The fact is this: "Pushing Daisies" will be back!

Acting quicker than I expected in many cases, the TV networks have already gotten back to business in starting to determine what the fall landscape is going to look like.

The big news in my little corner of the world is that ABC has indeed decided to give a 13-episode order to the delightful freshman series "Pushing Daisies."

What would be great now would be a proper re-launch of all nine previously aired episodes this summer, flowing freely into the new season and giving anyone who has missed out on this often-magical show a chance to catch up.

For anyone who hasn't tuned in so far, what you're missing is a true TV oddity: A prime-time fairy tale that's almost as clever as it is simply sweet. Leads Anna Friel and Lee Pace just have perfect chemistry, and the always welcome Chi McBride provides great comic relief as the money-grubbing P.I. Emerson Cod. Throw Broadway vet Kristen Chenoweth into the mix and make her prone to break out in song at any moment, and you've got a show that I'll tune in to week after week.

There were, of course, a lot of other shows that got either great or horrible news yesterday, and you can read the full list here.

In the much smaller subset of shows that I actually tune in for, CBS has thankfully given the greenlight for "How I Met Your Mother" to at least finish up Season three. The show had seemed to lose some of its most important component, heart, in the 11 episodes that had aired this fall, so here's hoping this series starring Willow, Doogie and Freak Nick Andopolis can find its footing whenever it manages to return.

NBC will obviously take more episodes of "The Office" and "Heroes" as soon as it can get them, but more murky is what will happen to the end of "Scrubs." It had already been announced that the interrupted and rather remarkable seventh season would be the last, and negotiations are now under way with creator Bill Lawrence to see just how many episodes it will get to complete its run. Here's hoping it gets the chance to go out on top.

Still also up in the air at NBC is the fate of easily network TV's best drama, "Friday Night Lights." Though the show had fared very well (by Friday standards) in its Friday night slot and, thankfully, managed to put out new episodes throughout most of the writers' strike, it's highly likely that last week's show will have to serve as a series finale.

As for the CW, that network may well be about to lose me for good. Already generating plenty of ill will by exterminating "Veronica Mars" after only a three-season run, it now may be about to kill the only two shows that still gave me any reason to tune in: "Aliens in America" and "Everybody Hates Chris."

The latter, which had managed to finish its third season in spite of the strike, is more likely to return, but "Aliens in America," which had gotten better with each show in its 18-episode run, may well be lost for good, which would be a real shame.

Two big questions, of course, still loom large: How soon will any of these shows manage to return, and will there be any new shows worth watching when Fall finally rolls around? About the latter I'm still extremely pessimistic, but here's hoping that I'm somehow wrong once again.

Coens getting "Yiddish" with Chabon

The only Michael Chabon novel I have yet to read (but just ordered used from Amazon) is now in the rather capable hands of the Coen brothers.

And "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," Chabon's 2007 novel, sounds like it's just tailormade for the Coens. Chabon sets up a contemporary scenario where Jewish settlers are about to be displaced by the U.S. government's plans to turn the frozen locale of Sitka, Alaska, over to Alaskan natives. Against this backdrop is a noir-style murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the messiah.

The only possibly bad news in all this is that we might have to wait quite a while to see it. The Coens must be just about finished with "Burn After Reading," their CIA comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt and set for a September 2008 release. After that, they are set to shoot something called "A Serious Man," for which I could only find this truly odd plot summary at Wikipedia (which, of course, never gets anything wrong):

A Serious Man will focus on Larry Gopnik, a Jewish college professor in the Midwest in 1967. Larry starts to question the value of life when he discovers his wife wants a divorce (and may be having a romantic affair with one of their neighbors). He also has trouble with his children stealing money out of his wallet (his son is buying marijuana, while his daughter is saving for plastic surgery) and his deadbeat brother, who has moved in because he neither has the cash nor the maturity to live on his own. Add to that the hostile anonymous notes he keeps receiving which threaten his tenure at school, the grad student who will get a passing grade from Larry by any means necessary (who may or may not be the person leaving the threatening letters) and the attractive neighbor who bedevils Larry with nude sunbathing, and there is little wonder why Larry seeks to solve his existential issues from men of God whom he hopes will help him to become an austere and devoted man.

