Holiday Break

TV doesn't take an easter weekend, but, Collegiate on TV did. New TV Highlights and theRecap coming soon.

theRecap: 24 gets a movie

Friday Night Lights saved, Kristin Bell returns to Heroes and Jack Bauer gets an extra two hours. Welcome to theRecap, your weekly source for the TV news that was.

24 takes two
The production company behind Jack Bauer is working on gathering a cast together for a two-hour TV movie, to air in the fall, which will bridge the gap between season six and seven. Season seven was originally going to air in winter 2008, but was pushed back to 2009 because of the WGA strike. The 24 team is currently working on filming the rest of season seven and will have all 24 episodes completed by the time the show airs on FOX.

Friday Nights Lives
DirecTV and NBC Universal have teamed up to save cult hit/ratings-impaired Friday Night Lights. Under the deal, DirecTV will air new episodes first, then NBC will later get rights to reruns. (Similar to NBC's deal with USA for Law & Order: CI)

Noah Wyle gets a paycheck
TNT has ordered a new installment of the Librarian action movie series, starring Noah Wyle as a mild-mannered adventurer/explorer. The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice will air in late 2008.

Fierce Runway
Between Tyra, Danny Norwiega and Project Runway, this has been an extremely fierce television season. So perhaps it's fitting that the fiercest Runway contestant of them all, Christian, wins the shows fourth season.

Idol's Wild Week
Every now and then, Simon Cowell will call someone's performance "very cabaret." Little did we know that someone would be able to relate to that reference very well. Current contestant David Hernandez once worked at a strip club called Dick's Cabaret, up until last year. He also had a record contract with Universal, but was dropped.

This same week we also saw old videos from Danny Noriega pop up, in which he wishes Santa Claus to do something to your mom that could get Santa on the sex offender list. We also learned that he went to a school for at-risk children.

Leaving the reality competition this week were: Kady Malloy, Luke Menard, Asia'h Epperson and Danny Noriega.
Next week on Idol: The top 12 perform songs by The Beatles on the newly re-designed big stage. And there's only one performance night, thank goodness. And the results show will turn into a call-in show. Hillarious!

TNT goes original
Thanks to successful series like The Closer and Saving Grace, TNT is ordering a bunch of new series. Their goal? To have the cable channel to air three nights full of original programming every week by 2010. Instead of Law & Order marathons, I presume.

Will We Meet the Mother?
Alicia Silverstone has been cast on a multi-episode arc on How I Met Your Mother, leaving Michael Ausiello to wonder: Is Silverstone the mother?

The CW kills laughter
The CW, that young start-up network, has decided that after just a few years of existence that their comedy division isn't working out, so they are getting rid of it. Well, more accurately, they are combining a bunch of departments together, but that restructuring doesn't include the comedy unit.

High School Musical: The Reality Show
ABC is developing a reality TV show based around High School Musical. There aren't many details known, apart from the fact that the network wants the show for this summer, but it sounds like a singing competition with HSM-themed weeks, with appearances by HSM stars, and the winner gets a secret top-prize, which I am going to presume is being on the tour, or in a new HSM movie. But that's just needless speculation.

theRecap: Scrubs to ABC?

Welcome to a winter break edition of theRecap, your weekly source for news that you should have known in the land of TV. We've got the roundup on rumors, facts and who is out of a primetime job.

Gossip Girl and Mischa Barton? The most widely discussed rumor of the week would have to be the talk that Mischa Barton was approached to appear on Gossip Girl. GG is headed by Josh Schwartz, who also helmed The OC, which made Mischa a star. In the end, Mischa turned down the part and will not be appearing on television anytime soon.

Idol DUI: Amanda Overmyer was discovered to have had a DUI in the past. Her blood alcohol level was 0.108. She received a suspended sentence of 60 days and 180 days probation, which ended in August, 2007.
Related: Idol to sing Beatles tunes

Scrubbing In or Out? The NBC cult hit Scrubs may return for another final season, this time on ABC. Word is the alphabet network wants to pick up the show - which they produce - for 18 episodes as soon as NBC is done with the series. However, NBC still has legal rights to the program and is now threatening to sue ABC for even considering the possibility. The end result is fans still do not know when, or where, the show will end.

