which the arc of a story runs over an entire season with each episode acting as more the chapter in a book than a stand-alone experience -- and held it out as the killer-app strategy that television could apply to counter the YouTubing of viewers' tastes and habits.

Jon Voight was surrounded by a throng of reporters at the Beverly Hilton on Monday afternoon. He was ostensibly there to talk about joining Kiefer Sutherland and company for the new season of 24. But I will give you two guesses what everybody was instead asking him about.

The Biggest Loser is coming to Dallas on July 19 in search of teams of two. They can be made up of two family members, married or engaged couples, friends, co-workers, former teammates, retirees or college students. Both team members should be present at the audition, which runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Dave and Buster's location at 10727 Composite Drive in Dallas. More info here.

I posted this over at the Eats blog, but I figured the TV crowd might be interested, too:

Lisa Garza, our local competitor on The Next Food Network Star, made it to the final three at the end of Sunday night's episode, knocking out plucky but inexperienced Kelsey Nixon to become the only woman left standing. She's joined by Adam Gertler -- good on camera, unpolished in the kitchen -- and Aaron McCargo -- pretty solid in the kitchen, improving on camera -- in the finals.
So who will move on next week? My money is on Lisa and Aaron. Lisa clearly knows the most about food of the final three, but in some ways that has been her down fall. The Food Network has never been about gourmet, but that seems to be the culinary position she's taking. Still, she comes off as the most authoritative of the three when it comes to food knowledge. When watching the show, Aaron's food has been the one that I want to taste the most week in and week out. And he's getting better on camera, especially the last two weeks. If he can just learn to talk and cook, he'll be in good shape.
That leaves Adam. Unless he builds on his food victory from Sunday night (and learns how to make more than mac and cheese) I have a feeling he's done for after this week. But he's clearly the best on camera, so I think Sunday we're going to find out just how important that is.
Who do YOU see as the final two?

Fox announced this morning that Jessica King has left So You Think You Can Dance due to an injury. As the most recently eliminated semifinalist, Carrollton's Comfort Fedoke will rejoin the competition for Wednesday night's performance show, which airs at 7 on Channel 4. Fort Worth's Joshua Allen also remains in hot pursuit of the title.