All of which means the Coens won't be getting to Chabon's work until sometime in the fairly distant future. And in case anyone's keeping score, that means all four of Chabon's novels either have been or will be made into feature films: "Wonder Boys" is a wonderful little film, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" is apparently finished and may have already come out in some form, and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is being shot by Stephen Daldry and is set for a 2009 release. Add to that the fact that Chabon had a hand in writing the script for still my favorite superhero flick of all time, "Spider-Man 2," and you've got quite a run so far.

And now, so that I can get ready for what is still my only paying job, I'll leave you with, first, this plea that, if you live in the republic of Virginia, the great state of Maryland or the District of Columbia (respectively, where I was born [Blacksburg], grew up [Salisbury] and went to college [Catholic University]), please get out and vote today; and secondly with this clip of George Clooney and the boys performing "Man of Constant Sorrow" from what is still my favorite Coen brothers' flick, "O Brother Where Art Thou." Peace out.

The day that TV died

You know, I actually woke up in a pretty good mood today. Having moved to a four-day (but still 40-hour) work week back in September or so, Mondays have turned into a perfectly pleasant day of the week, and returning to work on Tuesday morning just doesn't seem like much of a drag at all.

And then I wake up and see this. I probably should have seen it coming, but I confess I didn't. The Writers' Guild of America strike, which has managed to linger a lot longer now than I'd ever imagined it would, has killed television.

And if you watch TV like I do, meaning avoiding reality TV the way a vegetarian does hamburgers, that's not an even slight overstatement. The studios, none too quietly, have stocked up on reality fare (on CBS alone that means at least these three new "winners": "The Secret Talents of Stars," "Game Show in My Head" and "America's Top Dog" (and, as much I love cute dogs, any chance that I'd tune in for even a minute of that one was killed by what happened Monday, which I will actually get to very quickly, I promise.)

To pave the way for this onslaught, all the big studios, almost simultaneously, started Friday and continued in a big way Monday to slash their overall deals with writers. All told (and still counting, for sure), ABC Studios, Warner Bros. TV, CBS Paramount Network TV, Universal Media Studios and 20th Century Fox TV have cut nearly 75 "overalls" (which apparently aren't just something you wear on a farm.)

It wouldn't be as much of a big deal if it didn't hit shows that I've grown to love hard. It virtually guarantees the death of two CW shows that had just made my Monday nights (especially with the rather slow-to-even-get-started second season of "Heroes.") Terminated Monday were both David Guarascio and Moses Port, co-creators of the very funny and getting even better "Aliens in America." And two of the major writers for "Everybody Hates Chris," Aron Abrams and Greg Thompson, also got the ax Monday (and in a move that spells the certain death of two frosh shows I didn't bother to tune in for, the creators of Fox's "K-Ville" and NBC's "Journeyman" are also now looking for employment.)

It's hard not to be extremely pessimistic about this, because the only logical next move (unless this drives the two sides to come to an agreement) is that showrunners will be the next to go. I've had enough trouble dealing, for example, with "The Office" being shut down since mid-fall, but the day is clearly coming when creator (of the American version, I realize) Greg Daniels and his crew could be shown the door, along with the creators of almost any show you can name. Sheesh.

Besides, it's not like the audience for non-reality (a k a actually entertaining) TV isn't out there. Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" drew about 18.3 million viewers Sunday night, for a 7.6 share and the biggest TV debut of the year so far (which, given the circumstances, is clearly a dubious honor at best.)

If Monday really was the day TV died, there is at least an extremely selfish silver lining in it for me in that my call for movies to replenish my Netflix queue garnered a total of 66 movies that I either had somehow not seen or longed to see again, and as a gesture of gratitude I do indeed intend to watch them all. That starts with two suggestions from always-welcome reader Ashok (who compiles a very readable list of his movie reviews here): "Man on the Train," a Patrice Leconte flick starring the singer Johnny Hallyday (who clearly, like almost every man on the planet, just wants to be Serge Gainsbourg), and then the documentary "51 Birch Street."

It turned out to be a far bigger outpouring than I had expected, so a hearty huzzah and thanks to all who participated (and please, as you find more movies you love, don't hesitate to share them with me.)