Addison looks a little Grey: Private Practice may be closed until fall, but Addison will keep busy enough. News broke this week that Kate Walsh will be headed back to Seattle Grace for a episode to air during May sweeps. Unfortunately, it sounds like her Private Practice crew will stay in California while Addy vacations.

32 million people watched The Oscars, which sounds like a lot, and it is, but amazingly enough, 32 million makes for the least-watched telecast in decades.

Mission: Impossible for a Food Network star. Robert Irvine, star of Dinner: Impossible was discovered to have lied about his credentials, including having designed a wedding cake for Princess Diana. Food Networked investigated and decided not to renew Irvine's contract for additional seasons.

Bree has a sister? The Desperate Housewives character was rumored to have a sister by way of actress Julianne Moore, but unfortunately the acclaimed thespian is not joining the hit program.

Returning to his roots? Billy Ray Cyrus will be the next host on Nashville Star. The reality competition is also moving from USA to NBC. (They're all in the NBC Universal family, don't you know.)

quarterlife not suitable for networks: The creator of the web show quarterlife said that in retrospect, it was a stupid idea to move the show from the web to NBC. (The show lasted one episode before being burned off on Bravo.)

6.9 million people. That's how many watched the season finale of Monk, making it the most-watched episode to-date.

Six more episodes of Lipstick Jungle were ordered by NBC, ensuring that Nico and BoyToy can forever mess around without any real consequences, Wendy can continue her Frasier imitation and Victory can act like she's in her own little annoying show.

theRecap: Las Vegas Cancelled

Welcome to theRecap for the week of Feb. 17-23, 2008. I'm your author, Charles Jurries, bringing you the best links the internet can afford. What did you miss in television news this week? Probably a lot of cancellations! Let's get to the news.

- I hope Josh Duhamel got a lot of money for doing Transformers; his Las Vegas show got the ax this week.
- Bionic Woman was also laid to rest. Not that there was any doubt...
- Women's Murder Club is NOT dead!
- The new cast of Dancing with the Stars was announced this week.
- Dora the Explorer is going live action for a TV movie. No joke!
- NBC announced that it, like FOX, will have a year-round schedule, instead of the old-fashioned fall-centric schedule. Knowing Ben Silverman, it will all be mindless, contentless reality shows.
- Jesse L. Martin leaves Law & Order, guy from K-Ville replaces him.
- There is a semi-spoilerish, no-holds barred interview with the Lost producers. Including an answer to how soon it will be before we know who all the Oceanic Six are!
- Nip/Tuck had it's worst-rated season finale yet. It seems Julien McMahon hasn't been able to use his acting powers to make people feel Charmed. (Go ahead, slap me for that.)
- A new trailer for The Hills was released this week.
- No one really knows what's exactly up with Friday Night Lights, but it sounds promising. If the show isn't dead, it may be shared with another network or moved altogether off of NBC. Besides, FNL is a scripted show, so it probably doesn't fit well with the new NBC. (Zing!)

theRecap: 24 co-creator quits, Bell thanked for not choosing "Lost"

I'll be trying a few things out here at Collegiate on TV, including launching a weeks-end review of television news stories that were, called theRecap. From show news to the television business, there's nothing that can't be remembered. So without any further ado, I present the inaugural edition of theRecap.

- The WGA members voted to end the strike, allowing television show runners to return back to work on Monday and writers on Wednesday. However, it is too late for some shows to return this season. Check here and here to see if your shows will be back in time for May sweeps.

- Joel Surnow, co-creator of 24 and a self-declared "right wing nut job" has left the real-time thriller to find other projects, perhaps in cable. In other 24 news, FOX is going ahead and having the rest of season seven filmed, with all 24 episodes to air probably in January, 2009.

- Lost will film 5 more episodes for the season. But instead of finishing airing the 8 episodes they have finished now, ABC will only show 7, and then come back for May with 6 episodes total. Make sense? The show will also air at 10 p.m., right after Grey's Anatomy when it returns from it's hiatus. Also, Rebecca Mader thanks Kristin Bell for not working on Lost.

- The Oscars will go forward as originally planned. Translation? People will still find it boring, pretentious and utterly worthless. (But I made some predictions that better come true!)

The rest of the rest:
- Being a Deal or No Deal model is tough business!
- Showrunner from My Name is Earl worked at a fast food joint during the strike.
- Carson Daly's staff gets cut down.
- Donald Trump's talk show is delayed again.