And, just to show that, despite all this bile, my mood isn't completely dark, here's a pic of Disney's next big princess, who will be played by "Dreamgirl" Anika Noni Rose. Even if they couldn't look any further than Randy Newman for most of the songs, a grand Disney animated musical, starring its first black princess and set in New Orleans, can only be a good thing (I hope.) Peace out.

Does Chris Tucker have any other friends?

Since he only seems to make movies with Brett Ratner, I'd say it's a fair question. I mean, isn't that kind of like one day tasting a fried bologna sandwich and then declaring you're gonna eat nothing else for the rest of your life?

But I already digress a bit from the rather depressing point here. Not content to simply crank out more excremental but harmless "Rush Hour" movies, Brett Ratner has somehow now gotten his hands on the rights to "Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra," and is of course looking no further than his best buddy Mr. Tucker for the lead role (not Sinatra, of course, but that would at least make this more interesting.)

The book was co-written by George Jacobs, who served as Sinatra's valet from 1953-1968 (and will be played by Tucker), and therefore surely got to see some pretty damn cool and seedy stuff along the way. Now that we're not getting about one a month, my taste for music biopics is starting to come back (and I would start lining up now if Spike Lee finally got around to telling the story of James Brown), and this has the potential to indeed be a grand story. I don't see, however, how it could possibly be in any worse hands.

Now, I realize that Brett Ratner is an easy target, but I assure you my hatred is genuine and seething after what he did with "X-3." If he takes the same approach to Sinatra's life, just grabbing about 50 possible story lines and exploring each one for 30 seconds or so, it will be even worse than I'm imagining it could be.

And I once used to have a lot of time for Chris Tucker. He was extremely funny as Beaumont in "Jackie Brown" and more than trippy enough to fit in "The Fifth Element," and there are few movies I enjoy more when my brain is depleted from a long day of work than the original "Friday." But it's been a long time since 1997 (10 years or so, I suppose), and since then his mouth has just seemed to move much faster than anyone can write him good jokes to put in it.

Of this duo I certainly have more love for him than I do Brett Ratner. I just wish he could find a better crowd to run with.

This just in: "Aliens in America" doesn't suck

One of the few remaining perqs of working at a newspaper is that I from time to time get to see previews of the fall TV shows. Or, to put it more accurately, Macon's TV Guy Phillip Ramati takes the time to request them and then is kind enough to share.

ABC has been stingy and therefore hasn't sent over any episodes of "Pushing Daisies" or anything else, but the CW has been much more forthcoming. Last night I watched the first two episodes of "Aliens In America," and on the menu soon will be the pilot episode of "Gossip Girl" (for which I concede I'm way too old to even consider myself anywhere near the target audience.)

As for "Aliens in America," it leans too much toward sweetness and away from genuine political incorrectness for my taste, but it still has promise. The premise: A Wisconsin family orders an exchange student so their friendless son will have one, but instead of the Londoner they're expecting they get a Pakistani dude named Raja.

Raja's introduction to his new high school is very funny, and he quickly develops a pack of geeks who could be developed into an entertaing brood. I genuinely like shows set in high school because when you trap that many kids in one place it always at least has the potential for great comedy. However, unlike the superior show that will precede it Monday nights starting in October, "Everybody Hates Chris," it too often in the first two episodes took its hands off the dagger when sticking it in would have struck comic gold. (And Scott Patterson, late of "Gilmore Girls," pretty much plays the father figure as penny-pinching miser, basically the white equivalent of the more funny Terry Crews on "Chris."

But, for all my complaints, this is a sitcom that mixes heart with some genuine laughs, and in this rather bleak season that's enough to make me tune in for at least a few more episodes.

Web banners for "No Country for Old Men"

Though I've bumped this Coen brothers' flick to No. 3 on my must-see list behind "Juno" and "American Gangster" for the rest of the year, there are at least 10 which are pretty much tied at the top (starting with Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises," which I'll be seeing before work tomorrow morning - what a way to start the day!)

I found these Web-only banners for "No Country for Old Men" on Anne Thompson's Variety magazine blog, and of course promptly swiped them to post here. As she correctly points out, they do indeed steal more than a bit of inspiration from the "3:10 to Yuma" poster, but they're still menacing enough for me. Enjoy, and have an entirely bearable Thursday.